only to be woken up by Samantha (Cindy Johnson) from his daydreaming. The player starts straight into the action, at a circuit race driving a uniquely styled Acura Integra Type R with a Mantis wide body kit, easily winning over his opponents. Underground was commercially successful, and was followed by Need for Speed: Underground 2 in 2004. Rather than exotic cars, Underground featured vehicles associated with the import scene. All races take place in a generic city at night called Olympic City, though the city bears some resemblance to New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles. It was the first game in the series to offer a career mode featuring a storyline, and a garage mode that allowed players to fully customize their cars with a large variety of brand-name performance and visual upgrades.
Underground rebooted the franchise, ignoring the previous Need for Speed games which featured sports cars and exotics. Two different games were produced, one for consoles and Windows, and the other for the Game Boy Advance. Need for Speed: Underground is the seventh installment in the Need for Speed series, and was developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts in 2003.
