Need For Speed 7 Underground Review
Gameplay: 6.5/10
Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 10/10
Replayablity: 4.5/10
Opinion: 7/10
Overall: 7.2/10 (Quite Good)
Good. But not good enough.
Gameplay: 6.5
Need For Speed Underground now is based on illegal street racing. There is the common game modes like circuit and the favorite Knockout, but in Underground, NFS introduces 2 new game modes not found in the previous games. Drift and Drag. Drift came all the way from Japan, where the goal is to slide your car sideways the longest and earn the most points. Drag, is racing in a straight line, avoiding traffic and other hazards along the way. Both are a whole new game to it, but the flawed AI outweights the strengths of Underground.
Underground features about 20 cars from the Dodge Neon to many other street cars, not normally seen in big races. Then you can modify the cars to your liking. Mainly the body and the speed of the car. Add customised hoods, rims, spoilers, window tinting to boost up your reputation, which is the key of multiplying your style points to unlock more customisation. The style point system is rather friendly, rewarding you if you zip past traffic, jumping high or drafting behind an opponent. The more style points you earn, the more customisation at your disposal.
The other aspect of modification is modifying the car's engine, wheels or give it a Nitrous booster. Unlike Midnight Club 2, the Nitrous booster in this game is rather useless, mainly due to the AI flaw (explained later). The performance modification boost your car's speed, acceleration and handling, though they may differ in each car, all of them handles pretty much the same after adding all the performance modifications.
During a race, anything could happen, the traffic patterns are good, but sometimes popping up in odd locations. The whole race tracks takes place in some kind of city where the grounds are never dry, reflecting the lights and buildings. When your car jumps, the camera goes to a sidewalk view, showing your car in slow motion in midair. But, the replay feature is missing, and there is only 3 camera modes. Far Chase, Near Chase and Bummer Cam. Oddly enough, there is not a single hint of police anywhere, and ILLEGAL racing in the real world will obviously attract cops.
The 'Underground Mode' is like a story mode, where you have to race in 111 events, following a story whre you rise to fame. The game lets you choose 3 difficulties, Easy, Medium or Hard. The first 50 events aren't challenging, even on the hard difficulty. The AI during the first 50 are like normal human players, sometimes making mistakes, smashing into traffic or flipping and crashing. After the first 50, the AI cheats, which takes away almost all the fun in the game. The AI cars start to go faster, they clearly bump into walls and bounce of, unaffected. They have a 6th sense on incoming traffic and not hitting them, they are oddly too heavy to flip upside down, they corner perfectly, they can crash into walls without losing speed and the list goes on. The AI cheating is not only annoying, it is taking a strain on you, as all the races you must get 1st or the game will not continue to the next event. A very good suggestion is that return the AI to their much more realistic mistake making mode instead of letting them cheat.
Graphics: 8
Oddly, it runs well on my graphic card, never going below 20 FPS. The car reflection are made better and better but still look abit unrealistic. The city is filled with Neon lights which shows up on the reflection on the road and your car, quite detailed overall.
EA abuses the user's graphic card, locking some graphic detail which is 'not compatible'. For example, My Geforce 4 MX440 does not support shaders, and EA turns off crowds and motion blur, which is the thing that makes you feal that you are travelling at a high speed. Though the blame is mostly on my graphic card, EA SHOULD create games that are compatible with graphic cards made 1 year ago.
Sound: 10
EA Trax have featured 23 new songs, mostly rock and rap, from Rod Zombie to The Crystal Method. The music is excellent, and it would be nice if EA allow us to covert them into MP3 to play instead of launching the game just to listen to the music.
The car engine sounds alright, good quality sound and the few voice-acting are good.
Replayablity: 4.5
Racing is addictive, but cheating AI takes away all the fun. At least there is more tracks and Drifting is very fun to play. No cheating AI in Drift mode.
Reviewer's Opinion: 7
The score is considered high, I would give it a 5, if not for the music and addictive racing. But the AI just cheats too much and all the fun gets flushed down the drain. The AI should make mistakes but make less mistakes as the game gets harder, and not accelerate faster than any car or able to move at 300mph without nitro.
The AI clearly cheats, and it sucks.
