Need For Speed: Underground (PS2 Review)

Things always seemed to be grouped by threes. Yes, I know that there are always the top five and ten lists, with a slight sprinkling of a twenty here and there. Nevertheless, the majority of life seems to be grouped into trios. Celebrity deaths happen in threes. There were a total of five Stooges, but only three were on stage at one time. Detroit shall be ever known for their Big Three in the automobile industry. Even Kevin Harvick won his third NASCAR race in his first season when he became the replacement driver for the Intimidator, who just so happened to be known for his black number three Chevy.

 

Although the PlayStation has literally had hundreds of racing games, it too has it’s Big Three that stand head and shoulders above the competition; Gran Turismo, Ridge Racer, and The Need For Speed franchise. Each of these series have been landmarks for video game racing on the PlayStation family. Gran Turismo, even though it almost was not released here in the United States, has become the exclusive “be all and end all” to simulation racing throughout the gaming world. Ridge Racer is the Granddaddy to all PlayStation racers, as it was there at the very beginning blowing away PSOne owners on its launch day back in 1995 and has continued this trend of grand arcade racing excellence through the six different PlayStation versions spread across three generations (R:Racing Evolution is not part of the RR universe) of gaming systems. The most prolific of the three would be none other than the Need For Speed franchise with well over fifteen unique entries (seven alone for the PSOne) that gave gamers an opportunity to experience the best of both worlds with their authentically licensed vehicles while still incorporating an arcade handling style to these exotic racers.

Need For Speed: Underground is the ninth iteration to be seen upon the PlayStation gaming family and our friends above the border have decided to take the series in a completely new direction. Gone are the exotic vehicles of yesterday. They now have been replaced with more common rides that racers can see on the streets everyday and are even more likely to have actually sitting in their driveway. Does this change affect the status of the series and reduce it to being just another racer or does it take the franchise into virgin territory to be explored and exploited? The only way to find out is to read on and take this baby out on the road for an extensive test drive. So, let’s kick the tires and light the fires and see what EA Canada has created.

One of the most popular new cult fascinations in Japan, and also here in the states, is the world of underground street racing. Tuners, as they have become to be known as, have taken normal everyday rides that you see on the streets and have converted them to unstoppable four and six-cylinder street monsters built to rival the heavy horsepower beasts of the 60s and 70s. With the fitting of aftermarket parts and a heavy dose of bling-bling, these four-wheeled rockets can reach speeds in excess of a hundred miles an hour while barely breaking a sweat. Since the advent of Rockstar’s Midnight Club, this select group has begun to receive more and more exposure in the gaming industry and has erupted onto the scene as the preferred method of racing for developers across the spectrum.

Customization is the main attractor for games of this style, and Underground seems to have taken this aspect to a completely new level. Each and every part that can be bolted on is officially licensed from the manufacturer. Whether it’s brake parts or engine upgrades, everybody who is anybody seemingly has gotten their name into the game. It is here where Underground excels. The hundreds of parts, not to mention the custom decals and paint schemes, insures that ever player will be able to add their personal touch to their rides and stand out from the crowd. Each of these add-on parts increases your rep meter with the adoring fans and makes it easier to acquire newer and wilder paint jobs and even unique decal schemes.

The amount of customization that a player is capable of is simply staggering. Between the multiple paint schemes, various decals and interchangeable parts, you can expect to have hours of fun putting your ride together then ripping it all back apart again. Even though I’m not usually one to dwell on the outward appearances of my vehicle, I found myself completely remaking my ride each and every time I unlocked a new decal or accessory. With all of the options available, one would be hard pressed to find an identical ride when taking the game onto the Internet. Everything from the color of neon underneath your car to the degree of tint for your windows has been covered with multiple choices. Although the best pieces have to be unlocked by progressing through the career mode, once you have moved through about a quarter of the game, the personality of your ride will easily be recognized.

Underground offers a decent selection of vehicles; however gamers expecting to have a huge selection at their fingertips will sorely be disappointed. Players will have the opportunity to try out any of the 20+ vehicles in the game from the ever impressive Skyline to the more popular Eclipse and even the ever reliable Civic. Most of these will have to be unlocked also, but you do have a decent group to start with from the very beginning. All of your rides must be purchased and, unfortunately, players can only have one vehicle at a time when working through the career mode. However all of your rides can be used in the quick race mode, but it just isn’t the same as having a garage full of sweet rides to show off to your friends when they stop over for some quality racing. Also, any of your upgrades and established paint schemes will automatically be switched when you change vehicles, which also was a distractor for me personally. I would have preferred to give each car a separate personality and this is only possible by reworking any new vehicle acquired, which eats into your actual racing time extensively.

Speaking of racing time, players will have to set aside a bunch of time if you are looking to complete the entire career section. With over 110 different races, and three available difficulty levels, you will be pushing aside quite a few games to just work your way to the end of the career. One bad thing was that each race allowed you to change up the difficulty so there was no set challenge to force you to improve. In fact, the major difference between the different settings seemed to be the amount of traffic one would encounter during a street race. Higher settings gives players more cash to use for buying new parts, but you will never seem strapped for accessible funds even if you stick to the easiest settings. Another bad thing was that once a race was completed, there was no way to go back and try your skills at a higher difficulty setting. So basically, you are driving down a one way street with no way to turn around. 

There is a decent selection of racing styles for players to enjoy. Along with the standard circuit (set number of laps), lap knockout (just like the circuit, but the last place car gets removed at the completion of each lap until only one car remains), and sprint (a point-to-point race), racers will also get to enjoy different versions of drag and drift (in the simplest terms, you get points for how well you slide your car around the track) racing. These last two definitely add some flavor to the standard racing scheme and do help to break up the staleness. A downside to the races is that you will only go up against three additional vehicles, which means you will spend quite a bit of time finishing your races in fourth place until you learn the ins and outs of the track. Now I consider myself to be a pretty decent racer, but with only having a 33% win factor (I have a 78% win factor for GT3) I really was forced to redo many of the races over and over again, usually because of bumping a wall at the wrong time and having the entire pack scream past me with little to no chance to catch up before the finish line. Each race will have ways for players to up their style meter, whether it’s drafting off of one of the cars in front of you, powersliding around corners, hang time on jumps or even leading laps, but the best way to get styling points is to take multiple runs through the drift races and top out your meter time and time again before moving on to the next series of races.

Nevertheless, all of the different tracks are variations based in a single city and just doesn’t keep one’s attention for very long. After progressing through about a quarter of the game, I noticed my attention beginning to wander away and was searching for some fresh alternatives. There are also hidden shortcuts on each track, which also give you points for your rep meter, but these didn’t seem to help much in gaining time on the leader. In fact, taking then usually resulted in losing time because of the tight maneuvering required or the jumps sending my vehicle off in an unexpected direction. Even by using them with no error didn’t seem to give me a quality increase in my distance over the pack or allowed me to close the gap on the leader. 

One of the most important aspects of any racer is in how the cars handle out on the road. The Need For Speed franchise has always been one to offer players a solid feel behind the controller, even though it is more based in the arcade category rather than being a sim-styled racer. I will say if you were expecting there to be a great variation in how the different models handle, you are in for a big disappointment. Whether you are driving a FWD, AWD or RWD vehicle, they all seem to suffer from the same handicap of tightness that one would expect from a FWD vehicle. Moreover, the cars do not handle in the same excellent tradition that the series has been known for throughout its existence. Cars do launch off the starting line and radiate that special sensation of speed, especially when you trip off the NOS system, but they all refuse to slow down upon command. In fact, you might as well get used to using the walls of the track to bounce you back into the thick of the gasoline-powered battles, as your vehicle just seems to refuse to traverse anything but the laziest of corners. Most of the time I found it better to barrel my way through a course than try to finesse my car through the tight turns. I’m really not sure upon which factor I should blame the lack of control, but the combination of a tight racetrack and non-responsive vehicles spells out a frustrating mixture of racing.

Another thing that seems to have been lost in the transition from Hot Pursuit 2 is the signature real-time damage modeling. Even through the most vicious of collisions, your ride will remain squeaky clean and in the same condition it was when it rolled off of the showroom floor. Collisions are visually impressive, as your point of view shifts to a completely different camera angle to give the player the best perspective on what your vehicle is going through, however this can be incredibly distracting when in the thick of a battle and you end up pointing in the wrong direction when all the tumbling is completed. Players do have control over the throttle and steering during these camera shifts and it is very easy to forget that you do have the ability to steer through the crashes to keep your car in the thick of the hunt. Also, it seems that computer-controlled cars do not react as severely as your ride when confronting oncoming traffic, which does stack the difficulty chips in their favor during the many races you will have to progress through.

EA Canada has done a great job with the visual presentation. All of the car models accurately represent their real-life counterparts. There are no slowdown, clipping or draw-in issues that I have noticed. There is a tiny collision detection problem, but this can be overcome by compensating and the issue is so minor that you easily bring the reins under control with minimal thought. The wet roads look exceptionally realistic and the environments are partially interactive. By that I mean there are some small objects that will scatter when they encounter your vehicle but larger items, like street lights, won’t budge in the least when they are hit, even at excessive speeds. Any of the camera angles will work for a player and it is solely at your discretion upon which one you prefer to use. Moreover, even though each of the races happen at night, you will always have a clear view of the track and are not hampered by the darkness in the least, which has been an issue for me personally in the past, even with great titles like Gran Turismo and its SS 5 and 11 courses. EA has also added some great visual assistance with moving arrows for all of the corners, so setting yourself up to take the turns is easy and simplistic. With all these great options, it’s really a shame that the control factor couldn’t have been better so you could actually enjoy the excellent scenery.

Unfortunately, they didn’t do the same with the audio tracks. Sure, the THX certification, along with the Dolby Surround Pro Logic II makes for an impressive foundation, but there really isn’t that much of a difference between the engine sounds of the different vehicles. Also the music tracks all revolved around the modern era, with little to nothing for us older gamers to sink our teeth into. The tracks are all selectable, which does allow a player to only have certain pieces running in different areas of the game, but I found that I enjoyed the game more with all of them turned completely off. This is all just reflective in personal taste, as I’m sure that the music was specifically targeted towards the younger tuner audience. None of the tracks were terrible. Mostly they were simply not my personal cup of tea.

EA does offer PlayStation 2 gamers online play, even though it does only support the broadband users in the bunch. Each of the racing modes are available, along with the ability to take your personal ride onto the Net to show off your customization skills. Match-ups will put you into the thick of the battle with three other racers, but there are no additional tracks or vehicles for gamers to acquire through downloadable content. I didn’t experience any new hardships with this mode and it seemed as if I was playing with a bunch of other gamers who were sitting right beside me instead of scattered across the United States.

Electronic Arts has also included the DNAS (Dynamic Network Authentication System) which seems to keep cheaters to a minimum. Also, in an interview, EA did acknowledge that their anti-hacker system was good, but not perfect, as hackers seem to find new ways all the time to beat the system. However, their protection was versatile enough to compensate against new, unique invasions and they would keep a close eye on new innovations for getting around the established system. So far, I would have to declare their system a success.

Need For Speed: Underground was nothing but a continuous exposure to disappointment for my personal tastes. Once you take away the novelty of customization for your vehicles and get past the eyecandy, you are left with a title wanting for more. For most series, I would not have been so excessively disappointed, but when you attach the history of such a momentous franchise to a new game, one expects the version to be head and shoulders above the rest of the competition. Perhaps if EA Canada had spent as much time working on the control of the vehicles as they did for the customization aspect we might have a completely different story to tell. Furthermore, you would expect the largest third-party software producer to be leading the pack in gaming innovation instead of falling in line with the current trends of less established companies. That is what made the Need For Speed series one of the must-have games previously, even though new titles were coming out twice as often as the competition. For those that might be interested in the tuner aspect, this will be a must-have for your gaming library, but for racing purists I would have to suggest looking at either picking up a copy of Hot Pursuit 2 or looking in a totally different direction until EA can return to what the series was originally all about.

Difficulty: 8

Control: 4

Audio: 6

Visuals: 8

Replayability: 8

Overall: 7.5

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (PS2 Review)

The Need For Speed franchise has been one of the most prolific racing series in the history of video games. Dating back to 1996, there are very few titles that can boast of such a dramatic sales history along with having six additional games released after the original in such a short timeframe. Along with five straight-up racers, Need For Speed has also branched out into the rally racing scene with the V-Rally franchise.

The tradition of sequels for video games dates back to the earliest of beginnings. Even systems like the Atari 2600 and the Commodore 64 were graced with game titles that were followed by a number or two. However, usually games built on what had come immediately before the most recent game rather than skipping back into the deeper past to revisit and capitalize upon it. Nevertheless, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 has taken a double-jump backwards to work from the successful formula of cops and racing cars to bring the franchise into the current generation of gaming systems.

For those familiar with the history of the series, it is no surprise that EA decided to go back into the deeper past to generate some new excitement on the PS2. Need For Speed: Porsche Unleased broke the normal NFS formula and concentrated on one vehicle make only and was not widely accepted within the gaming community. This break from the norm left EA and gamers alike scratching their heads wondering what had gone wrong. Although nabbing the exclusive rights to one of the world’s premiere automobile manufacturers may have been a battle coup, sales across the gaming spectrum heavily declined. It was through this revelation that EA went back to the drawing board and revisited what had worked in the past. Now, I’m sure that you all are wondering if Hot Pursuit 2 is nothing but a cheap knockoff looking to capitalize on an unsuspecting public or it is a worthy successor to what had come before? Well, there is only one way to find out. Reach up boys, and pull those belts tight. We’re about to go racing.

The original Hot Pursuit was more like having two games for the price of one. Gamers got to run the courses in the best of the best automobiles available on the market against a full field of competitors in a standard racing affair. On the other side of the fence, you got the opportunity to take the law into your own hands and either chase down other speeders or run from those same police officers in the Hot Pursuit mode. Either half of the game would have been enough to satisfy gamers of that era, but EA decided to raise the bar to push the limits against their rival at the time, Test Drive, to firmly take the lead in the arcade-styled racing genre.

Once again, HP2 is clearly broken up into two sections. Both areas have enough of a selection to be a game in itself. The Hot Pursuit part is broken down into four separate categories: Quick Race, You’re the Cop, Challenge and Ultimate Racer. The Quick Race selection will put you into the think of things with the minimum of button presses possible by choosing the type of race, your vehicle and the course for you to run. This is perfect for those that have very little time available and just want to get in a quick racing fix. The You’re the Cop mode puts you in the position of a police officer hell bent on bringing all of the racers on your beat to justice within a certain time limit. You can even call in assistance from the police helicopter or road blocks to make your job easier. There are a limited number of assists that you can request and invoking one in no way ensures a quick capture. Challenge is a highly customizable race against either computer controller vehicles or a friend where every option is selectable. 

Finally, we have the Ultimate Racer. This is styled in a Christmas tree format where additional venues can be unlocked only by completing the previous challenges. There are a total of 30 contests to conquer, and let me tell you these are no walk in the park. 25 of the races have you running from the law all the while competing against three other racers to cross the finish line first. That may sound simplistic, but you have to include the enormous police force that is tracking down the field at the same time and boy do these guys make the shows on Cops look like a Saturday morning cartoon. From the second that they catch you in their radar, these boys are all over you like white on rice and these guys are not afraid of trading paint to put you into a guardrail or two. Just getting through the course without getting pinched is an accomplishment in itself. 

Once this becomes old hat, or you get tired of being put behind bars, you can mosey over to the World Racing section of the game. Here the competition raises the racing stakes and matches you up against seven other racers in three different categories. The Quick Race and Challenge modes are just the same as the Hot Pursuit versions except they are sans police officers breathing down your neck. You also have the Championship mode where another 30 race Christmas tree awaits you. In both modes, you can unlock new vehicles or tracks to be used in the other categories, however to get the really good stuff you have to get used to crossing the finish line first. You have quite a challenge ahead of you because the racing competition knows the track just as well, if not better, than you do and will utilize the shortcuts scattered around the tracks to their advantage.

For those of you who think this is just “another” racer, let me awaken you to reality. Every one of the 49 different vehicles handle differently and it is only through experimentation that you are able to find one that suits your personal taste. Some of the exotic powerhouses pack a mighty wallop, including the five different police chase vehicles. Although the total amount of cars might not be a huge number in today’s age of gaming, the entire who’s who of expensive makes and models have made an appearance. Furthermore, these babies are not indestructible as they reflect a limited version of real-time damage when you abuse them around the track. Windows crack, steam pours from under the hood, exhaust systems belch black smoke and vehicle bodies all illustrate your lack of driving prowess after repeatedly bumping and bruising your way around the course. Vehicle performance also declines as it is beaten up, which makes your task of winning the race even more difficult. Racing clean and keeping you car on the track is the key to many a victory rather than just keeping the hammer down and hoping for the best.

Control factors are plentiful and can be customized to however the player prefers his or her ride to handle. Handling comes in two different varieties: Classic and Extreme. The Classic setting will allow players to stick more to the roads, but the tradeoff is that it will limit some high-performance maneuvers. The Extreme choice gives drivers a looser feeling car, and we all remember from the movie Days of Thunder, loose is fast. This choice also has its drawbacks as heavy-handed drivers will find themselves facing the wrong way, often spinning out when running through the turns. You must have a lighter touch than that of the Classic setting and cannot simply lean on the thumbstick and expect to make it through without swapping ends numerous times. Nevertheless, no matter which of the two that you choose, this is classic Need For Speed control and you will never feel at a loss when negotiating any of the many, many tracks. 

There are also choices for three different transmissions: Automatic, Manual and Semi-Automatic. Of course the first two are self-explanatory, but the last one does deserve a bit of expansion. The semi-automatic tranny will act in all manners as a normal automatic transmission, however players can “force shift” the vehicle when the car is simply not in the optimum gear for the circumstances. This frees up the player to only have to shift when the car is bogging down or seems to not be able to get to the next gear and spend more time concentrating on the road ahead.

The racing Head’s-Up Display (HUD) gives players a complete overview of everything that is happening within the race. Even though the screen is jam-packed with information, players will not have to sacrifice their driving view for information. This HUD, along with the rearview mirror, can be switched off or customized to limit the amount of things being displayed, but I can’t see why gamers would want to handicap themselves by not allowing everything to be there at a moment’s glance. The active rearview mirror is exceptionally helpful when putting the block on an encroaching vehicle and really helps in keeping track of the speeders you are trying to catch in the Hot Pursuit modes. There are four different split time displays (vs. leader, vs. record time, vs. last lap and vs. best lap), vehicle speed can be displayed in either MPH or KM/H and there are five different map types that can be utilized for keeping track of the competition.

If you were expecting this to be another bland racer, I’m sure by now you have been converted to the other side of the church, however we are far from finished on what you can expect to see when you boot this bad boy up in your PS2. The racing environments are diverse and full of challenge. Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 offers ten unique tracks which are quickly doubled when you include the reverse courses into the mix. Although most reverse courses are not worth mentioning in other racing games, the tracks in HP2 offer players different challenges and jumps that take on a completely different feeling when running them in the opposite direction. The roadways are full of destructible items from street signs to trash barrels and even barricades disguising shortcuts. Unlike other games, it actually pays to find and utilize all of the shortcuts on the tracks as they will cut down on your lap time and can be exceptionally helpful when looking to get around the police roadblocks. All of the racing environments are lush with background actions and greatly diverse in their locale selection. You get to drive at breakneck speeds through a raging forest fire being attended to by firefighters, an island paradise and even a dust devil in the middle of the desert along with seven more places that each have their own special touches that will push you to unlock them.

These road are not empty either as there can be found a healthy dose of civilian traffic, which can be turned off or ramped up to rush-hour levels in certain racing venues, that react to their surroundings surprisingly well. Cars will actually pull off to the side when police vehicles are in pursuit and drive off the road to avoid head-on collisions. These cars also remain on the track when they are run into and can be repeat obstacles when you have to complete numerous circuits of a track. The police also show some advanced levels of intelligence when they are in pursuit. Not only will they radio ahead for backup but also call for roadblocks, spike strips and even helicopter support.

But why drive on the roads when you can take to the air. As mentioned earlier, there are plenty of opportunities to get your vehicle up, up and away. Just about each time the car gathers some big air underneath it, you are rewarded with a special Matrix-styled 360 degree camera swing seen now today in newer games like Burnout 3. This same effect happens whenever you take some collision damage when running a police roadblock or smoke grenade dropped from a helicopter. You even have the ability to take a peek at the layout of the road ahead to help you line yourself up for the jumps and running the roadblocks via the Zone Cam.

Graphically, HP2 is another marvel of polygonal goodness. The tracks all have plenty going on in the backgrounds and there is no clipping or slowdown to speak of at all. There does seem to be a slight collision detection problem when trying to squeeze through tight spots, but this may have been an optical illusion from me just thinking there was enough room to fit my car between the two objects when really there wasn’t in the first place. Your sense of speed is really tested, along with your reaction time, as the vehicles all seem to fly around the courses with real life accuracy and it once you have one of the true powerhouses up to 180 MPH the scenery is nothing but a blur. Nevertheless, gamers have the opportunity to catch all of the sights by utilizing one of the best replay modes ever seen in a game with multiple camera angles available at simple press of a button. Rewind, fast forward and even slow-motion are all packed into the player so you can review the entire race that you have just run to your heart’s content. In fact, you even have the ability to save your replays for showing off at a later date to friends who might not quite believe how hot of a racer you actually are.

The audio portents are nothing less than the usual EA magic. All of the musical selections are customizable via the EA TRAX section. In fact, players have the choice of using either instrumental or the regular mixes with the song lyrics included. Nevertheless, the style of music is rather limited as gamers have the choice of Rock, Rock and more Rock with a mere smattering of Techno to break up the monotony. You also have the privilege of listening to your gaming experience with the standard Need For Speed Dolby surround sound setup which has been included in the series since the very beginning. Furthermore, each and every aspect of the in-game audio has an independent volume control so you can tune the game to your specific hearing tastes. The radio chatter from the pursuing police forces is always relevant and it pays to keep an ear peeled for their next attempt at stopping you or that a car has been taken out of the chase. Their conversations over the radio seem like they were actually taken from a real-life drama and the cars will have two-way conversations between the many vehicles and the police dispatcher. No expense was spared in making sure your ears were exceptionally pleased in what Hot Pursuit 2 has to offer.

Even though Hot Pursuit 2 was brought out before the time that Sony went headlong into its online support, gamers do have the opportunity to take on different players in all of the modes in the two player version of the game. However, that is not all that you have to look forward to in the game. You also receive points for each and every contest that you win to be used for unlocking additional “special” vehicles and tracks. Usually these are just different versions of the already accessible vehicles, but their speed and handling attributes are noticeably better than the stock versions and they all come with a special NFS paint scheme.

Finally, fans of the series will be pleased as punch to find a “making of” video tucked away in the credits that has most of the Black Box team telling the viewer how the game came into being. There is also video included with real-life vehicles being put through their tests so the developers could get an actual “feel” for how the cars should react in the game. Even though it lasts no longer than five minutes, I must tip my hat to EA for including a gem like this into the game where there are so many other producers that will give absolutely nothing as an extra bonus for their loyal consumers.

Everything about Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 hits the spot in just the right way. Besides the lack of online play, which was just in its infancy at the time of release, there doesn’t seem to be anything missing from a very successful formula. EA and Black Box both came to the table with a hefty history to stand up to and they came through with flying colors. NFS: HP2 is simply the best game ever to wear the moniker of the series and definitely is one of the best arcade racers to ever grace the PlayStation library. Everybody who is anybody in the automotive world, from Aston Martin to the Jaguar XKR, have been represented to the tiniest detail and this is just the place to come when your need for speed must be satisfied. There is no doubt that this is a must-have game for any racing fan, and it should be a crime if you haven’t taken out the time to track this one down at your local electronic gaming store.

Difficulty: 8

Control: 10

Visuals: 9

Audio: 9

Replayability: 10

Overall: 9.5