There are countless attempts to keep this fresh. There's a plethora of different races to choose from, like drag, knockout, drifting, and nitrous. This does keep things from getting too repetitive. It's just a shame the basic racing engine isn't that engaging or enjoyable.
The game even fails to impress on the visual side. The cities are all brightly lit and everything is quite shiny. Everything takes place at night and turning on the nitrous provides the nice blur effect the series has quickly become famous for. It's the rather unfortunate the frame rate that drags things down, hovering around 30 fps for the most part and then dipping down when things get crowded. Considering the closest competition ("Ridge Racer") looks so much better without out a single complaint, it's hard to understand what went wrong here.
EA Trax provides most of the backdrop audio, blaring a loud, obnoxious soundtrack the entire game. It's constantly streaming from the disc, so expect battery life to take a hit. Mercifully, you can turn it off. Doing that reveals there's not much left besides basic engine roars once into the streets. Ambience is nil.
On the PSP, you have "Ridge Racer," that's really all you need to know. This console port almost seems unnecessary. This is a game (and series) that will appeal to people and it's easy to see why. They have the home console versions though, and there's no need to play here.
Article comments
1 - Ken Edwards
Yet Need for Speed Underground Rivals trounced Ridge Racer in sales numbers. Maybe "trounced" is not the correct work. Maybe annihilated is better.
Need for Speed: Underground Rivals $5,973,790 121,293 units
Ridge Racer $2,388,781 60,638 units
I can't wait to get my hands on NFSU:R myself, but I think I will like it less as I have spent so much time playing Ridge Racer.