Need for Speed: Underground Review - PC

Electronic Arts has been angling for the complete convergence of pop music, commercials, and video games for a while now, and it's finally done it with Need for Speed Underground 2. A veritable hard driving ad campaign on virtual wheels that you shell out $50 for, this is probably the most blatantly absurd example of sponsorship gone wild X-Play has ever seen. If you were looking for a drivable music video enhanced with ads for Burger King, Best Buy, Cingular Wireless, and several other companies, then EA has just the answer.

Ad-Aware Gaming

Thankfully, if you want to -- as the ads for the game suggest -- drive really fast dressed as a pimp, there’s some pretty cool rides here. Coming hot on the heels of the original -- and just a year later -- NFSU2 builds on the original by adding some new race modes. And most importantly, an impressively large, open city to cruise through looking for money making, racing opportunities. Taking obvious cues from The Fast and the Furious the game has all the sleek paint jobs and stickers that wannabe street racers find cool, but it still maintains the solid handling and physics the Need for Speed series has always been known for.

In direct comparison to a game like Burnout 3, NFSU2 is almost a driving simulation. The handling is far more realistic, the physics more appropriate to the real world and the overall feel of the game is more serious and less arcade like. That isn’t to suggest that this is a hardcore racing simulation -- it’s still more arcade than reality -- but despite all the over-the-top use of shiny graphic effects and almost offensively in-your-face product tie-ins, the game still plays excellently. The inclusion of an open city to cruise through is really the big plug though, and almost makes all the rest of the fluff tolerable.

Model Story

Aside from ads everywhere, you have to contend with an array of comic book-like cinematic sequences that tell a story so stupid you'll be dropping brain cells. Basically, you are the big winner from the first game, but a rival gang plows into your smooth ride when you blow them off. So, you recuperate and end up in a new town with a new ride, starting from zero again. Buy a cheap ride, race, earn money, customize your car, and eventually get better ones. That’s pretty much it.

There's a runway model or two who will act as your guide, because, presumably, virtual street racers don’t get to see too many girls in real life, and you’ll almost certainly want to spend as little time as possible with any of the story elements. While the controls are excellent, what you do with them is often less than thrilling. The racing itself is remarkably standard. The open city concept is cool and all, but much of the city and events are actually locked until you reach a specific part of the plot, and the racer AI is usually pretty weak. It's easy to get in the lead through power sliding, nitrous boosts, and drafting, then it's even easier to just stay there.

Undentable Chrome

Worse, presumably since the cars are all real world licensed beasts, there’s no damage model. Sure, you can crash, but it won’t affect anything, but your time. Throughout the city, there are custom shops to trick out the look and performance of your ride, which is almost a standard now, but does changing the color and adding decals to your Miata really thrill anyone anymore? Well, maybe the guy over there who thought a four-foot wing on the back of his Civic was a good idea.

Ironically, this shallow sense of flash is a necessity to progress, since getting press for your machine is part of the advancement system, and keeping your car ahead of the pack with performance enhancements is important for actually winning races. On the plus side, all versions of the game (except the GameCube, of course) support racing online, which is always a plus. Still, compared to the visceral, happy-go-lucky destruction of Burnout 3, that’s probably not a huge draw.

The presentation is up to the usual EA level. The game runs fast and smooth, the graphics are sharp and detailed, and the sheer level of reflective, shiny surfaces is virtually unparalleled. The car sound effects are powerful, the Dolby surround is excellent, and the array of hip-hop and rock songs proves that Electronic Arts has the marketing muscle and money to keep things current.

Commercial Fizzle

Just the same, there’s something almost absurd about paying for a game that inundates you with a constant stream of ads. While this might have helped belay development costs, the marketing attack on the player here takes away from the actual gameplay. When you do focus on the game itself, you find a great driving engine held back by otherwise mediocre game design. It’s far from terrible, but Underground 2 is definitely not cruising at the head of the pack.