Since this game is all about street racing, you've got to expect a good assortment of hot cars, and that's what you get here. Though in the beginning of the "Underground Life" you're going to be stuck with some pretty weak rides, including such plain-Janes as the Honda Civic or the Peugeot 206. Ugly and slow is how you start, but by winning street races and completing challenges, you earn the cash, cred and coolness to trick out your car. It starts out simple enough, with paint jobs and body effects (spoilers, neons, lights, hoods and ground effects) which quickly build up (so long as you're winning) to custom body decal jobs done with fancy vinyls. You can lay up to four layers of vinyl on your ride, making it the hottest or the geekiest, cruiser on the block. It pays to take the time to trick out your car's appearance, as a good looking car will increase your reputation multiplayer, which in turn increases the points you earn for stylish moves during a race. There are, of course, performance mods that include added turbos, braking boosters and NOS tanks, which quickly become necessary should you hope to win any races on more than just your looks alone.

As you work through the career ("Underground") mode, you'll quickly realize that while the game physics as a whole are good, they have a few failings. Most noticeably, it feels like every car handles the same. Big or small, wide wheelbase or narrow, they all seem the same, and so you've got to buy performance mods to give yourself any sort of racing edge. Another problem with the physics engine is the fact that most turns can be taken at insane speeds without fear of spinouts or sliding. Only the sharpest of turns require you to gear down or brake beforehand, and this takes a big chunk out of the realism of the game. The gameplay as a whole rises above these quirks of physics, so don't worry about it ruining the game for you.

If you're a track junkie, you're going to get bored quickly with single city available in Need for Speed Underground. While EA designed just under two dozen tracks in the game, most are just variants on ones you've already raced, with a few additional turns, hairpins or reverses added for some street racing spice. This is where games like Microsoft's Project Gotham Racing 2 outshine NFSU; as in PGR2 you can tear up the streets in a huge assortment of tracks worldwide. Underground's tracks will get old in a very short time, so thankfully EA threw in the drag racing and drifting challenges to shake things up.

The drag racing challenges seem simple enough; they're just drag races after all. But in actuality, they are really fun tests of timing and skill as you have to time your gear shifts at the optimal RPMs while paying attention to the other vehicles on the track so you can avoid collisions. And if the drag racing wasn't enough, there's the drift racing, which has you slip-sliding around on wide tracks while racking up style points.

Online junkies (well, PS2 and PC online junkies) can enjoy multiplayer races of up to four players. It's unfortunate that there's no Xbox Live support for this game, but that's a point that's been rehashed too many times with other EA games, and most of us are tired of hearing about it. So go grab this game for the PlayStation 2 or PC and you can enjoy playing against gamers on both platforms. The online play is smooth like fresh paint, fast like dry pavement and just plain fun.

EA's production team must have gone into overdrive with Need for Speed Underground, as it's been a long time since they've put out something that looked this good. On the PlayStation 2, the cars and environments are richly detailed with plenty of visual character. The city really feels alive at times, with flashing neon, flickering lights and plenty of street activity. Unlike other titles that feel post-apocalyptic with their empty cities, the metropolitan world of NFSU is a living breathing entity. It's portrayed so well, you can practically smell the burnt rubber, smog and stale air of the city night. And if you like the feeling of speed, it's never been portrayed as well as it is in this game, with picture perfect motion blur effects that'll have you wondering if there's an airbag built into your PS2 to catch you in a crash. If there's one weakness in the visuals, it's that the reflections are seriously overdone. All the cars have a preternatural sheen to them and the streets are equally reflective. Even dry pavement has the look of a glossy photograph, which is definitely surreal.

The production team also did a good job in choosing the soundtrack, which mixes up techno, urban and metal tracks. The voice work can be bland and predictable, with a pretty limited vocabulary, but we're not looking for any of the characters to read back "War and Peace" any time soon, so it's not a game-ruining issue.

Looking for a game with hour upon hour of replay? Well NFSU is just that game, with over 100 challenges playable over three difficulty levels to keep you coming back to it again and again. Since the game is all about tweaking and customizing your cars, you'll be happy to restart the game a couple of times with new vehicles to see how they look and perform when tricked out.

If you're a racing fan, you owe it to yourself to go grab a copy of Need for Speed Underground. EA has finally atoned for the sins of many of the earlier Need for Speed titles they foisted upon us over the past several years and given us a true gamers' game. Fast and furious fun with more challenge than you can shake a stick at, NFSU belongs in your game library.

See more screens on the Need for Speed Underground media page