EA TAKES IT TO THE STREETS WITH NEED FOR SPEED UNDERGROUND

[shadowstalker]

EA TAKES IT TO THE STREETS WITH NEED FOR SPEED UNDERGROUND REDWOOD CITY, California, April 30, 2003 - Enter the adrenaline-filled world of high performance street racers in the latest game from the award-winning Need for Speed franchise, Need for Speed Underground from Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS). The new EA GAMES title is under development by the award winning Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 team. The game features a breakthrough sensation of speed, developed by an OSCAR® nominated special effects expert, and a spectacular graphic presentation showcasing an exciting lineup of licensed cars and aftermarket performance parts (mods) from top manufacturers.

Need for Speed Underground allows gamers to build a completely unique exotic ride by earning cash to pay for custom body kits and a host of car mods by winning events. But just creating the ultimate custom street racing machine will not get a racer to the top; it takes a certain amount of attitude and razor sharp driving skills to compete in the tough world of urban racing.

A number of diverse events set in gritty, night time environments make up the heart of street competition. Players become complete street racers by perfecting skills in each event; by nailing the perfect shift in drag racing, and by putting their street cred on the line, racing through the city streets late at night.

The game features 20 fully customizable licensed cars from Mitsubishi Motors, Subaru®, Toyota and other top manufacturers. There are hundreds of ways to customize one's ride with aftermarket parts from dozens of providers including AEM Inc., Audiobahn®., Bilstein®, Dazz Motorsport, DC Sports, Eibach® Enkei, GReddy Performance Products Inc., HKS®, Holley®, Injen, Jackson Racing, MOMO, Neuspeed®, Nitrous Express Inc., O.Z®, PIAA, Skunk2 Racing, Sparco®, StreetGlow®, Turbonetics Inc.

Need for Speed Underground is slated to ship for the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, the Nintendo GameCube, Game Boy® Advance, and the Xbox video game system from Microsoft, and PC CD-Rom and will ship in the beginning of next year. The game is being developed by EA Black Box.

I am sure most of you nfs fans from gatt have be waiting as eagerly as me to get your hands on this game when it comes out on september 26th 2003.

EA Trax is a partnership between Electronic Arts and major music labels. With EA Trax they want to support the artists and the game. The artists get a wider audience and the games a good music. Also the upcoming Need for Speed Underground will feature music from this initiative.

Coming off its successful inaugural year, EA™ TRAX is a series of promotional partnerships between EA and major music labels that represents a breakthrough for people who love games and music. Launched in August 2002 with Madden NFL™ 2003, EA TRAX allows gamers to hear songs from new and established artists specifically picked for each game. Labels will also use the games to launch hot new acts and develop audiences for emerging artists. Thus far, EA TRAX can claim the first-ever RIAA certified platinum videogame soundtrack and the most successful videogame soundtrack of all time soundtrack for NBA LIVE 2003, that featured songs by Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dogg, Fabolous, and Just Blaze to name a few, among its early successes.

Record labels partner with EA because they understand videogames are a powerful channel for exposing new music to a large core of young opinion leaders. Record companies also realize the valuable demographics of gaming; its “cool” factor; the buzz and the size of the interactive entertainment industry have put videogames at the center of mainstream entertainment. Hence, they allow EA to have early access to cutting edge music for their games, thus giving artists a new interactive platform for debuting new music. Some of the artists EA TRAX helped break are Good Charlotte, Queens of the Stone Age, Fabolous and Nappy Roots, to name a few.

Artists are definitely feeling the impact of having their songs be part of EA TRAX. Good Charlotte’s Kevin Mitchell recalls comments he got last fall when Madden NFL 2003 was first launched, “At first, when people asked me what band I was in, I’d say ‘Good Charlotte’, and they'd say, ‘Oh, from Madden.’"EA TAKES IT TO THE STREETS WITH NEED FOR SPEED UNDERGROUND REDWOOD CITY, California., April 30, 2003 - Enter the adrenaline-filled world of high performance street racers in the latest game from the award-winning Need for Speed franchise, Need for Speed Underground from Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS). The new EA GAMES title is under development by the award winning Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 team. The game features a breakthrough sensation of speed, developed by an OSCAR® nominated special effects expert, and a spectacular graphic presentation showcasing an exciting lineup of licensed cars and aftermarket performance parts (mods) from top manufacturers.

I am sure most of you nfs fans from gatt have be waiting as eagerly as me to get your hands on this game when it comes out on september 26th 2003. Here are some screenshots form the Playstation 2 and the PC versiosn in the mean time. Hope to get the X-Box ones soon.

Also here is a sneak preview of the Need for Speed Underground Intro. Note you need QuickTime 6 to view this movie. If you don't have QuickTime, click here to download the latest version.
 
Download the Preview now!
Click here

Need for Speed Underground will contain the following cars, you will be able to drive:

Name Year
Acura Integra Type R 2001
Acura RSX Type S 2003
Dodge Neon 2-door 1999
Ford Focus ZX3 2003
Honda Civic Si Coupe 2000
Honda S2000 2003
Hyundai Tiburon GT 2003
Mazda Miata MX5 1999
Mazda RX-7 1995
Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX 1999
Mitsubishi Lancer 2.5 RS 2003
Nissan 240SX SE 1992
Nissan 350Z 2003
Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec V 2004
Nissan Skyline R34 GTR 1999
Peugeot 206 GTi/S16 2003
Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS 2003
Toyota Celica GT-S 2002
Toyota Supra 1998
Volkswagen Golf GTI 2.0 2003

Need for Speed Underground will feature the following aftermarket manufacturers to tune your car:

- 5Zigen International, Inc.
- ABS Dynamics Corporation
- Advanced Clutch Technology (ACT)
- Advanced Engine Management (AEM)
- Alpine Electronics
- Apex Springs
- A'Pex Integration
- Arospeed
- Audiobahn
- BBS
- Bilstein
- Borla Performance Industries
- Brembo
- Clutchmasters
- Dazz Motorsport (Racing Hart Wheels)
- DC Sports
- Eibach
- Enkei
- Extreme Dimensions
- Genera Corporation (TYC)
- GReddy
- Henshin Auto
- HKS USA
- Holley (NOS)
- HP
- H&R Springs
 - Injen
- Jackson Racing
- JSP
- Kenwood USA Corporation
- Keystone Restyling Products
- KONI North America
- Konig
- KVR Performance
- KYB America
- MOMO
- Neuspeed
- Nitrous Express
- OZ America
- PIAA Corporation
- Plasmaglow
- corpion Exhausts
- Skunk2 Racing
- Sparco
- Stillen
- Street Glow
- Toucan Industries
- Turbonetics
- Venom (Python Injection)
- Wilwood Engineering
- Wolfrace Wheels

The listed releasedates of Need for Speed Underground are just prospective specifications and can change anytime.
 
PC EU: 11/21/2003
     US: 11/17/2003
   
Playstation 2 EU: 11/21/2003
                   US: 11/17/2003
                   JP: TBA
   
Xbox EU: 11/21/2003
        US: 11/20/2003

Gamecube EU: 11/21/2003
                US: 11/17/2003

GameBoy Advance  US: 12/19/2003
                             EU: 12/19/2003

Demo coming soon  

http://wiggies.t35.com:8000/  <----- url to check out some screenshots I have online  :-D                    

[Hitman_Jim]

heh video looking mad oui                    

[shadowstalker]

thanks, i also wanted to put some screenshots but i see that the new gatt site does not allow it.                    

[Twister]

The game looks appealing and i already own Hot Pursuit 2 for gc which was excellent. I'll most likely be picking up this one also.                    

[spinner]

looks good..cant wait for it                      

[Imperial_X]

LOL@ gc NFS:HP2 for GC.  A gamecube owner was playing that game in SNS sometime last month.  When he took a jump and the camera did that slowmo thing, he dropped the controller and switched off his system.  He so peeved, that he didn't play any gc games for the rest of the day.                    

[shadowstalker]

hahaha, i did the same thing yes. But I am sure that they don't have that camera thing in underground again                      

[Heihachi]

but that camera thing was kinda cool
it only killed the flow of the game sometimes                    

[Imperial_X]

You misunderstand.  The guy was so annoyed at how the graphics looked when the camera changed, he took it off.  Seriously, the car looked like a green rectangle mid-flight.                    

[SamBlaZ!ng]

I DONE PRE-BUY MINE                    

[shadowstalker]

whey you not wasting time at all.                    

[shadowstalker]

I just added some more info so keep checking back to find out whats going on with the game. I will put more info asap.                    

[X]

Damn.Dis game go be real mad.I cyah wait.                    

[shadowstalker]

Damn.Dis game go be real mad.I cyah wait.

yuh cyah wait, imagine how much torture I going through since I know this game was coming out not too long after NFSHP2 in 2002                    

[X]

lol.Poor you.Serious torture.                    

[shadowstalker]

November 20th iymc. Ah I shall have underground on my pc  :-D . Right now i gonna sleep, I have a list of the songs and the artist who sang them. Laters for now and for all you nfshp2 fans i have an r34 gtr sklyline which is almost done as well as a toyota supra.

NFS Forever IWMC!!!!!                      

[Waggy]

You misunderstand.  The guy was so annoyed at how the graphics looked when the camera changed, he took it off.  Seriously, the car looked like a green rectangle mid-flight.

It looks alright on the pc, I really need to see that on GC.
And that slomo thing doubled the coolness of that game....well except when they do it and there's a tree infront of you.                    

[Imperial_X]

LOL.  I hate that about racing games at times.  The track does not have smooth walls, meaning that your car could be rammed into certain portions of map so you would have to reverse to get out.  Areas like these should be minimized.                    

[Waggy]

LOL.  I hate that about racing games at times.  The track does not have smooth walls, meaning that your car could be rammed into certain portions of map so you would have to reverse to get out.  Areas like these should be minimized.

Yeah, and pebbles in the middle of the road when you're in 1st place going 200, 20 m infront 2nd place man and 30 m from finish line.
They did that to me many times. Man in the middle of the road and just so the F50 will buss skid without me touching the joystick.                    

[shadowstalker]

Argh 25 mc days again   oh wait i forgot to put the music list i will go look for it in a while