Rocking Adeel KHamisani: Need For Speed UnderGround 1

Sunday, 13 October 2013

Need For Speed UnderGround 1

Need for Speed: Underground (NFSU or NFSUG) is the seventh racing game in the Need for Speed video game series developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts in 2003. It was the first Need for Speed game to be released in Japan since Need for Speed: High Stakes.

Underground is a complete reboot for the series featuring a heavy emphasis on tuner culture and a storyline-driven career mode. All races take place in a generic city at night. Rather than exotic cars, Underground featured vehicles associated with the import scene. Underground was commercially successful, and inspired a sequel.

Circuit is a standard race that involves racing with up to four opponents' cars around a loop track for 2 laps or more, and is the main mode of the game. For the last 3 circuit races of underground mode, the number of players decreases to only 1 rival, and the number of laps reach up to seven (Endurance Race), though the endurance race has 3 rivals.

Lap Knockout Mode is similar to previous Need for Speed titles, involves "knocking out" the one player who hasn't crossed the starting line when all the rest of the racers have in each lap until the final leader of the race crosses the finish line and wins the race. In the case of Underground, Lap Knockout sessions always have three laps and 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 7 miles in length), so players are required to be more cautious of any mistakes during racing.

Drifting is the most challenging and technical aspect of the game. Drifting is when during a race you intentionally slide around a corner at high speeds. 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 laps at their own pace. This may explain the absence of nitrous oxide in this mode, since it serves no apparent purpose in this situation.

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, drafting, overtaking, and the use of nitrous oxide boosts;Because the player is going to put the engine to its limits the mode places particular emphasis in monitoring the tachometer during races, which is enlarged and situated on the leftmost portion 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. On the last drag race, you are going towards the traffic which makes it seemingly impossible not to wreck.

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 from not shifting and the subsequent overheating of the engine.

Need for Speed: Underground was met with positive reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PlayStation 2 version 84.29% and 85/100,[1][6] the GameCube version 83.73% and 83/100