I fail to see the horribleness of the game, perhaps I'm missing something?
What did you really expect going in? That's what's popular in the racing world. Short of NASCAR thats about the only type of racing that is going to sell to gamers. The customization is great, even better than Underground 1 and 2. The car selection is good, and challenge mode really adds some replayability. Graphics are great, and the gameplay is all there.
I'm not sure what you guys are really looking for, when comparing to the other racing games which are all either ultra-realistic and boring, or under-realistic and ridiculous for the most part, at least thats what us PC gamers are stuck with.
So the car physics need some tweaks, I doubt half of the reviewers have driven any of the cars in the game to know how they really handel anyway. This is my good review to try and balance out the nazi-istic tendencies of the other posters, who keep the series going with their cash, but really just pay for the right to complain non-stop. Much love to you, you keep my stocked with relatively decent racing games.
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Firstly, lets start off with the premise. This is truely Underground 3, what really what's so bad about that? It takes the Most Wanted series and combines it with Underground 1 and 2, then puts in a spice of new features. What downfalls you see in the old titles you will see here. Imperfect physic comparisons, unrealistic AI somehow magically catching up to you after being a lap down just to cause **** for you 3 ft from the finish line, running from 1000 cops gets awefully boring and tedious after a while. Luckily they added some new features to try and balance such out. New cars and classes, you now get to choose between Muscle, Exotic, and Tuner, rather than just being forced into a ricer like its predecessors. Customization of your car has always been a big deal with the franchise and this is no different, they added several new features like body molding as well as a slew of customizable cosmetic features for your car. They removed the U2 system that forced you to you have nonsense you didn't want on your car (removed spinners, thank god). With the graphic boost, things like different types of paint and such can really be appreciated more.
When people call the games racing a joke, you'll all have to assume they are referring to drifting, which can get a bit inconsistent, admitedly. But really I doubt any of them have drifted ever so should they be the judge of how it really works short of slipping their stock Toyota Corolla's around a corner on a rainy day. The game feels more solid to me, thats the only word that comes to mind. The cars feel as if they actually have weight to them, which is something I didn't feel with the past titles. One down side is the soundtrack, it's not up to par with the past soundtracks that the underground series had to offer, a lot of premade music and very few actual songs makes it bland.
Most of the other complaints going around either hold no grounds are meticulous rants about nonsense from the "anti-fanboys" out there.
Don't listen, give the game a try for yourself, it's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be, I promise.