One of the best racers for the PS2, to my humble opinion... :)
When I first started the game I wanted to race right away. I was a bit disappointed when there wasn’t an option to choose an already pimped car so I had to settle for a standard Peugeot 206. The racing felt really good. The controls responded very good so I was placed first in no time!
After this getting-to-know ride I explored the other possibilities. Of course there was a split-screen option, but the most important mode was of course the Underground mode. Here you enter the underground-scene with a pre-pimped car to earn your first cash. With this money you can buy your first car start your underground-career. With each race you win you earn money and style-points. With money you can buy visual and performance upgrades and the earned style-points unlock exclusive vinyl.
There are four different types of races: circuit, sprint, drag and drift. The circuit mode is the normal race mode where you race some laps on one circuit. The sprint mode is also a normal race, but here there aren’t laps. There’s just a start point and a finish. The drag mode is where you have to shift yourself in order to win. The race won’t last longer than 30 seconds and is pretty much always a straight line. Finally we have the drift race. Here you earn points when you drift through the track. You drive alone on the track so it really comes down to just the points. After four laps the one with the highest score wins.
The graphics look just great, really no complaints there. The tracks are very detailed and it’s just such a good feeling when you see your pimped car riding through them. When it comes to sounds it’s also great. The soundtrack includes various artists from the rock and hip hop scene. Most of them are good and really set a great racing-atmosphere. The SFX are good too. Not superb but what you can expect from a game like this.
The one thing I didn’t like about this game is the trial & error gameplay. At some times (mostly races near to the end) there really is much traffic on the road. When you’re placed first the entire but end up last because there was a van around the corner you couldn’t possibly have seen, then you’re really frustrated and have to do the race al over again. It happened to me quite some times, but all I had to do is taking a break, grab a beer and try again!
Need for Speed Underground really is a great racer. The only downside I can think of for some people is that it only plays during the night. But that didn’t affect me. In fact, this is one of the best racers I’ve played on my PS2!