It's worth a shot.
User Rating: 8.5 | Street Racing Syndicate PS2
While most people pledge their allegiance to EA, I must say that SRS is got a lot going for it that makes it have more appeal than NFS:U in a lot of aspects. Personally I like the game, but there are those who are too stingy and bash it for all it's worth. It really is sad as the game does make you feel a part of the illegal art form know as street racing. Many people will just past this up, but I feel that everybody should give this game a shot. You might be more surprised than you think. While it's not NFS:U, this game does hold up on it's own, and is a little more fun than NFS:U is some areas. Visually this game is pretty nice, but it's not the greatest. Personally when I was playing it, if felt like I was playing R-Racing Evolution. While some of the effects really stand out there and make you appealed to it, others don't stand out as much, and you eventually just ignore them. Frame rate wise this game trucks along at a steady frame rate, hardly slowing down at all. While it may not have the blur effects all the time like NFS:U, it does have them during the NOS sequences which is a added bonus. The car models are detailed, but not as detailed as NFS:U. Still they're better than most games. Game play wise this game is pretty much like NFS:U. In short it's easy and fast. However, there are no difficultly settings other than not having car up to speed with other racers. Speaking of which, you can't enter most races unless you have certain amount of money and upgrades on your car. While this adds more replay value into the game, there are certain racers that you need to race for extra money who won't even blink an eye at you unless you have the amount they're looking for to wager. In short if you don't have money to race a series race, then you don't have enough to race a single race to gain some more. You do feel like you're playing Midnight Club as you drive around the city looking for races and what not, and outrunning the cops can be fun every now and then. Handing of the cars is pretty good, and the controls are nice. They're pretty much if not exactly the same as NFS:U in setup. The girlfriend impression races are pretty fun, but pretty simple too. The car collection is only to 50 cars, but that's okay considering most are cars that people love. Upgrading them is a little more detailed than NFS:U in some aspects, but are also a short coming in others. Mainly because you don't have a huge selection of brands to choose from. However you can tune your car just right in this one while in NFS:U you just bough parts for the name. So it might end up being a love/hate relationship for some racing enthusiasts. Overall the racing aspects make you feel like you're playing something closer to Midnight Club than NFS:U. Sound wise the game gets down all the major sounds that NFS:U did. The car sounds are pretty abundant, and sound true to their real life counterpart. The voice acting can get a little unnerving at times, but you can easily ignore it. The music while has some good tracks, don't have enough that are truly memorable. At least they didn't whore out almost every single track to be devoted the game like EA did. That alone was a major gripe for me with I played NFS:U. I want cool tracks, not tracks about your damn game. Sadly SRS's music is just not that memorable, but could have been if they explored the back catalogs a little more. Overall I found this game to be better than NFS:U in some aspects, and not in others. Personally I think it's a fun game, and anybody who disses it, is just an EA fan pissy that this can't compare to the Al' Mighty NFS:U. It's not supposed to. It's supposed to be it's own genre in street racing, and it did just that. This game I feel is worth the time, and worth the bucks for any car enthusiast. Rent or Buy: I would rent, but in the end buy when the price drops since it lacks in some areas (cars and music mainly). Other than that the game is very nice and is more like Midnight Club compared to NFS:U.
