NFSU is a great game that provides some thrilling albeit frustrating racing. A quick rundown about it is the gameplay is fast and thrilling even though it gets repetetive from a lack of diversity with tracks. The graphics are top notch and they convey an extreme sense of speed which is a must for racing games. Sound is great. Screeching tires meld with a vast library of music to create a very good overall package, and multiplayer (if you can get it to work with a confusing patch) is a great way to keep the game going. However, the game does suffer in a few areas. Namely a very limited amount of tracks that don't even vary from each other in the slightest. You'll find yourself taking the same turns and using the same paths but just in a different order. Sometimes this can be nice because it does help overcome NFSU's other major short coming which is a brutally stupid AI system. Unless you're one of those people that religously plays racing games, and could probably steer a real car around a course quite well you'll be frustrated to a large degree when playing on tougher settings. This is mainly because the AI uses a Catch Up function that basically gives them amazing precision and speed when they're down by a lot. Sadly though, it doesn't appear to work in the same way if you're the one who is down by a lot. Don't expect to have much leeway if you're up by 10 seconds. The AI will close that gap right quick and punish you brutally for getting lazy or colliding with another horribly frustrating mobile obstacle known simply as other traffic. Frequently throughout the game you'll encounter regular people who are just going for a drive on whatever evening you decided to go racing in the streets. These slow moving obstacles can really add to the game at times, namely when you're behind them or about to go into a turn and you must adjust accordingly. Frustratingly enough you won't encounter most of the traffic doing this. Frequently you'll run into them when they pull out in front of you because the game makes use of trigger points to initiate cross traffic to make sure you're always in your toes. Another great trick of these civilian vehicles is to be at the end of your jump. So when the game switches to a slick cinematic camera you'll be forced to cringe as you realize as soon as you land you are going to run into that van. Event like these cuppled with the Catch Up function of the AI can result in some controller throwing fits of rage especially after you've spent a good 5 minutes on a race. Other than the seemingly unnecessary sudden spikes of difficulty this is an extremely excellent game that will provide with many hours of enjoyment, and some fast paced action that gets some adrenaline flowing. The fact that NFSU comes sporting a cheaper price than most retail games out there there's no reason that any car or racing fan should not make this game part of their library.
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