This Year's Model

The Need for Speed franchise has always been about the cars, but this time around, the developers at Black Box have tricked out their high-speed racing franchise, so that it’s barely recognizable. In  Need for Speed™ Underground, they’ve put some of the snazziest, state-of-the-art custom parts onto an already solid stock frame, creating something far superior to the original.

Need for Speed Underground leaves the series’ traditional championship race circuit in favor of the edgier street-racing scene. Instead of using your victories to unlock whole new cars, you’ll be spending your winnings on custom parts for your vehicle, to improve its look and performance as you progress through the illegal (but highly profitable) underground circuit.

The most noticeable change is in the selection of cars. Instead of high-performance, high-price luxury models from Porsche, Ferrari, and BMW, you have cars from Dodge, Nissan, and Mitsubishi. These decidedly more modest vehicles are less powerful, but they are entirely authentic and integral to the plot, which follows one maverick driver (you) from the edges of the street-racing scene all the way up to the top of the heap. You’ll need to win the first few races with your unmodified car, so that you can collect enough cash to upgrade it. You simply can’t compete in the later stages of the game without careful budgeting and smart choices when it comes to improvements. Better and faster cars become available as you progress through the circuit, but the game encourages you to explore as much of its roleplaying-style evolution as you can afford. Besides, it’s really fun to beat a factory-fresh sports car off the line with a nitrous-enhanced Celica that has blue neon lights on its underbody.

The game rewards you for smart (and sometimes dangerous) driving maneuvers with Style Points. The more you stay out in front, draft, power slide, or take short cuts, the more Style Points you receive. These points are important for building your reputation during the single-player Underground mode, but they’re also the only way to win some of the multiplayer head-to-head challenges. You can compete against your friends in straight lap races, knockouts (where the last driver across the finish line is eliminated until there’s only one left), and straight-line drag-strip sprints. There’s also a Circuit

mode, which puts you in a less urban, more open environment, much like the previous Need for Speed titles.

Need for Speed Underground has also taken a huge leap forward graphically. The busy city streets are packed with auto and pedestrian traffic, neon signs, and countless reflective surfaces. Once you get your car up to top speed, the in-game blur effect somehow manages to make everything go by so fast that you’re barely able to see it—but you can, and it’s still crisp and sharp. The cars are all painstakingly mapped and modeled for supreme realism, and the crashes, while detrimental to your success as a racer, are breathtaking to behold.

Need for Speed Underground is something of a puzzle to describe. It takes the franchise’s gameplay in a bold new direction, even as it maintains its appeal to the fans that made the series a hit. It initially offers only low- to medium-range cars, but in action, they all look and feel as fast as the high-performance machines you used to get. With eye-popping visuals and heart-stopping speed, this title strikes the perfect balance between arcade-style thrills and the strategy of a hardcore racing sim.

By Wendell Scott