Street Racer Underground

For a brief moment in the early-2000s, it felt like everything was going underground. It may have started with Metal of Honor at the turn of the century, but this trend quickly spread to both Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Need for Speed. And then, just as quickly as it started, the trend was gone, replaced by Hot Pursuits in the American Wasteland. If you're one of those people who is nostalgic for the underground scene of twenty years ago, then you should check out Street Racer Underground from Slovakian developer Inlogic Games. Or maybe you shouldn't, because this pitiful attempt at an infinite runner is so simple and so repetitive, that it wouldn't even pass as a mini-game from 2004, let alone a brand-new standalone product.

The first thing you need to know about Street Racer Underground is that there isn't a whole to the game. It's a street racing game without any racing and only one street. The goal is to drive as far as possible before time runs out, which also means dodging the traffic and picking up nitro. We only start with 35 seconds, but will extend the time by driving through the various checkpoints. And when the timer finally ticks down to zero, we'll earn a grip of cash that can be spent buying and upgrading the different cars.

There's a way to make the game I just described fun and exciting, but it's painfully clear that the developers of Street Racer Underground weren't able to crack that nut. This is a game where all we need to do is steer left and right, automatically switching between the highway's five lanes. We don't even have to press the gas pedal; the game is always on cruise control. All we need to do is swerve around traffic and fill up the boost gauge.

While not especially unique to the racing genre, filling that boost gauge is probably the most interesting thing about Street Racer Underground. You do that by performing near misses, which means steering away from the traffic at the very last second. Like I said, this isn't unique, but getting the timing down is at least something. It's not much, but at least there's a learning curve, especially when the game adds more traffic.

And that's where we're at with Street Racer Underground. There's so little to talk about here that I spent time explaining how to fill up the boost gauge. And it's not for a lack of effort, because I'm trying my hardest to think of something to say. I could bring up that there are race events to go with the usual endless mode, but there are only four of them. And they last about 40 seconds. And you can easily win every one of them by simply buying a faster car. See my problem?

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This is a game defined more by what it doesn't have than anything else. For example, it doesn't have any turns. You're always driving on the straightest straight stretch you've ever seen. It also doesn't have levels, but rather one stage that is repeated every single time you play. It's always the same buildings, the same cars, the same checkpoints, the same time of the night, the same everything. Every single time. I spent the entire game foolishly thinking that there must be more content if I beat the four races. Surely there must be more to this game than a single stage with nothing to do, right? Nope, this one stretch of road is the entire game.

Don't get me wrong, I realize that the infinite runner genre is known for paper-thin games, but this is lacking even by those standards. It also feels ancient without simple things like an online leaderboard and optional objectives. And is it even worth mentioning that the graphics are dark and ugly? They are also repetitive, and not just because we're stuck in this one stage. The cars and buildings along the side will repeat so often that it feels like we're stuck in a hamster wheel. These games only last a couple minutes, so what's the excuse? The developers couldn't construct enough interesting material to fill 120 seconds? I can't imagine anybody being satisfied with what they get in Street Racer Underground.