Underground 2 (PC)

(Herald rating: * * *)

I cut my racing teeth on Need for Speed many years ago and have had a soft spot for the series ever since. Last year the game went underground into the murky world of street-racing where bog-standard cars are modified into performance racers.

Cartoony still animations tell the story. Basically, you crash your Nissan Skyline into a truck and use the insurance money to rebuild your street-racing career in a new city, Bayview.

Virtually all the racing takes place at night in the gloomy underground tunnels and empty freeways of Bayview, which is like Las Vegas but bigger.

Though many of the races are on pre-determined tracks, you'll also roam around the city guided by a map, a scenario seemingly inspired by the free-range settings of Grand Theft Auto and Driver.

You start in a slow Japanese import and trade up, eventually, to the fastest cars in the world, as you win races.

On the way you'll deck your car out with neon lighting, window tints or the nippy nitrus purge in true boy-racer style.

The graphics are good, especially at high-speed and the handling is easy to master. The drift races are also a lot of fun.

But Need for Speed's crashes are laughable, they literally haven't changed in a decade. When you ram the back of a Dodge truck at 220km an hour you'd expect parts of your car to end up all over the freeway. Instead the two cars will bounce around like indestructible toys, no worse off for the collision. Other games, such as the WRC rallying series, show damage superbly.

Make sure you're running a fast computer otherwise the graphics will come unstuck. And if you're going to get anywhere in Underground 2 remember to stay on the other side of the road. This is a game made for Yanks after all.

Price: $100