Need for Speed Underground

Highly Tuned for Intense Speed

NA release: 17th November 2003
EU release: 21st November 2003
JP release: 25th December 2003
Developer: EA Black Box
Publisher: EA
NGC Magazine Score: 77%
Mods Used: Widescreen Code

Secret street racing was at the height of its popularity in media at this time, so it was a good opportunity for Need for Speed to fully embrace it. The whole game is set in a single city as you move up the rankings to be the best street racer in town, with the best set of customised wheels.

Modifying your car isn’t just for looks, as better components also mean a multiplier to your money at the end of each of the whopping 111 events. These include regular races, time trials, drift challenges and drag events. Drag races change the controls somewhat as instead of turning, you change lanes (to avoid traffic) and has to be played with manual gearbox, although there are multiple indicators to highlight the best time to shift. It’s a nice change of pace, although each one feels the same.

The same feeling of repetition is also present in the races. The city never changes, every single race is played at night while the road are wet from rain, but it isn’t actually raining. It makes every “track” feel the same, and isn’t helped by how tracks share many of the same roads, after the first race, it seems like every single track uses a portion of the roads you’ve used before. Without any changes to the weather or time of day, it ends up getting tedious. On top of that, there are quite a few times where the “mirror” effect just fails (due to how overused it is) and you just see right through the trick of having a duplicate city underneath you.

Which is a shame as the actual racing is quite solid. Drifts are easy to perform and cars handle really well. It just would be really nice to have this handling on some more enjoyable tracks.

Fun

Unfortunately, due to the licensing of real-world vehicles, there’s no car damage in the game. You can pummel into the cross-town traffic at 100mph and, even though you get a cutaway showing your car spinning, flipping and crashing down on its paper-thin roof, there’s nothing to indicate how bad and impact it was. It just ends up looking like a toy.
Mimtendo, NGC Magazine #88

Remake or remaster?

A collection would be good.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to get Need for Speed Underground.