Man, what a tragedy. In my old review for Underground, which was very brief, I mentioned that Underground was a great game for its era but felt horrible to revisit.
I had watched tons of videos on both Underground games and how time has not been kind to these games. Even making my own video back in 2014, stating why I don't like the Underground games. While I don't agree with that old video (I won't be linking it because it's honestly not very good), the sentiment I had formed 9 years ago about not liking these games has, unfortunately, stuck.
NFS Underground, especially in 2023, is quite a painful game to revisit. Its dated mechanics, its - at times - unfinished presentation, its brutal difficulty...let's get into it.
Story
Admittedly, I never cared for Underground's story. Even as a kid when I first played it in 2004 or 2005, I always skipped the cutscenes because I found them to be highly inconsequential. That sentiment has never really changed surrounding the story - it's weak, but at the same time - it's very clear that it's not something that the developers really wanted you to focus on, considering how for most of the game - it's really taking a back seat.
The writing is very "of its time", especially the slang you hear some of the characters speak, which, in 2023, honestly is funny to hear, and even charming at times. Much like later games in the series, such as Most Wanted & Carbon, the way the dialogue and cutscenes have aged almost make it endearing & funny to listen to. Cringy, yes, but endearing all the same.
Gameplay
Oh boy. This is the part of the game that really gets me about Underground, why I don't like it, and why I practically never revisit this game. For the record, as of writing this review, I had just finished an Underground playthrough on my stream. And the final 20 or so races, quite literally, had me straight up raging, yelling & throwing my controller at how frustrating the game gets. But lets take it one step at a time.
In terms of how the game feels to play - how it feels to drive the cars - it's actually good and still holds up. This 20 year old game actually has better driving mechanics than even some racing games releasing to this very day. Cars are, for the most part, really grippy and quick, and straight forward to pick up & drive. Genuinely, I think Underground has a fantastic driving model.
Where the gameplay begins to fall apart, however, is with two things - level design & difficulty.
Underground, unlike its sequel and many later releases in the series, does not have a free roam map to roam around. Instead, you have a small city map (and I really mean small) that the game gives you linear courses to race on. The big issue with the level design is how many times you'll find yourself randomly spinning your car out or hitting a brick wall completely stopping you dead in your tracks. Some of the tracks you drive in even have very sharp 90 degree, or even lower than that, turns where if you try to go at them with any amount of speed - you will find yourself firmly planted into the wall, whereas if you break to take the corner properly - the AI will make use of that opening and slaughter you. There are also a few instances where you go into a tunnel and the tunnel has a bunch of pillars with small gaps in them, requiring near pixel-perfect driving to avoid. In the early-game - this is not an issue. The car you drive at the start is really slow that you'll find them difficult to hit. This becomes an issue later on in the game as you upgrade your car or get faster & faster cars. At speeds of 270 km/h or higher at times, it becomes practically impossible to dodge and you'll find yourself spamming the reset button, while the AI zooms past you without a care in the world.
Speaking of AI, difficulty is another aspect of Underground that really shows its age and what some of my personal friends call the game the "dark souls of racing games", though it'd be more accurate to say that Dark Souls has the difficulty of NFS Underground. Needless to say - this game is tough. Really tough. But not for any fair reasons, at least not how I see it. The fundamental difference between Dark Souls & NFS Underground, is Dark Souls is a difficult game by design - everything is meticulously crafted to be very challenging, yet fair & rewarding to those willing to dedicate themselves to it long enough & master the game. NFS Underground, however - no matter how good you are at this game, this game is here to remind you that no you're not.
The game has you pick between three difficulties - Easy, Medium and Hard. But here's the thing. It doesn't matter. The only difference between the three difficulties is the amount of cash you earn. And if you complete the game on the Hard difficulty (and I mean all of the races), you get a few extra magazines. What do those do? Nothing. Magazines are purely cosmetic additions, which serve to be more funny than cool & rewarding.
Even if you play NFS Underground on the Easy difficulty, the AI will still kick your ass. They WILL take corners at quite literally impossible speeds. They WILL effortlessly dodge any and all traffic, they WILL catch up to you regardless of the kind of lead you have. The AI simply does not care how good you are at the game. They will CHEAT to catch up to you. It's hard to put it into words, you need to see it to believe what kind of voodoo magic the AI can pull off in this game.
Lastly, drag races. These are, by far, the absolute worst part of the game. If you struggle doing Circuits, Sprints & Knockouts against your opponents for the reasons mentioned above - drag races are here to kick you in the dick. They are BRUTALLY difficult, ESPECIALLY the drag race at the end of the game where you have to race against 3 RX-7s. That race genuinely made me think that no one at BlackBox play-tested that race to see if it's even remotely possible to beat. It took me 20+ attempts to do it, and even then I won by a very slim margin of 0.18s. Literally pure, dumb luck. What makes drag races especially challenging is the fact that the window to hit a Perfect Shift, which is what you want as that gives you the biggest benefit, is so absurdly tiny. It's so small, that it's easier to just listen to the car's engine noise rather than watching the indicator, and even with that it remains a complete crap-shoot.
Talking a little bit more positively about this game, I think car customization was handled pretty well. Unlike in its sequel, Underground doesn't require the car's star rating system for anything other than cosmetic upgrades for your car - vinyls, bumpers, window tints, etc. - you have the freedom to customize your car the way YOU want it, and that's genuinely something I think this game does much better than Underground 2.
Drift races also ended up being my favorite because it's the one mode where I felt like I could relax, and the one mode that actually corresponded to the difficulty that you choose. When I was doing a drift race, I honestly felt like I had some room to breathe and could relax from the chaos of the other modes.
The car list, while small featuring only 20 whole cars, feels very unique to this game. Some of the cars in this game, such as the Dodge Neon, Mitsubishi Lancer ES and Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS only ever appeared in this one game, while cars like the Peugeot 206, Nissan Sentra and Hyundai Tiburon Coupe only ever appeared in the Underground games. The car list of the first game in particular makes it stand out much more from Underground 2, as it's rather interesting to see cars that later games would replace for faster, fancier or newer versions of them. I personally think it's quite charming.
Graphics, optimization, sound
Graphically, for a 2003 game, NFS Underground looks really good. The visuals of the game I think are the one thing that has aged the best - Olympic City is striking & unique with its locales, such as the dam, Chinatown, the industrial complex, city center - everything has a very distinct feeling, the colors of each area pop & give them their own unique identity. Even after 20 years, Underground continues to look impressive for its time. The one thing I wish they didn't include, however, is the motion blur. On the PC version you can freely turn it off, but if you're playing on a console like me with the PS2 version - the motion blur is pretty distracting as it smears the screen and makes it rather difficult to see where you're going at times.
The one thing I cannot knock the game for is its style - it was trying to cash in on the hype the Fast & Furious movies generated, and it managed to do that splendidly. However, some of the presentation, particularly the way the menus are handled, really feel unfinished & unpolished. Stuff like needing to explicitly hit "Continue" and then confirming with a Yes/No prompt just serves to break the flow of the game, rather than just hitting X to continue.
Optimization-wise, even when playing on the PS2 - I have noticed & felt many, many times when the game's framerate struggles. Several times it's happened where the game, at times, was going so fast, that the framerate dipped from a stable 30 to somewhere around 15. Keep in mind I was playing on actual, real hardware (both Fat & Slim models of the PS2) and not using an emulator. Many of the later games are way better optimized for the console, although aside from a dipping framerate at times - I did not experience any issues with the PS2 version.
The soundtrack slaps. NFS Underground kickstarted the trend of NFS games having an absolute slapper of a licensed soundtrack, and it really delivers. While I really find it funny that the main theme of this game is Lil Jon's "Get Low" (albeit VERY heavily censored), a lot of the game has some genuinely great rock music that I listen to personally even to this day. Dare I say - this has one of the best soundtracks of any racing game to this day, period.
Conclusion
What a shame. When I finished my playthrough on-stream for the first time in 9 years (my previous playthrough was in 2014), I wanted to walk out of the whole experience feeling like I had always misunderstood Underground. That I'd end up really enjoying myself with the game. But sadly, I didn't.
The latter half of the game, with so many reused tracks, poor level design & frustrating rubberbanding AI that often loves to pull utterly impossible moves, smears the whole experience and makes Underground just an utterly frustrating game to revisit.
I wouldn't recommend this game in 2023. While I am nostalgic for this game, I appreciate this game being my gateway into the wider NFS franchise, as it was one of the first ever NFS games I played as a kid alongside Hot Pursuit 2, the game has, sadly, aged rather poorly, to the point where I couldn't have any fun with it.
Unless you are genuinely looking for a racing game to kick you in the balls and spit in your face with how difficult it gets & are willing to deal with antiquated design choices, I'd recommend steering far clear from NFS Underground.
This is one case of "never meet your heroes", and it's very safe to say that I am never revisiting Need for Speed: Underground ever again.
I had watched tons of videos on both Underground games and how time has not been kind to these games. Even making my own video back in 2014, stating why I don't like the Underground games. While I don't agree with that old video (I won't be linking it because it's honestly not very good), the sentiment I had formed 9 years ago about not liking these games has, unfortunately, stuck.
NFS Underground, especially in 2023, is quite a painful game to revisit. Its dated mechanics, its - at times - unfinished presentation, its brutal difficulty...let's get into it.
Story
Admittedly, I never cared for Underground's story. Even as a kid when I first played it in 2004 or 2005, I always skipped the cutscenes because I found them to be highly inconsequential. That sentiment has never really changed surrounding the story - it's weak, but at the same time - it's very clear that it's not something that the developers really wanted you to focus on, considering how for most of the game - it's really taking a back seat.
The writing is very "of its time", especially the slang you hear some of the characters speak, which, in 2023, honestly is funny to hear, and even charming at times. Much like later games in the series, such as Most Wanted & Carbon, the way the dialogue and cutscenes have aged almost make it endearing & funny to listen to. Cringy, yes, but endearing all the same.
Gameplay
Oh boy. This is the part of the game that really gets me about Underground, why I don't like it, and why I practically never revisit this game. For the record, as of writing this review, I had just finished an Underground playthrough on my stream. And the final 20 or so races, quite literally, had me straight up raging, yelling & throwing my controller at how frustrating the game gets. But lets take it one step at a time.
In terms of how the game feels to play - how it feels to drive the cars - it's actually good and still holds up. This 20 year old game actually has better driving mechanics than even some racing games releasing to this very day. Cars are, for the most part, really grippy and quick, and straight forward to pick up & drive. Genuinely, I think Underground has a fantastic driving model.
Where the gameplay begins to fall apart, however, is with two things - level design & difficulty.
Underground, unlike its sequel and many later releases in the series, does not have a free roam map to roam around. Instead, you have a small city map (and I really mean small) that the game gives you linear courses to race on. The big issue with the level design is how many times you'll find yourself randomly spinning your car out or hitting a brick wall completely stopping you dead in your tracks. Some of the tracks you drive in even have very sharp 90 degree, or even lower than that, turns where if you try to go at them with any amount of speed - you will find yourself firmly planted into the wall, whereas if you break to take the corner properly - the AI will make use of that opening and slaughter you. There are also a few instances where you go into a tunnel and the tunnel has a bunch of pillars with small gaps in them, requiring near pixel-perfect driving to avoid. In the early-game - this is not an issue. The car you drive at the start is really slow that you'll find them difficult to hit. This becomes an issue later on in the game as you upgrade your car or get faster & faster cars. At speeds of 270 km/h or higher at times, it becomes practically impossible to dodge and you'll find yourself spamming the reset button, while the AI zooms past you without a care in the world.
Speaking of AI, difficulty is another aspect of Underground that really shows its age and what some of my personal friends call the game the "dark souls of racing games", though it'd be more accurate to say that Dark Souls has the difficulty of NFS Underground. Needless to say - this game is tough. Really tough. But not for any fair reasons, at least not how I see it. The fundamental difference between Dark Souls & NFS Underground, is Dark Souls is a difficult game by design - everything is meticulously crafted to be very challenging, yet fair & rewarding to those willing to dedicate themselves to it long enough & master the game. NFS Underground, however - no matter how good you are at this game, this game is here to remind you that no you're not.
The game has you pick between three difficulties - Easy, Medium and Hard. But here's the thing. It doesn't matter. The only difference between the three difficulties is the amount of cash you earn. And if you complete the game on the Hard difficulty (and I mean all of the races), you get a few extra magazines. What do those do? Nothing. Magazines are purely cosmetic additions, which serve to be more funny than cool & rewarding.
Even if you play NFS Underground on the Easy difficulty, the AI will still kick your ass. They WILL take corners at quite literally impossible speeds. They WILL effortlessly dodge any and all traffic, they WILL catch up to you regardless of the kind of lead you have. The AI simply does not care how good you are at the game. They will CHEAT to catch up to you. It's hard to put it into words, you need to see it to believe what kind of voodoo magic the AI can pull off in this game.
Lastly, drag races. These are, by far, the absolute worst part of the game. If you struggle doing Circuits, Sprints & Knockouts against your opponents for the reasons mentioned above - drag races are here to kick you in the dick. They are BRUTALLY difficult, ESPECIALLY the drag race at the end of the game where you have to race against 3 RX-7s. That race genuinely made me think that no one at BlackBox play-tested that race to see if it's even remotely possible to beat. It took me 20+ attempts to do it, and even then I won by a very slim margin of 0.18s. Literally pure, dumb luck. What makes drag races especially challenging is the fact that the window to hit a Perfect Shift, which is what you want as that gives you the biggest benefit, is so absurdly tiny. It's so small, that it's easier to just listen to the car's engine noise rather than watching the indicator, and even with that it remains a complete crap-shoot.
Talking a little bit more positively about this game, I think car customization was handled pretty well. Unlike in its sequel, Underground doesn't require the car's star rating system for anything other than cosmetic upgrades for your car - vinyls, bumpers, window tints, etc. - you have the freedom to customize your car the way YOU want it, and that's genuinely something I think this game does much better than Underground 2.
Drift races also ended up being my favorite because it's the one mode where I felt like I could relax, and the one mode that actually corresponded to the difficulty that you choose. When I was doing a drift race, I honestly felt like I had some room to breathe and could relax from the chaos of the other modes.
The car list, while small featuring only 20 whole cars, feels very unique to this game. Some of the cars in this game, such as the Dodge Neon, Mitsubishi Lancer ES and Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS only ever appeared in this one game, while cars like the Peugeot 206, Nissan Sentra and Hyundai Tiburon Coupe only ever appeared in the Underground games. The car list of the first game in particular makes it stand out much more from Underground 2, as it's rather interesting to see cars that later games would replace for faster, fancier or newer versions of them. I personally think it's quite charming.
Graphics, optimization, sound
Graphically, for a 2003 game, NFS Underground looks really good. The visuals of the game I think are the one thing that has aged the best - Olympic City is striking & unique with its locales, such as the dam, Chinatown, the industrial complex, city center - everything has a very distinct feeling, the colors of each area pop & give them their own unique identity. Even after 20 years, Underground continues to look impressive for its time. The one thing I wish they didn't include, however, is the motion blur. On the PC version you can freely turn it off, but if you're playing on a console like me with the PS2 version - the motion blur is pretty distracting as it smears the screen and makes it rather difficult to see where you're going at times.
The one thing I cannot knock the game for is its style - it was trying to cash in on the hype the Fast & Furious movies generated, and it managed to do that splendidly. However, some of the presentation, particularly the way the menus are handled, really feel unfinished & unpolished. Stuff like needing to explicitly hit "Continue" and then confirming with a Yes/No prompt just serves to break the flow of the game, rather than just hitting X to continue.
Optimization-wise, even when playing on the PS2 - I have noticed & felt many, many times when the game's framerate struggles. Several times it's happened where the game, at times, was going so fast, that the framerate dipped from a stable 30 to somewhere around 15. Keep in mind I was playing on actual, real hardware (both Fat & Slim models of the PS2) and not using an emulator. Many of the later games are way better optimized for the console, although aside from a dipping framerate at times - I did not experience any issues with the PS2 version.
The soundtrack slaps. NFS Underground kickstarted the trend of NFS games having an absolute slapper of a licensed soundtrack, and it really delivers. While I really find it funny that the main theme of this game is Lil Jon's "Get Low" (albeit VERY heavily censored), a lot of the game has some genuinely great rock music that I listen to personally even to this day. Dare I say - this has one of the best soundtracks of any racing game to this day, period.
Conclusion
What a shame. When I finished my playthrough on-stream for the first time in 9 years (my previous playthrough was in 2014), I wanted to walk out of the whole experience feeling like I had always misunderstood Underground. That I'd end up really enjoying myself with the game. But sadly, I didn't.
The latter half of the game, with so many reused tracks, poor level design & frustrating rubberbanding AI that often loves to pull utterly impossible moves, smears the whole experience and makes Underground just an utterly frustrating game to revisit.
I wouldn't recommend this game in 2023. While I am nostalgic for this game, I appreciate this game being my gateway into the wider NFS franchise, as it was one of the first ever NFS games I played as a kid alongside Hot Pursuit 2, the game has, sadly, aged rather poorly, to the point where I couldn't have any fun with it.
Unless you are genuinely looking for a racing game to kick you in the balls and spit in your face with how difficult it gets & are willing to deal with antiquated design choices, I'd recommend steering far clear from NFS Underground.
This is one case of "never meet your heroes", and it's very safe to say that I am never revisiting Need for Speed: Underground ever again.