Need for Speed Underground (PS2, Sept. 2003 Beta)

This is a "quick" overview of the late beta of Need for Speed Underground, dated just over two months from release. As such, I won't go into too much depth with every single difference, but I will show a few things of interest while making general observations. If you would like to have a more comprehensive look at this game and the development, I would recommend you check out GrandTheftAero's video on this game, which I'll link lower down here.

This build shows that EA Black Box were essentially wrapping up production and applying finishing touches to their product. Most of what you will find in normal gameplay here is almost the same as the retail version of this game. All the expected cars are featured here, and most (to my knowledge) of the races are the same. I find it interesting that the Skyline featured in the main menu is completely stock, rather than showing Eddie's Skyline. This does change if you start Underground Mode, and then it swaps the car to your career car, the same way it does in the retail build.

The most interesting thing here, I think, are the audio files that haven't been updated yet. I imagine when this build was dated, the audio team were likely still in the process of recording and producing the voice clips from the new set of actors. I'm not too sure who the old actors are, but I'd wager they were just interns or the devs who recorded themselves to get placeholder audio. Interestingly, Dirt still kept the same actor through to the retail version. It's interesting to hear the Drift Prompts mentioning speed zones, drift gates, etc. Sounds like drift mode could've been a bit more than a manji drift simulator, but I suppose this was a relatively new thing and overcomplicating it wouldn't have been a good idea.

As for cutscenes, they're pretty terrible looking. I mean, sure, they are work in progress, but the final cutscenes were just as terrible. I can see why Underground 2 used artwork, and MW onwards used real actors. These animations suck pretty badly, honestly. The audio I found of the old opening cutscene (I think) is pretty interesting. While it is just a series of stock sounds slapped together, it does indicate some police presence at some point (which is already known). The original fantasy storyboard I found is cool to see, as we're able to see how some characters were originally envisioned. Samantha here looks way better than the skeleton they used in the final. I suppose Eddie could have possibly drove a Supra at some point? Possibly, I suppose they could've changed it seeing as 2 Fast 2 Furious had released and having an... "iconic" Skyline for a game would've made sense.

As for designs, body parts and such. They're all here, albeit the Impreza and MX-5 missing some stuff, so it seems modifications were an early finish. Vinyls, not so much. A bunch of new Wild and Tribal vinyls are found in the retail than here and a bunch of Uniques were redesigned. I'm a little mad the green Unique vinyl I used on the Lancer and Supra is absent in the retail, but it was replaced by a better unique. I'm not sure what the deal with the Paint Parts menu does, aside from possibly having options to paint rims, engine accenting, mufflers, etc. The menu design is very old, and is likely how the front end menus would've been like, although if they kept with that UI style, it would've been polished up a bit and I'd guess it'd end up looking similar to Hot Pursuit 2, though this is all just theoretical stuff, so it doesn't really matter. I'm not quite sure if there are other cars with part bugs like the Impreza and MX-5, since I didn't check them all, but this was never meant to be really in depth. I did notice the Golf GTI and Peugeot 206 were right hand drive in this build. I'm sure that's interesting to someone? No? Just me? Okay then.

Links:
GrandTheftAero's video on the development of Underground:
   • NFS: Underground - All Removed Conten...  
All Voice Clips:
   • [unlisted] NFS Underground Beta Voice...  
02_FAN:
   • [unlisted] 02_FAN Storyboard  

Timestamps:
0:00 - 1:36 Starting up
1:37 - 3:47 First Race
3:48 - 5:10 Drag and Vehicle Damage
5:11 - 6:20 Drift
6:21 - 8:09 Tournament (Quick Race)
8:10 - 12:24 Split Screen Races
12:25 - 13:23 Time Trial Races
13:24 - 15:41 Final Race
15:42 - 20:34 Debug Menu and Cameras
20:35 - 29:14 Beta Cutscenes and FMVs
29:15 - 30:26 Cut Drag Tutorial Audio
30:27 - 31:59 Cut Drift Tutorial Audio
32:00 - 33:13 Cut Car Unlocked Audio
33:14 - 33:53 Cut Menu Description Audio
33:54 - 34:40 Beta José
34:41 - 35:12 Beta Klutch
35:13 - 35:42 Beta Kurt
35:43 - 36:05 Beta Chad
36:06 - 36:50 Beta TJ
36:51 - 37:25 Beta Todd
37:26 - 43:18 Customisation and Beta Vinyl Overview
43:19 - 43:55 Eddie's Beta Vinyl
43:56 - 47:34 Rest of the Vinyls
47:35 - 50:00 Misc / Incomplete Cars

i swear i'll finish gex 3 videos next!
ads are not mine, i'm just too lazy to mute the audio and got ID'd oh well