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Need for Speed: Underground Review - Gamecube

The street. The car. It's like they were meant for each other in more ways than one. Being originally invented as a mode of transport, cars have become extremely popular but not because they transport people from one place to another. They're popular because they're fast, slick and look cool. Unfortunately, to have the best car of all, one needs somewhat, a large amount of money. But never fear, EA is here with Need for Speed: Underground. Can it really capture the true feel of speed in a car? Read on and find out!

Gameplay

Set in the streets of a city, Underground sees you design and manufacture your own set of wheels to compete in. Almost everything a person could want to do to their car is available including different rim styles, hoods, windscreen colours and even decals that you can put on the body. Besides this, there are also heaps of aftermarket parts you can buy that effect the overall performance of your car such as tyres which increase the handling of your car and nitrous oxide which gives you the option of giving yourself a boost of speed when racing. However, these upgrades don't come for free and are not all available at the same time. To obtain these parts you have to complete a set amount of missions in Underground mode and also have enough cash to buy them. This feature is also used at a great extent because you'll find that you could spend hours making your car just the way you like it and also changing the model of your car and seeing the effects it has on other models gives another boost to the feature. Besides this, upgrading your car will eventually get you reputation points which are a must if you want to compete in tournaments in Underground mode.

In all, there are seven race modes for you to choose which are nicely designed.

• Circuit: where you drive around the city streets in a set amount of laps;
• Sprint: which sees you race from the starting line to the finish line;
• Drag: where you race against other cars in a straight line to get to the finish line;
• Drift: where you make slides for points;
• Lap Knockout: where after every lap the last player is eliminated from the race;
• Free Run: where you ride around the city to get to know the level; and finally,
• Tournament: which sees you have three or four races at the one time in a similar fashion to Nintendo's Mario Kart series.

With the exception of Free Run, they are all in Underground mode, which is the main single player aspect of Need for Speed: Underground. This mode is also where you get money from. You actually get the choice of which difficulty level you choose from but it also shows you the amount of money you get if you win the mission with that difficulty level. The higher the difficulty, the more money you get so it's best you ... (continued next page)