I don't think any game has had as much of a successful overhaul on their franchise as much as Need for Speed Underground did on the Need for Speed franchise. Whilst the casual racing style remained from past NFS games, virtually everything else had undergone such a drastic overhaul that it could have been easily believed to be a new IP or a spinoff to the traditional Need for Speed games that came before. Attaching the Need for Speed license to Underground was the most riskiest decision Need for Speed would take, as this game was everything an old Need for Speed game wasn't, but it paid off huge, becoming not only the most influential racing game of the 2000s (much like Gran Turismo 1 was in the 90s), but also becoming the second best-selling Need for Speed title (with the first being Need For Speed Most Wanted, 2 years later in 2005).
Releasing in 2003 for all the major 6th-gen platforms at the time (PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, and PC), Need for Speed Underground would be the second game developed by EA Black Box, with the first being the PS2 version of Hot Pursuit 2 (the version that is generally considered to be the superior version than the other platforms). Being the first game in the series to be developed on all of the major platforms by Black Box, Underground 1 was by far a radically different game to all the previous Need for Speed games as virtually everything (save the driving model) received an overhaul, ranging from the setting, to the cars, to even the career mode.
The biggest feature Underground 1 would overhaul would be the cars themselves, for two main reasons: Roster and Customization. Comparing Underground 1's car roster to any of the previous Need for Speed games would be like comparing apples to oranges - two wildly different things. Whereas previous Need for Speed games focused primarily on European high-end sportscars like BMWs and Audis, and luxurious supercars like Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches, Underground 1 instead primarily features Japanese cars like Mitsubishis, Hondas and Nissans - with many of the car models appearing in the first couple of the Fast and Furious movies. It wouldn't be until 2005's Most Wanted that we'd see the return of the supercars of old. Whilst there are slightly less cars in Underground than in Hot Pursuit 2, however, it more than makes up for it with Underground's biggest selling point and feature - it's extensive car customization.
Car customization wasn't a new thing in racing games - both visual-wise and performance-wise. Underground's performance upgrades weren't anywhere near the depth that Gran Turismo had, and visual upgrades had existed before - such as Gran Turismo 1 & 2's 'racing modification' which applied a preset racing livery to your car, or Need for Speed High Stakes combining performance upgrades with visual upgrades (for example, applying Racing Stripes when your car got an Engine Upgrade). However, those levels of customization pails in comparison to Underground 1. Instead of applying one preset livery, the player is given free range to personalize nearly every single aspect of their car - ranging from the ability to apply and color multiple vinyl stickers, to being able to customize your car's bumpers, hood, wheels, headlights/taillights and rear-wing spoilers, to being able to add stuff like underglow lighting and roof scopes to your car. By far and away not only was the ability to customize your car the biggest feature about this game, it was arguably the biggest and most influential feature racing games had - with even the big racing franchises in Gran Turismo and Forza allowing players to customize their cars however they wanted to. Nowadays though, the level of customization you have in Underground is rather simplistic compared to future titles, both for good (easier to get into) and for bad (more limited possibilities), though this didn't stop me from spending a good portion of my time customizing my car a bunch.
Along with car customization however came the first appearance of the controversial 'star reputation' / 'visual rating' system - put simply, the more flashier your car looks, the higher your reputation goes: ranging from 0 stars (trash) to 5 stars. Higher quality parts (which you have to unlock by progressing through the game's career mode) add more to your 'visual rating' than lower quality parts (though strangely enough, decals and vinyl stickers never added anything to my star rating), so the further into the game go, the more 'better looking' your car is. Star reputation doesn't affect too much - some races require you to have a certain 'star reputation' before entering, but I never had a problem in that regard: I didn't felt I was ever forced to bastardize my car too much to progress.
The racing itself doesn't change much - the game itself still felt more casual. The biggest introduction however would be the addition of Nitrous Oxide - a speed boost you can install on your car (similar to, say, a Mushroom in Mario Kart). Nitrous Oxide in this game is rather simple, it is a speed boost you can only use in limited quantities (depending on both how upgraded your car is and how long you use NOS for), and unlike in several other titles, such as future NFS games or the Burnout series, NOS does not regenerate. Having played future games before this, the ability feels a bit lacking in how limited it is - because of the game's rubberbanding I felt there was no incentive to use it anywhere else except for the final stretch of the race. That's not to say that actually using it sucks - in fact it's typically one of the best moments in each race, as the liquid-ifying speed of sound and the heavy motion blur makes your car feels like its going at light-speed.
Whereas previous Need for Speed games set their tracks in a wide variety of visually diverse locations - ranging from the perilous, slippery, snow-covered mountaintops of High Stakes' Snowy Ridge, to the Hollywood backlots of the Monolithic Studios in Need for Speed 2, Need for Speed Underground condenses all racing to Olympic City - a small, fictitious city set entirely at night. The visuals aren't spectacular by any means, especially compared to High Stakes (the previous NFS game I reviewed), but Olympic City does looks solid enough nowadays with the graphics set to max. Whilst unlike its sequels in that you cannot freely roam around the city without using mods, you will frequently encounter the same parts and shortcuts of Olympic City, from the bright and bustling Chinatown road to the wet, miserable, seedy canals. The idea of all the racing being done in one city could have worked well (and it would work well in future games such as Most Wanted), but Underground 1 really needed a bigger city that allowed for more places to race on, as due to the short size of Olympic City, I felt that even early on in Underground Mode (the game's career mode), the races sometimes felt repetitive despite them often being different tracks.
Whilst Olympic City was fine, the tracks themselves weren't: it felt like the tracks weren't designed with the car physics in mind and it shows. The cars really needed to be more grounded, there were a couple of times where the road would dip only a smidge, yet my car would spin out of control in the air crashing into a wall - losing control for such a minor reason felt annoying. But even those moments didn't compare to the shortcuts, some of the shortcuts in this game were clearly designed for some other racing game as they were either too difficult to corner on faster cars, caused you to slow down too much, or had a bump that'd send you car flying: it'd get to a point where some of the shortcuts took longer than going the "long way". The drift mode race tracks were the best tracks overall as they were built with the car's physics and handling in mind, it was a shame that this couldn't apply to the actual races themselves. Hitting obstacles also slows you down - occasionally when hitting multiple small crates or something I would end up slowing to a crawl. For what was effectively a casual racer it felt horrible hitting obstacles instead of fun for that reason - and there are some tracks where it is impossible to not hit an obstacle if you are in first (most notably the two bridge jumps in Olympic City). I got passed once because I hit a bridge gate I could not avoid (not in a scrubquote way like if I was driving into a wall or traffic, there was no feasible way anyone could avoid it) and I thought it was the worst thing in the world ever.
In terms of racing modes, whilst point-to-point sprint races and lap-based circuit races make a return in this game (with circuit races having both a standard variant and a knockout variant where the last player in each lap is eliminated), two new racing modes make their debut in Need for Speed Underground: Drift Racing and Drag Racing, both of which fundamentally change how the game is played. Drift racing takes placed entirely in closed-off short circuit tracks. The objective of the game isn't to go fast - in fact, there are no visible CPU-controlled opponents, but to score the most points by 'drifting' your car around corners, with players generating bigger points the longer they drift (and more points by drifting on 'bonus zones' closer to the walls). Holding a drift for as long as possible is rewarded by increasing the speed at which you generate points - up to a '5x' multiplier, in which points accumulate very very quickly. However, the ability to control and move fast is also required: going too slow drops your multiplier, whilst crashing into a wall ends your drift without any points. I wasn't a particularly big fan of this mode at first (though this was more of a skill issue for me because I was bad at it), but after a couple of weeks I found a car I enjoyed doing drifting with and found it to be somewhat fun. Even when I wasn't a big fan of it at first, it helped having a separate racing mode where you don't have to "win" compared to the other game modes. One major gripe I had with this mode, however, was that the CPU's score get updated simultaneously with yours instead of being one checkpoint ahead - this lead into situations where I had enough points to appear to take first when finishing the race, but the CPU would give itself points that would take it above mine. Losing to skill is one thing, but when the game decides the CPU gets more points after the race than I do, it felt like the CPU was flat out cheating to deny me of a victory, and those moments were frustrating.
Whereas drift racing was about stylish cornering, drag racing is about stylish...uh..."straight-lining". Players race in a short line from A to B, whilst having to contend with altered controls (again) and traffic. Instead of turning with left and right, left and right now changes lanes instead. Unlike in all other modes, players are required to manually change gears in this mode - 50% of the gameplay in drag races is timing your gear shifts. Time well enough (when the indicator goes green) and your car goes faster - time poorly (when the indicator goes blue, red, or doesn't appear at all) and your car will slow down. If you don't shift at all, your engine will overheat and eventually blow up, causing an end to your race. Cars are also much more fragile - crashing into a wall or traffic or anything will total your car, ending your race prematurely as well. Out of the two new race types, I preferred drag racing to drift racing - drag events were not only much shorter, but also more exciting, weaving in and out through traffic at hair-raising speeds, in comparison to drift racing. Having said that, drag races could also prove to be annoying: with how awkward changing lanes were, more often than not I would ruin my race by crashing into traffic or another obstacle.
The game's biggest flaw comes in the game's career/story mode - titled Underground Mode. Underground would the first Need for Speed game to have a 'story' mode (and one of the first racing games in general to have a career mode) and it definitely shows how rough it is. Players being the mode racing in a souped-up Acura RSX - however it is quickly revealed to be a dream sequence (beginning the classic Need for Speed trope of starting in a fast car for a short amount of time), as the player then has to then buy one of five shitty cars (don't take my words for it, take the game's words for it), perform well in races, get on magazine covers and move up the rankings.
Progression through Underground mode is very linear: at most, the player will get to choose what order to do their 3 or 4 available races in. This method is fine, though there is one minor flaw with the linear progression system I'll get to eventually. All the standard races I mentioned are available (sprint, circuit, drag and drift). Most races will be single races, however occasionally a tournament will pop-up, where the objective is to score the most points over a few races (typically 3), or a time trial where you race for a special car part or performance upgrade. You can choose which difficulty to race each race in, with higher rewards the higher the difficulty, though the difficulty levels don't matter for one notorious reason (another thing I'll explain later). Many races will unlock something should you win; new tracks for splitscreen/quick race, new cars, new performance upgrades and new parts for car customization across all modes - coupled with the Style Points system (which also has its own unlocks), you'll typically unlock something after most races.
There are two different currencies you accumulate throughout the game - money and style points. Money is earned simply by winning races: these are used to buy performance upgrades and accessories like neon lighting and fancy tire designs, or trade in your car (you only own one car throughout your playthrough). With how the game was structured, money was never an issue for me, even after spending all my money on anything and everything I could spend it on (though I did play this entirely on hard difficulty, which offers the most money).
Style points is a separate form of 'currency'. Unlike money where you earn them by winning, style points is gained by performing skillful and/or flashy maneuvers (for example: drifting/powersliding your car around corners, driving near traffic without hitting (similar to grazing in Touhou), taking Mario-Kart style shortcuts and driving error-free through a section or a lap). The style points you earn after a race also get multiplied by your car's "Star Reputation": ranging from a x1 multiplier to a x5 multiplier. Style points doesn't get spent - instead, style points unlocks new vinyl stickers for your car and bonus cars for quick race and splitscreen multiplayer (though those were just special versions of cars you already had with a unique appearance). Whilst Style Points were a cool idea in theory, there wasn't much of an incentive to actually go for risky maneuvers as they didn't do anything to actually progress your game. I try and not compare to future games but Underground 2 executed this much better by making skillful/flashy maneuvers refill your NOS instead - not only was boosting more useful there as you could use it over and over, but the incentive to perform risky maneuvers was now much better as you got an instant reward with boost.
Unlike many other games, in Underground 1, you could only own one car at a time - having to trade in your car whenever you wanted to change cars. Performance upgrades and visual upgrades carry over between cars: if you bought an engine upgrade for one car, all your cars would get an engine upgrade. I drove all the cars I could possibly have during career mode - if I didn't particularly vibe with a car, I could just swap it back to my old car with 0 penalty whatsoever. Because of how free cars were, it would have been interesting to force players to use only one particular car in a race (similar to Gran Turismo 2's one-make-races), especially as some races seemed to be built for that specifically (such as one in the endgame where you race against 3 Mazda RX7s). The most annoying part was that there was no way to save and reload custom cars in the Underground mode: if you go back to an old car you have to remake it from scratch - doubly annoying as there is already an option to save custom cars for use in quick race/splitscreen.
The storyline for Need for Speed Underground is...forgettable. It's not outright 'bad', there were a few moments I enjoyed (with the standout being TJ turning Samantha's cutesy girly car into what passed as a 6-year-old brother's bedroom door's 'edgy' car), but the plot isn't anything to write home about. Your main goal is to win races and rise up the rankings in each of the four racing styles: Drag, Drift, Circuit and Sprint. The game's main antagonists are the Eastsiders racing crew - with their leader Eddie acting as the final boss, and several members of the crew (Chad, Todd and Kurt, each whom specialize in a particular racing style) are encountered somewhat regularly as opponents throughout the game - even changing their cars to a faster one by the endgame in order to beat you. Whilst it's good that the story doesn't really try and do too much to impact the racing, I think adding a little bit more steak to the story wouldn't have hurt it in any way.
The ranking system however is probably the most useless menu I have ever seen. As mentioned before, each of the four racing styles (Drag, Drift, Circuit and Sprint) have their own in-game ranking system - your main goal of the game is to climb the rankings to become number one. The idea is fine as a storytelling piece, but due to how linear the game's story mode is, the ranking system may as well never be used. Because you only get to choose between a few races at a time, and because you have to do all of them to unlock the next set of races to complete, you will progress through each of the four rankings at roughly the same time. There is also no opportunity for a player to outright 'lose' their ranking by performing poorly (since the game only progresses if you win races). All of this combines makes for a very jarring experience. The ranking system would have fit better by allowing players much more freedom in which order to enter races: in that way, a player could progress their way in the rankings through a particular style (so, for example, a player who particularly enjoyed drifting and hated drag racing could become #2 in the Drift event whilst still remaining #8 in the Drag events). Even considering how often you unlock shit through the game, you could section unlocks like new cars/bonus cars and unique parts to rankings (I would not have been surprised if that was planned at some point since you do get to unlock 4 of the NPC cars you encounter in Underground Mode, which would match up perfectly with the 4 styles). I didn't give this idea much thought so there's probably a ton of issues behind it but it had more thought than the ranking system we got.
I've gone through enough paragraphs without getting to the most notorious part the game has: the game's AI is garbage. Need for Speed Underground will be one of the most difficult racing games to complete for one reason: horrific, cheating AI - AI that will catch up to you in a flash if you so much as steer a smidge too long. Or at least they would be if the AI weren't actually trash at driving. Don't get me wrong - the AI can be unbeatable at times, with horrific rubber-banding and ultra tight cornering, and in the final parts of the game they will catch up to you relatively quickly, but the AI are incompetent at driving - even on hard mode. They'll frequently crash into oncoming traffic or into walls, and take shortcuts they're not supposed to take. If you drive pretty close to them, more often than not they will crash out. I never had problems with the two most notorious races in the game, Race 95 (Kurt's Killer Ride) and Race 103 (Enduro Street Circuit), and the reason why was because of how bad the AI was at racing. I managed to beat Enduro Street Circuit in one go even without downgrading your car (which is a very viable strat due to how the game's rubberbanding worked), very tight AI (and that race's AI I will concede is very tight, as opposed to Kurt's Killer Ride) and with several mistakes (like Matt T-boning me out of nowhere during a corner like he was a Freddy Fastbear) whereas I struggled with several of the midgame races.
Having said that - from what I've seen there's no real difference between difficulty levels: even on easy mode the game will smack the shit out of you with the rubberbanding if it wants to, and several of the endgame circuit races are some of the longest races out there: Kurt's Killer Ride being 6 laps and Enduro Street Circuit being 7 laps. By the end of the game, I was looking forward to Circuit races the least, as those would often be the longest races out there compared to all the other events.
After completing the game, you are locked out of Underground mode entirely. There's no real reason to play through it again - and arguably there's no real reason to play through the game now like I did. Underground 2 is probably more worth your time as it's basically just Underground but Better: if you take away the relatively basic customization features and nostalgia value the game has to offer, you get what is basically a bog-standard racer. Whilst it is an important game to be sure, it isn't a game I'd recommend playing through - you'll get more enjoyment out of it doing an unlock all hack, customizing your car, doing a few races, and then logging off. Which was what I mostly did when I played through Underground mode: do a few races, customize my car, log off. I don't think I'll play through this again.
look at the cars I made after you read through this wall of text if you want an idea of what you can make
here
or here
or even here
Releasing in 2003 for all the major 6th-gen platforms at the time (PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, and PC), Need for Speed Underground would be the second game developed by EA Black Box, with the first being the PS2 version of Hot Pursuit 2 (the version that is generally considered to be the superior version than the other platforms). Being the first game in the series to be developed on all of the major platforms by Black Box, Underground 1 was by far a radically different game to all the previous Need for Speed games as virtually everything (save the driving model) received an overhaul, ranging from the setting, to the cars, to even the career mode.
The biggest feature Underground 1 would overhaul would be the cars themselves, for two main reasons: Roster and Customization. Comparing Underground 1's car roster to any of the previous Need for Speed games would be like comparing apples to oranges - two wildly different things. Whereas previous Need for Speed games focused primarily on European high-end sportscars like BMWs and Audis, and luxurious supercars like Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches, Underground 1 instead primarily features Japanese cars like Mitsubishis, Hondas and Nissans - with many of the car models appearing in the first couple of the Fast and Furious movies. It wouldn't be until 2005's Most Wanted that we'd see the return of the supercars of old. Whilst there are slightly less cars in Underground than in Hot Pursuit 2, however, it more than makes up for it with Underground's biggest selling point and feature - it's extensive car customization.
Car customization wasn't a new thing in racing games - both visual-wise and performance-wise. Underground's performance upgrades weren't anywhere near the depth that Gran Turismo had, and visual upgrades had existed before - such as Gran Turismo 1 & 2's 'racing modification' which applied a preset racing livery to your car, or Need for Speed High Stakes combining performance upgrades with visual upgrades (for example, applying Racing Stripes when your car got an Engine Upgrade). However, those levels of customization pails in comparison to Underground 1. Instead of applying one preset livery, the player is given free range to personalize nearly every single aspect of their car - ranging from the ability to apply and color multiple vinyl stickers, to being able to customize your car's bumpers, hood, wheels, headlights/taillights and rear-wing spoilers, to being able to add stuff like underglow lighting and roof scopes to your car. By far and away not only was the ability to customize your car the biggest feature about this game, it was arguably the biggest and most influential feature racing games had - with even the big racing franchises in Gran Turismo and Forza allowing players to customize their cars however they wanted to. Nowadays though, the level of customization you have in Underground is rather simplistic compared to future titles, both for good (easier to get into) and for bad (more limited possibilities), though this didn't stop me from spending a good portion of my time customizing my car a bunch.
Along with car customization however came the first appearance of the controversial 'star reputation' / 'visual rating' system - put simply, the more flashier your car looks, the higher your reputation goes: ranging from 0 stars (trash) to 5 stars. Higher quality parts (which you have to unlock by progressing through the game's career mode) add more to your 'visual rating' than lower quality parts (though strangely enough, decals and vinyl stickers never added anything to my star rating), so the further into the game go, the more 'better looking' your car is. Star reputation doesn't affect too much - some races require you to have a certain 'star reputation' before entering, but I never had a problem in that regard: I didn't felt I was ever forced to bastardize my car too much to progress.
The racing itself doesn't change much - the game itself still felt more casual. The biggest introduction however would be the addition of Nitrous Oxide - a speed boost you can install on your car (similar to, say, a Mushroom in Mario Kart). Nitrous Oxide in this game is rather simple, it is a speed boost you can only use in limited quantities (depending on both how upgraded your car is and how long you use NOS for), and unlike in several other titles, such as future NFS games or the Burnout series, NOS does not regenerate. Having played future games before this, the ability feels a bit lacking in how limited it is - because of the game's rubberbanding I felt there was no incentive to use it anywhere else except for the final stretch of the race. That's not to say that actually using it sucks - in fact it's typically one of the best moments in each race, as the liquid-ifying speed of sound and the heavy motion blur makes your car feels like its going at light-speed.
Whereas previous Need for Speed games set their tracks in a wide variety of visually diverse locations - ranging from the perilous, slippery, snow-covered mountaintops of High Stakes' Snowy Ridge, to the Hollywood backlots of the Monolithic Studios in Need for Speed 2, Need for Speed Underground condenses all racing to Olympic City - a small, fictitious city set entirely at night. The visuals aren't spectacular by any means, especially compared to High Stakes (the previous NFS game I reviewed), but Olympic City does looks solid enough nowadays with the graphics set to max. Whilst unlike its sequels in that you cannot freely roam around the city without using mods, you will frequently encounter the same parts and shortcuts of Olympic City, from the bright and bustling Chinatown road to the wet, miserable, seedy canals. The idea of all the racing being done in one city could have worked well (and it would work well in future games such as Most Wanted), but Underground 1 really needed a bigger city that allowed for more places to race on, as due to the short size of Olympic City, I felt that even early on in Underground Mode (the game's career mode), the races sometimes felt repetitive despite them often being different tracks.
Whilst Olympic City was fine, the tracks themselves weren't: it felt like the tracks weren't designed with the car physics in mind and it shows. The cars really needed to be more grounded, there were a couple of times where the road would dip only a smidge, yet my car would spin out of control in the air crashing into a wall - losing control for such a minor reason felt annoying. But even those moments didn't compare to the shortcuts, some of the shortcuts in this game were clearly designed for some other racing game as they were either too difficult to corner on faster cars, caused you to slow down too much, or had a bump that'd send you car flying: it'd get to a point where some of the shortcuts took longer than going the "long way". The drift mode race tracks were the best tracks overall as they were built with the car's physics and handling in mind, it was a shame that this couldn't apply to the actual races themselves. Hitting obstacles also slows you down - occasionally when hitting multiple small crates or something I would end up slowing to a crawl. For what was effectively a casual racer it felt horrible hitting obstacles instead of fun for that reason - and there are some tracks where it is impossible to not hit an obstacle if you are in first (most notably the two bridge jumps in Olympic City). I got passed once because I hit a bridge gate I could not avoid (not in a scrubquote way like if I was driving into a wall or traffic, there was no feasible way anyone could avoid it) and I thought it was the worst thing in the world ever.
In terms of racing modes, whilst point-to-point sprint races and lap-based circuit races make a return in this game (with circuit races having both a standard variant and a knockout variant where the last player in each lap is eliminated), two new racing modes make their debut in Need for Speed Underground: Drift Racing and Drag Racing, both of which fundamentally change how the game is played. Drift racing takes placed entirely in closed-off short circuit tracks. The objective of the game isn't to go fast - in fact, there are no visible CPU-controlled opponents, but to score the most points by 'drifting' your car around corners, with players generating bigger points the longer they drift (and more points by drifting on 'bonus zones' closer to the walls). Holding a drift for as long as possible is rewarded by increasing the speed at which you generate points - up to a '5x' multiplier, in which points accumulate very very quickly. However, the ability to control and move fast is also required: going too slow drops your multiplier, whilst crashing into a wall ends your drift without any points. I wasn't a particularly big fan of this mode at first (though this was more of a skill issue for me because I was bad at it), but after a couple of weeks I found a car I enjoyed doing drifting with and found it to be somewhat fun. Even when I wasn't a big fan of it at first, it helped having a separate racing mode where you don't have to "win" compared to the other game modes. One major gripe I had with this mode, however, was that the CPU's score get updated simultaneously with yours instead of being one checkpoint ahead - this lead into situations where I had enough points to appear to take first when finishing the race, but the CPU would give itself points that would take it above mine. Losing to skill is one thing, but when the game decides the CPU gets more points after the race than I do, it felt like the CPU was flat out cheating to deny me of a victory, and those moments were frustrating.
Whereas drift racing was about stylish cornering, drag racing is about stylish...uh..."straight-lining". Players race in a short line from A to B, whilst having to contend with altered controls (again) and traffic. Instead of turning with left and right, left and right now changes lanes instead. Unlike in all other modes, players are required to manually change gears in this mode - 50% of the gameplay in drag races is timing your gear shifts. Time well enough (when the indicator goes green) and your car goes faster - time poorly (when the indicator goes blue, red, or doesn't appear at all) and your car will slow down. If you don't shift at all, your engine will overheat and eventually blow up, causing an end to your race. Cars are also much more fragile - crashing into a wall or traffic or anything will total your car, ending your race prematurely as well. Out of the two new race types, I preferred drag racing to drift racing - drag events were not only much shorter, but also more exciting, weaving in and out through traffic at hair-raising speeds, in comparison to drift racing. Having said that, drag races could also prove to be annoying: with how awkward changing lanes were, more often than not I would ruin my race by crashing into traffic or another obstacle.
The game's biggest flaw comes in the game's career/story mode - titled Underground Mode. Underground would the first Need for Speed game to have a 'story' mode (and one of the first racing games in general to have a career mode) and it definitely shows how rough it is. Players being the mode racing in a souped-up Acura RSX - however it is quickly revealed to be a dream sequence (beginning the classic Need for Speed trope of starting in a fast car for a short amount of time), as the player then has to then buy one of five shitty cars (don't take my words for it, take the game's words for it), perform well in races, get on magazine covers and move up the rankings.
Progression through Underground mode is very linear: at most, the player will get to choose what order to do their 3 or 4 available races in. This method is fine, though there is one minor flaw with the linear progression system I'll get to eventually. All the standard races I mentioned are available (sprint, circuit, drag and drift). Most races will be single races, however occasionally a tournament will pop-up, where the objective is to score the most points over a few races (typically 3), or a time trial where you race for a special car part or performance upgrade. You can choose which difficulty to race each race in, with higher rewards the higher the difficulty, though the difficulty levels don't matter for one notorious reason (another thing I'll explain later). Many races will unlock something should you win; new tracks for splitscreen/quick race, new cars, new performance upgrades and new parts for car customization across all modes - coupled with the Style Points system (which also has its own unlocks), you'll typically unlock something after most races.
There are two different currencies you accumulate throughout the game - money and style points. Money is earned simply by winning races: these are used to buy performance upgrades and accessories like neon lighting and fancy tire designs, or trade in your car (you only own one car throughout your playthrough). With how the game was structured, money was never an issue for me, even after spending all my money on anything and everything I could spend it on (though I did play this entirely on hard difficulty, which offers the most money).
Style points is a separate form of 'currency'. Unlike money where you earn them by winning, style points is gained by performing skillful and/or flashy maneuvers (for example: drifting/powersliding your car around corners, driving near traffic without hitting (similar to grazing in Touhou), taking Mario-Kart style shortcuts and driving error-free through a section or a lap). The style points you earn after a race also get multiplied by your car's "Star Reputation": ranging from a x1 multiplier to a x5 multiplier. Style points doesn't get spent - instead, style points unlocks new vinyl stickers for your car and bonus cars for quick race and splitscreen multiplayer (though those were just special versions of cars you already had with a unique appearance). Whilst Style Points were a cool idea in theory, there wasn't much of an incentive to actually go for risky maneuvers as they didn't do anything to actually progress your game. I try and not compare to future games but Underground 2 executed this much better by making skillful/flashy maneuvers refill your NOS instead - not only was boosting more useful there as you could use it over and over, but the incentive to perform risky maneuvers was now much better as you got an instant reward with boost.
Unlike many other games, in Underground 1, you could only own one car at a time - having to trade in your car whenever you wanted to change cars. Performance upgrades and visual upgrades carry over between cars: if you bought an engine upgrade for one car, all your cars would get an engine upgrade. I drove all the cars I could possibly have during career mode - if I didn't particularly vibe with a car, I could just swap it back to my old car with 0 penalty whatsoever. Because of how free cars were, it would have been interesting to force players to use only one particular car in a race (similar to Gran Turismo 2's one-make-races), especially as some races seemed to be built for that specifically (such as one in the endgame where you race against 3 Mazda RX7s). The most annoying part was that there was no way to save and reload custom cars in the Underground mode: if you go back to an old car you have to remake it from scratch - doubly annoying as there is already an option to save custom cars for use in quick race/splitscreen.
The storyline for Need for Speed Underground is...forgettable. It's not outright 'bad', there were a few moments I enjoyed (with the standout being TJ turning Samantha's cutesy girly car into what passed as a 6-year-old brother's bedroom door's 'edgy' car), but the plot isn't anything to write home about. Your main goal is to win races and rise up the rankings in each of the four racing styles: Drag, Drift, Circuit and Sprint. The game's main antagonists are the Eastsiders racing crew - with their leader Eddie acting as the final boss, and several members of the crew (Chad, Todd and Kurt, each whom specialize in a particular racing style) are encountered somewhat regularly as opponents throughout the game - even changing their cars to a faster one by the endgame in order to beat you. Whilst it's good that the story doesn't really try and do too much to impact the racing, I think adding a little bit more steak to the story wouldn't have hurt it in any way.
The ranking system however is probably the most useless menu I have ever seen. As mentioned before, each of the four racing styles (Drag, Drift, Circuit and Sprint) have their own in-game ranking system - your main goal of the game is to climb the rankings to become number one. The idea is fine as a storytelling piece, but due to how linear the game's story mode is, the ranking system may as well never be used. Because you only get to choose between a few races at a time, and because you have to do all of them to unlock the next set of races to complete, you will progress through each of the four rankings at roughly the same time. There is also no opportunity for a player to outright 'lose' their ranking by performing poorly (since the game only progresses if you win races). All of this combines makes for a very jarring experience. The ranking system would have fit better by allowing players much more freedom in which order to enter races: in that way, a player could progress their way in the rankings through a particular style (so, for example, a player who particularly enjoyed drifting and hated drag racing could become #2 in the Drift event whilst still remaining #8 in the Drag events). Even considering how often you unlock shit through the game, you could section unlocks like new cars/bonus cars and unique parts to rankings (I would not have been surprised if that was planned at some point since you do get to unlock 4 of the NPC cars you encounter in Underground Mode, which would match up perfectly with the 4 styles). I didn't give this idea much thought so there's probably a ton of issues behind it but it had more thought than the ranking system we got.
I've gone through enough paragraphs without getting to the most notorious part the game has: the game's AI is garbage. Need for Speed Underground will be one of the most difficult racing games to complete for one reason: horrific, cheating AI - AI that will catch up to you in a flash if you so much as steer a smidge too long. Or at least they would be if the AI weren't actually trash at driving. Don't get me wrong - the AI can be unbeatable at times, with horrific rubber-banding and ultra tight cornering, and in the final parts of the game they will catch up to you relatively quickly, but the AI are incompetent at driving - even on hard mode. They'll frequently crash into oncoming traffic or into walls, and take shortcuts they're not supposed to take. If you drive pretty close to them, more often than not they will crash out. I never had problems with the two most notorious races in the game, Race 95 (Kurt's Killer Ride) and Race 103 (Enduro Street Circuit), and the reason why was because of how bad the AI was at racing. I managed to beat Enduro Street Circuit in one go even without downgrading your car (which is a very viable strat due to how the game's rubberbanding worked), very tight AI (and that race's AI I will concede is very tight, as opposed to Kurt's Killer Ride) and with several mistakes (like Matt T-boning me out of nowhere during a corner like he was a Freddy Fastbear) whereas I struggled with several of the midgame races.
Having said that - from what I've seen there's no real difference between difficulty levels: even on easy mode the game will smack the shit out of you with the rubberbanding if it wants to, and several of the endgame circuit races are some of the longest races out there: Kurt's Killer Ride being 6 laps and Enduro Street Circuit being 7 laps. By the end of the game, I was looking forward to Circuit races the least, as those would often be the longest races out there compared to all the other events.
After completing the game, you are locked out of Underground mode entirely. There's no real reason to play through it again - and arguably there's no real reason to play through the game now like I did. Underground 2 is probably more worth your time as it's basically just Underground but Better: if you take away the relatively basic customization features and nostalgia value the game has to offer, you get what is basically a bog-standard racer. Whilst it is an important game to be sure, it isn't a game I'd recommend playing through - you'll get more enjoyment out of it doing an unlock all hack, customizing your car, doing a few races, and then logging off. Which was what I mostly did when I played through Underground mode: do a few races, customize my car, log off. I don't think I'll play through this again.
look at the cars I made after you read through this wall of text if you want an idea of what you can make
here
or here
or even here