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Need For Speed Undercover

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Need For Speed Underground Preview

Mark Simons

01/08/2003

We take a look at what EA have in store for this new NFS title...

The 'Need for Speed' series has always been a bit of a mixed bag quality wise ever since it first blew us away in the legendary 3DO original. As ever though quality does not always affect sales and at retail the series has done well, as the numerous sequels and variants on the theme attest. Whilst not necessarily bad games a lot of the NFS games just haven't been amazing, and we at TVG only really like to play amazing games. For the first time in a while we're actually quite excited by the prospect of a new game in the long running series.

Developed by Black Box, responsible for 'NFS: Hot Pursuit 2', 'Need for Speed Underground' is influence from things like 'The Fast & The Furious' - we would recommend the French film 'Taxi' if you liked that one. From a game point of view it looks to take the car tuning aspects of 'Gran Turismo' and push them in a slightly different direction.

The emphasis here is on modifying cars from the likes of Dodge, Ford, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Volkswagen, Hyundai and Toyota. Taking standard road models and as you acquire more cash, upgrading them into hard-tuned beasts. Upgrades to your car will all have a visual effect, so everything from spoilers, wheel arches to turbos, exhausts and decals. Pretty much anything you could think of to modify you will be able to, so your car will definitely be yours. We like this focus, as we loved the original 'Gran Turismo' for its racing modifications and have been hoping for something like this ever since.

The single player career mode focus' on earning respect from other drivers, increasing your reputation through your performance on the road and, interestingly, on how you upgrade your motor. Naturally as you progress up the pecking order the rewards on offer will get bigger and bigger, and Black Box promise that there will be a lot more than just standard circuit racing.

PlayStation2 owners who have the network adaptor will be able to race their cars online with up to three other players. As ever EA won't be supporting Xbox live, meaning we're a bit sad that we can't try this head to head with 'Project Gotham Racing 2'.

On a technical level it looks like 'NFS Underground' will be impressive, despite being a multi-format title this is looking very good indeed. Whilst it doesn't have the realistic aim of games such as 'Gotham 2' or 'GT4' the almost stylised use of lighting and colour certainly makes an impact on your retinas.

Interestingly while many driving games are striving to re-create real-life locations down to the smallest detail, Black Box started by first designing the courses, fitting the landscape to the course. This means that they can focus on creating exciting locations to race on and cram in lots of influences in one city that is influenced by some existing locales.

Sensation of speed is something that the developers will be focusing on as well, even with all of the detail present on the car models, the fancy lighting, reflection mapping, highly detailed surroundings with crisp textures and subtle atmospheric fogging, the game will run at a blistering pace. With blurring effects that enhance the sensation this looks set to offer seat of the pants action for as much of the time as possible. If you find yourself letting out a big breath at the end of a race, then the developers will have succeeded in their task.

We hope that Black Box pull it off, the signs are looking good and we're looking forward to taking 'Need for Speed Underground' for a test drive closer to its release later this year.