Scot customises his ride to the extreme as he gets down and dirty with Need for Speed Underground.
It's all about the showing off. The latest Need for Speed title enters the world of the tuner-car racing circuit, forgoing its traditional high-performance drives around European cities and focusing its sights more on belting it around urban metropolises. Now more akin to big-screen releases "The Fast and the Furious" and its slightly less-successful follow-up "2 Fast 2 Furious," Underground drops you in at the bottom of the underground racing scene, forcing you to prove yourself to the big shots above, earning respect and upgrading your ride along the way.
It's ultimately the customisation aspect that will draw a lot of attention from gamers who have previously shunned the series. You begin by purchasing a car; not a particularly flash one but a car that will allow you to enter the circuit and build your way up through the ranks. Customising this then becomes your priority, using the money you earn through street races to earn you the kudos you rightly deserve among your fellow race competitors.
Customisations break down into two areas - visual and performance. Visual upgrades aren't just there for dressing your car up so that it looks like the queen of the ball. Fixing upgrades such as new bumpers and spoilers will earn the respect of other racers, unlocking further races for you as your name is spread around the urban street racing circuit. Keep upgrading the visual prowess of the car and your name will eventually appear on the cover of magazines, enforcing your position amongst the best racers.
Performance upgrades do exactly what they say on the tin. If you want to keep your car within the same league as the rest, you'll need to upgrade areas of the vehicle as the engine, tyres and gearbox. It doesn't just end there either; brake pads will need to be upgraded in order to keep up with the breakneck speeds you'll reach, preventing your car from careening into the nearest wall, or indeed, the oncoming traffic.
The driving aspect is perhaps the most exciting the Need for Speed series has seen since the highly-acclaimed original. The urban night setting fits almost perfectly for the series, and the streetlights and backdrops compliment the cars wonderfully. The races are the perfect areas to show off your ride, and due to the sense of pride you'll experience while building your car, you'll want to show that your car is the best, and you'll savour that last victory even more when you realise it was your car that pulled it off.
During these races, you'll have the chance to earn style points. These are handed out when you do something particularly classy on the track, such as a lengthy powerslide or missing oncoming traffic by a whisker. These style points will accumulate over time, and these are the points that will unlock the extras that you can use to build up your ride.
There are a number of different race modes included as well. You'll start out competing in standard races, just to prove you've got what it takes to enter the scene. However, get past these and you'll unlock two new racing modes - drift and drag. Drift racing sees you pulling off stylish turns around a simple track, trying to push your car into an acute angle as you bomb around the track. The sharper the angle, the more points you'll collect.
Drag racing is where you'll push your car to its utmost limits. Four cars line up on a straight track and with no tight turns or obstructive scenery, the brake pedal is deemed completely unnecessary. The key here is to pull off gear changes at the perfect RPM point without overheating your engine. By punching the throttle, you're shown a series of coloured dots that indicate when the best point to change gear is. Get the gear changes right and you'll find yourself reaching searing speeds. Introduce traffic to some of the later stages and you've got yourself a blistering, adrenaline-filled race mode that was developed for nothing more than pummelling the throttle and boasting the size of your engine.
The presentation of the game is essentially flawless too. Graphically, the game is outstanding, boasting many speed-emphasising details such as the way scenery blurs as it passes your car. The road looks absolutely stunning and if any surface was created for these beautiful cars to shine on then this was it. Audiophiles will rejoice at the way the soundtrack fits the game perfectly, blending genres and featuring artists such as Nate Dogg, Junkie XL and personal favourites Story of the Year.
It could have been easy for EA to completely ignore the racing aspect and PR the behind off the tuner-car customisation. After all, many gamers out there would more than happily trade in their loving partner for some of the beasts featured in this game. The fact that the racing mode offers one of the most enjoyable racing experiences this year just adds to the list of reasons that Underground should lead the pack of high-performance racers. Need for Speed Underground is both fast and furious, and thankfully, it's also one damn sexy game.