The Need for Speed series makes its way to the PSP in Need for Speed: Underground Rivals. The cars look pretty good from a distance, such as when racing. However, when looking at your car close-up in the garage, you may notice that the models aren’t as good as the PS2 version.

Speaking of cars, you get to play with 20 tuner cars, including a Mazda Miata, Volkswagen Golf GTI 2.0L, Ford Focus ZX3, Dodge Neon, Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec V, Toyota Celica GT-S, Mazda Roadster, Mazda RX-7, Mazda RX-8, and others. You not only get to race in these cars, you also get to modify them. Pimp them up or dress them down. It’s up to you. You can upgrade their performance or their looks.

The environments in Need for Speed: Underground Rivals are very nicely done. Each track has its own personality with shortcuts and specific challenges, and when they’re wet, the streets have a very nice reflective effect. Another nice effect is the visual blur and warp effect when using nitrous. You really get a sense of speed when you use your nitrous boost.

The sound effects in Need for Speed: Underground Rivals are pretty good, from the squeal of the tires to the blow-off valves hissing when you shift gears. Mind you, unless you change the sound settings from the default, these all take a backseat to the soundtrack.

The music in Need for Speed: Underground Rivals is served up via the pocket-sized version of EA’s TRAX music visualization player, EA Pocket TRAX. You can listen while in-game and watch the visualizations in the Pocket TRAX player (available via the main menu). Songs include: “I Need Speed” by Capone, “I am Weightless” by Septembre, “The Death & Resurrection Show” by Killing Joke, “Crashing Foreign Cars” by Helmet, “LAX” by Xzibit, “Lean Back” by Terror Squad featuring Fat Joe, “No W” by Ministry, “The Celebration Song” by Unwritten Law, “I Do” by Chingy, “Nothing but You” (Cirrus Remix) by Paul Van Dyk, “E-Ville” by Sonic Animation, “Riders on the Storm” (Fredwreck Remix) by Snoop Dogg featuring The Doors, “In My Need” by Queens Of The Stone Age, “Determined” by Mudvayne, “Breeding Insanity” by No Warning, and “Any Minute Now” by Soulwax.

The general idea is fairly simple: you want to drive faster than the other cars and, ultimately, be the first to cross the finish line. Other skills that help contribute to your success include finding the proper driving line in the curves, proper braking techniques, nitrous management, strategy, and not smacking into cross traffic in the intersections (especially that one about the cross traffic, ARGH!).

In addition to the typical racing fare, you also get to modify and “tweak” your car as you progress, upgrading both its looks and its performance. Bear in mind that while tripping your car out with the latest rims, window tints, and decals may give your ride more personality, you need to keep winning to make the money to keep modifying your car. That means it’s a good idea to also upgrade your performance.

There are several modes of play to choose from. For a quick game, there’s Quick Play Battle, Head to Head, Party Play, and Race Now. When working on your “career” in Circuit Race mode, you can play several types of races, including Circuit Races, Drift Attack Events, Nitrous Runs, and Drag Races. The Drift Attack events, which have almost nothing to do with “racing,” are all about being able to control your car at that point just between being in-control and being out-of-control.

Need for Speed: Underground Rivals has shortcuts in certain areas that are hidden by a destructible section of wall, such as a fence or a garage door. Using these shortcuts can shave a little bit of time off of your overall time, which may just be what you need to get you past that other car and into first place.

The competition in Need for Speed: Underground Rivals can be pretty stiff at times. You need to upgrade your ride wisely, early, and often to keep the playing field even or in your favor. Even with reasonable upgrades, you’ll find that some of the racers are far more challenging competition than others. Work on perfecting your line around the track, using your nitrous wisely and, above all, avoiding traffic and roadblocks. Collisions with other racers (typically) occur in the same direction and at high speeds. These won’t penalize you too much. Smacking headlong into an oncoming van has a much greater impact on your time.

One bit of advice: although your nitrous meter is green at the beginning of the game, you do not, in fact, have any nitrous. That dark green color is the color of the meter when it’s empty. Later, when you purchase nitrous upgrades, you can see that you have a light green area in the meter. I say this because I played under the assumption that nitrous simply didn’t do anything or that my button wasn’t working until I first started buying upgrades and saw this change occur in the meter.

It’s been my experience that, amazingly, PSP games look almost as good as PS2 games. I was a bit surprised to find that the vehicle models in Need for Speed: Underground Rivals seemed to fall a little short of my expectations. It’s not to the point of being distracting, by any means, but rather is simply something I noticed.

EA’s Pocket TRAX Music Visualization Player is an interesting little feature, but I don’t really see that as being wildly popular or widely used. If you want to use your PSP to play music, you’ll more likely prefer to load your own songs onto your Memory Stick DUO and play them through those, rather than listen to just the selections available in Need for Speed: Underground Rivals. But if you have the desire, it’s available.

I found that, overall, the difficulty caused Need for Speed: Underground Rivals to be somewhat frustrating, partly due to stiff competition and partly due to the oh-so-aggravating cross traffic in the middle of the races. (Play a bit of it and you’ll see what I mean.) If you’re looking for a Need for Speed fix on-the-go, then you should pick up Need for Speed: Underground Rivals. Just be ready to have to practice a bit to make progress.