Need for Speed – Underground for the Game Boy Advance is a racing game that captures the underground racing scene from its console counterparts. Players engage in various race types, earning currency for vehicle upgrades. Featuring fourteen licensed cars from manufacturers like Ford and Toyota, players can customize their vehicles with diverse options. The game includes traditional races, Drag challenges, and Drift competitions, encouraging players to enhance both performance and aesthetics.
Need for Speed Underground for the GBA is based upon the same gritty dark-side-of-racing design released on the consoles. Here, players have the opportunity to challenge racers to different styles of driving in order to earn coin that can be spent on upgrades; the GBA game features a garage of fourteen different licensed vehicles from Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Acura, and each of these cars can be customized with paint, bumpers, decals, rims, ground effects, and more. The further into the Underground you go, the more extras you can unlock in order to create the most tricked out road machine the streets have ever seen. Most of the races are the traditional kind, with players racing against as many as three other opponents in the competition. There are also Drag challenges where racers will have to blast their way down a stretch of road, and Drift challenges where players score points by powersliding around the curves. Every win awards a dollar amount which can be converted into extras for the vehicle...either for performance or cosmetic purposes.