Revisit: Need for Speed Underground

Well, I was right. The first Need for Speed Underground is so much more fun that NfSU2.

Why?

I love how the game progresses. If you want to burn through each race and make the game more difficult you can. If you want to take it slow and save up money for a machine with parts that annihilates the competition, you can do that too. Of course, there are the easy and hard settings for each race, but this way of choosing to do races over and over again to either save money or rack up style points (pretty much only in Drift races) adds another dimension to the game. I'm pretty sure you can't redo races in 2 without losing your built up money and style points from the previous race. It seems like a better way to do it for "cheaters", but if you make people move on instead of giving them a choice, you just limit the game's abilities.

Another aspect that I really missed just in terms of being a game collector was the music. When I originally owned the game and was constantly turning the thing on and off, that intro music of Lil Jon's Get Low ("Dudda dun dun dun..") was so repetitious, but now, years later, I crank it up. It's like the 90's rap station on XM. All the menu music just fits so well to the theme and I don't mind walking away from playing and letting the infectious Keep It Comin' by Nate Dogg bounce around the hallway into the other rooms. And the race music is just as good. I went through the entire list thinking there were some annoying songs that I wanted to turn off, but I only ended up turning off two or three tracks out of the games 20-some song list. These songs have become nostalgic and when I hear them on the radio or on my iTunes, I immediately think of this game (ex. Lost Prophet's Let's Ride, Crystal Method's Born Too Slow).

And I love the menu driven structure of the game. There's no bullshit with driving around a huge, expanding map for no reason at all. Sure I like to drive the cars, but there's no point to having a map like in NfSU2 just to race the computer. And I don't understand the point to having a set number of computer drivers for each set of races that pops up. There should either be and endless supply or a structure and point to the races (a la' Tokyo Xtreme Racer). Sure the map is the setting for all the races and that's fine. I wished I could have explored the streets in the first game when I had it, but I also like the focus kept on the racing. It's like Grand Theft Auto: if there's too much freedom, you get sidetracked. The difference being that there were actual things to do in GTA away from the missions. Having to locate the shops in order to use them is more of what I consider annoying.

So I might be putting up, yet again, my copy of NfSPU2 on eBay or selling it to a friend. I'll stick with my simple, structured, going-out-of-style tuner racing.