Need For Speed Underground (PC)

You start the game as a seemingly half decent driver with a half decent car, however that's a dream and you're soon warped back to a car with as much oomph as a turtle with chronic arthritis. With a choice of 6 or so cars to pick from the start, Myself being a Fast And The Furious fan I chose a Honda Civic , (the ones from lorry jacking scene). After picking this car it becomes highly apparent that the title of the game is sadly ironic, there really is a "NEED FOR SPEED" as it's the quality that you seem to lacking the most; at this point you start to wonder why you shelled out hard earned cash to play this godforsaken game. So do what I did, leave it, I can guarantee you within that week you will have your posterior placed on your computer chair trying to outrun the AI at a massive 120mph. After about 10-15 races the game starts to become seriously addictive and the car in front is no longer a Toyota - it's you.

As you progress through the game you unlock faster cars with different stats and advantages/disadvantages. Now don't be fooled by this, just because the car is newer doesn't mean that it's easier to race with; I personally found the Honda S2000 better than the Skyline for drag racing mainly due to the gear ratio's on the cars. The S2000 moves slower up the Rev counter than the skyline does thus meaning you can hit perfect shift more often. Now remember different cars = different stats.

The fun really starts with modifying your car. As you make your way through this ever so addictive game you unlock different Body Kits, Spoilers, Light Kits and many other mods. Now you'll know when you unlock body kits as it will tell you, same with the spoilers and other pieces of kit, with exception of the paint colours for your car. I actually completed this game twice before realising that you had to modify your car, change the colour and BUY the other colours, I think in total that's 111x2, I completed at least 222 races before realising this, and the new colours look especially nice on with alloy wheels! ;)

I have completed this game twice now and I got near my third time when I started to become frustrated, however, it wasn't the in-game graphics, or the AI and their uncanny ability to catch you up, no� my problem was in fact something undisputed before. This isn't a new law but it's unnamed, so I shall name it; we shall call it the "Last Lap" law. For this law to apply, you'll have to be on your last lap and here is the scenario; your in front by quite some distance but the AI is gaining, so your pushing it and next thing you know you hit a [insert wall/car/pillar here], this normally either takes place at the beginning of the lap or at the end on the last stretch. It becomes highly annoying so annoying that you will end up playing over and over just to try and complete the darned race.

Enough on the story and gameplay, let's talk technical. OK my test system I would describe as Average, Its above the recommended specifications so I thought the game would run fine, However I was pretty wrong; It ran smoothly on low settings but at medium settings, 1024x768, you could tell when rounding corners or smashing into barriers the Frames Per Second would drop rapidly and for my machines specifications I really wasn't expecting that.