Need for Speed - Underground

Need for Speed – Underground | Need for Speed: Underground is a 2003 racing video game and the seventh installment in the Need for Speed series. It was developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts. Three different games were produced, one for consoles and Windows, and the other for the Game Boy Advance along with a version developed by Global VR for Arcades that was published by Konami.

Underground rebooted the franchise, ignoring the previous Need for Speed games which featured sports cars and exotics. It was the first game in the series to offer a career mode featuring a storyline, and a garage mode that allowed players to fully customize their cars with a large variety of brand-name performance and visual upgrades. All races take place in the fictional Olympic City. Rather than exotic cars, Underground featured vehicles associated with the import scene. Underground was critically and commercially successful, and was followed by Need for Speed: Underground 2 in 2004.

Plot

The player begins the game in a circuit race in Olympic City in a white Honda/Acura Integra Type R, sporting unique vinyls and a wide body kit. He dominantly wins the race; only to be woken up by Samantha from his daydreaming.

Samantha is the player’s contact in Olympic City and she tours him across the import culture scene and illegal street racing therein. She helps the player buy his first car, although she pokes fun at the player’s choice of the car, regardless of the vehicle chosen, saying “ouch, that’s seriously weak, dude”. She kickstarts the player by introducing him to local street racers such as Jose (who offers Circuit events), Klutch (who offers Drag events) and Dirt (who offers Drift events). In event #7, she introduces him to T.J, a mechanic who rewards him with numerous performance upgrades and parts, provided he wins his time trials challenges. Samantha also issues time trials to the player, her rewards being unique visual modifications instead.

Eventually, the player draws the attention of The Eastsiders, after racing their members Chad, Kurt and Todd to climb up the racing ranking boards. Eddie, the leader of the gang and his girlfriend Melissa take notice of the player. Eddie is the current best underground racer in Olympic City and unimpressed by the player, berates and bullies him for his racing skills, going as far as throwing cash at him then telling him to “take a taxi home so that he can get home faster”, and signaling for a taxi cab to pick up the player in an event.

In time, the player develops too much reputation and hype to be ignored by Eddie, who proceeds to challenge the player to race Samantha in order to continue upward in the ranking boards. She gets infuriated upon the player’s acceptance and loses after she totals the engine of her Honda Civic Si during the race. Her car is taken by T.J for himself thereafter. Deeply saddened by the player’s willingness to race her and the loss of her car to T.J, Samantha distances herself from the player, but he continues receiving race offers nonetheless.

Building up to the endgame, the player faces and defeats Chad, Kurt, Todd and Dirt for the #1 rank of their respective boards, then faces T.J in Samantha’s vandalized Civic in a pink slip race. He wins the car back and returns it back to Samantha, rekindling their friendship. Samantha rewards the player with a unique body kit choice.

Eddie then challenges the player to a sprint race and loses; while the player’s crew are about to celebrate, a mysterious grey Nissan 350Z challenges the player to a final 6-lap circuit race. The player races the 350Z and wins; while the others celebrate his victory, the driver of the 350Z is revealed to be Melissa.

That event solidifies the player’s status as the best underground racer in Olympic City.

Gameplay – Need for Speed – Underground

Circuit is a standard race that involves racing with up to three opponents’ cars around a loop track for two or more laps. It is the main mode of the game.

Knockout Mode is similar to previous Need for Speed titles. It is played on the circuit tracks, and involves “knocking out” the last racer who passes the finish line in each lap until the final leader of the race remains, and wins the race. In Underground, Knockout sessions have a maximum of three laps for four racers.

Sprint mode is a variation on the Circuit mode, where the contestants race in a point-to-point track instead of loop tracks. These races are typically shorter than “circuits” (with a maximum of 8 km in length), so players are required to be more cautious of any mistakes during racing, such as crashing into barriers or vehicles.

Drifting is the most challenging and technical aspect of the game. Drift mode consists of one player in a short loop track, where the objective is to collect as many points as possible by drifting along the track. The player competes with three other contestants, who appear to accumulate scores along with the player during the drift session. The player would be required to beat these scores in order to obtain top positions.

Bonuses are awarded for players who drift in the outer borders of the track, drift vertically, or perform chained-drifting (continuous drifting by constantly steering the vehicle during drifts to maintain speed); if the player succeeds in ending a drift without collisions onto the sides of the track, the collected points are added into the score, otherwise, the collected points are cancelled.

Drift mode is the only type of racing where time taken to complete the track does not matter, since players are given the freedom to complete the allocated number of laps at their own pace, hence here is no nitrous oxide in this mode.

Drag racing is the second most technical form of race in the game. It involves racing against one or three cars on typically straight tracks and attempting to obtain top positions to win. In order to master Drag mode, players must employ good timing and reflexes for gear shifting, redlining, overtaking, and the use of nitrous oxide boosts. Since players must use manual transmission, drag races place particular emphasis in monitoring the tachometer and the engine temperature during races, which is enlarged and displayed on the left side of the screen. Steering in this mode is simplified to simply allow for lane changes, while the computer handles the steering along the lanes, and the player focuses more on maintaining an optimum speed for the car.

Two conditions will result in players being forfeited during a drag race: head-on collisions with an opponent, barriers, traffic cars or dividers (being ‘totaled’); or blown engines as a result from prolonged redlining and the subsequent overheating of the engine.