Street Racing Syndicate

Found myself having fun with this despite some short comings. Very far from the Need For Speed's from the same time but still solid in itself. Pros: Handling is solid enough that you won't be frustrated (although it is a little light for my tastes) Customisation does a fair amount to the point it feels worth it The environment is well done and looks fairly pretty. Races can be interesting and varied takng place at both day and night. Cons: The game can be a bit stingy with respect awarded for performing certain actions, such as some drifts not being drifty enough to be worthy of points or not letting you build a combo from gaining a position. Daytime races can be ruined by the insane sun glare, at points it practically makes certain obstacles impossible to see. Customisation isn't too fun as there isn't much variation for you to do. Races can feel too easy as the AI either drive really slow or don't level with you.

Street Racing Syndicate is like a higher-budget version of NFS: Underground 2, yet somehow much worse. Instead of a PowerPoint presentation in NFS:U2, we actually get videos to enjoy. But everything racing related is subpar. The world map is small and largely uninteresting, with too many roads you can't escape - ones that once you get on you have a while to wait for an exit. Points of interest don't show up in the in-game map, yet show up in a map you have to pause the game to view. So driving around, I constantly had to pause gameplay to search whether I was in the right direction. The game does offer a workaround, but a weird one for a racing game - you can instantly teleport into every race and challenge, no driving required. If you still want to drive around the map, you can, but for a street racing game, the map is fairly small and empty of cars. Most of the time you'll encounter cop cars, which will start chasing you around, and try to block your way. Cop cars are very hard to shake off, and them catching up to you only nets you a small fine, so it's better to just give up and get a fine than try to outrun them, damage your car, and get a fine. You can tune your car for better performance, but you don't need a lot of money or car knowledge in order to get a good enough car to win almost every time. Partly because the game only allows your opponents to pass you in specific areas of every track, and partly because hitting a wall and spinning always ends with your car pointing in the right direction. So being overtaken isn't the end of a race. There are collectibles of sorts, and a set number of challenges to complete for 100%, but you can race in the same tracks over and over again and it still counts towards 100%, and challenges seem built around hooking up with random women, and unlocking videos of them dancing to bad music. For a street racing game, races feel too much as if they take place in a race track - lots of 90 degree turns and uninspired loops.

Awesome street racing game, despite feeling cheap at the start. It won't explain you all the mechanics but they are pretty satisfying when you discover them and try to master. If you want to max out all races with respect points it's really hard but if you just want some chill, unlocking cars, girlfriends and their clips it's very easy and not really that much grindy. Cars handle surprisingly realistic! It's definitely not Flatout with nitroing on the corners and overpowered RWD vechicles are really hard to drive. Tuning really matters and it's not only about maxing out all the stats. It's really nice you mostly drive very down-to-earth cars there, not supercars you could probably never afford in real life. Huge + for ability to start with Toyota Celica. :) Technically game runs pretty fine on modern pc, however I have a feeling of some strange input lag on menus. Enter seems to work sometimes and sometimes not. Definitely not a big deal, doesn't affect steering during races. Graphically nothing special, probably worse than most games from that era but atmosphere of early 2000' is just awesome. Game from real men for real men. :) Hard to believe it's that cheap though! Even without any promo. I could price it few times higher and it still would be worth it.

Great race game and great underground stile

this game screams NFS Underground 2 clone but with hot ladies! everything in the game is subpar to NFS UG2 however, handling is overly snappy no sense of speed, easy to go flying on bumps and Nos only regens outside of races. oo yeah theres also "Cops"