Buy Need for Speed Collectors Series - Includes Underground 1, 2

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This is a great idea. Too bad it doesn't really pan out all that well. I honestly don't know when the PC collector's series was released; Amazon's telling me that it first showed up here in 2010, and IGN is saying that it showed up on the PS2 in late '06. But given that it is here, being sold, and I got my copy new, I am inclined to judge it by 2010 standards.

So, on Windows 7, NFS Underground 2 is a nightmare to get running consistently. Most Wanted runs fine, and as another reviewer has already pointed out, Most Wanted and Underground [1] cannot be installed simultaneously. I figured a little technical know-how and browsing the Underground CD for a setup executable manually would work -no, it doesn't. Even the setup (not autorun) redirects to an Underground launch screen with the option being "Play", not "Install". I just got Most Wanted up and running in widescreen format (you can use a tool called UniWS set for modifying NFS Underground 2 with a few tweaks, Google it, to get any custom resolution working. It doesn't look too sharp, but it's better than having half your screen real estate wasted with black bars and the aspect ratio works) and I don't want to undo that. So Underground 1 may or may not work very well, but 2 doesn't, and Most Wanted is fine, but the fact that they can't be installed alongside should have been rectified somehow. I realize that would involve patching some stuff, and I imagine that would be a nightmare, but this would be bad enough to discover if you had them from separate sources, but come on, selling them together? Lame.

For Underground 2, you can scratch your head 'til your hair falls out and you may get it running, but it's a race against the clock until you're desperately frustrated. What happens is this: it freezes during loading (and by that I mean it just seems to load forever, or I guess possibly longer than 20 minutes). You have to minimize and Task Manager-forcequit it and try again. What makes this most frustrating is that there is no perceivable pattern. None whatsoever. There are things you can do to decrease the likelihood of crashes, and I will list them below, but on Win7, this still gets it down to around a 10% loadscreen-to-crash ratio, and given that every event involves a loadscreen, both beginning and end... yeah. Very frustrating.

Should you wish to try on Win7, here is the list of things that I found to each decrease likelihood of load hangups:

Stop using an analog controller (this is a big one, it helped a bunch)

Delete or rename the MOVIES folder inside the NFSU2 install dir

Set SPEED2.exe to run in Compatibility mode for WinXP SP2

Set SPEED2.exe to disable visual themes

Run SPEED2.exe as administrator (there is a toggle for this on the Compatibility tab)

Set SPEED2.exe to only use CPU core 0 (Task Manager > SPEED2.exe > right-click > "Affinity" > uncheck all but 'CPU 0'

I'm a patient guy. And I freaking love U2. Honestly, this was too much for me.

Also, the "DVD" tag here is misleading; both Underground 1 and 2 come on two (2) CDs and Most Wanted comes on a DVD. Dumb. Especially considering the packaging; one CD gets put in the DVD box and the other is put in a sleeve behind the instruction manual. Wat. For random further reference, these are the UK editions of the games.

I'm inclined to gripe that it doesn't include Carbon, because for all intents and purposes it fits right into this vein of racing game history heck, it even used the same engine. I bought that separately though.

Bottom line? I recommend buying just Most Wanted. It was awesome, and runs fairly well (although I would wish the framerates would stay at 60+ consistently these days, there is a very slight sinewave of framerates that ends up going on on modern cards, see for yourself -not a big deal but kinda wonky). For the other 2, find 'em for the Xbox or PS2. They play better over there. 2 stars, under the assumption that this was released in 2010. Tsk tsk.

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I bought them cause im deployed, i miss driving and am to cheap to buy a game system. I enjoyed every minute i could play these games and they kept me sane!

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Like one reviewer has stated already you can't have all 3 games installed at once. You can have nfsu 1+2 or most wanted with one of the nfsu's but thats it. A tad annoying yes. Im just writing this for all those pissed off people out there that are thinking their cd/dvd is malfunctioning or they received a defective disk. Someone here has offered a work around through windows which allows you to have all 3 installed but i'd rather not have to mess with windows settings to FORCE an install to work. Besides your probably gonna uninstall nfsu 1+2 when your done with them anyway right? Happy gaming and good luck

Honest reviews on Need for Speed Collectors Series - Includes Underground 1, 2

Being that these 3 were the only NFS games I was missing for PC it worked great. The price for the bundle is far less than that of all 3 bought alone.

Despite being old NFS games (clearly), they still run near flawlessly. On Windows 7 using a Logitech G27 Wheel it runs exactly as I would expect ~10 year old games to run. They look old, don't run in the standard resolutions, have some compatibility issues (little iffy with the G27 buttons, but still works), but nothing serious. Most people will likely be buying these for nostalgia or collection, but those buying them to play them should know how to get them working just fine.

There is a small issue attempting to install them all at once on a single Machine, but it is resolved with little issue. When installing Most Wanted or Underground 1 with one already installed the auto-play will attempt to play which ever is already installed instead of installing the desired one. A small temporary Registry Edit will solve this and there will be no issues from there on out. The fix can be found with a quick Google search, or at

As mentioned in another review, it's not a "DVD" set, instead it is Underground (1 & 2) on 2 CDs each and Most Wanted on 1 DVD, but that's hardly an issue. It just means an extra step during installation, and possibly slightly misleading title if the buyer is picky.

For the price the small issue of installing is worth having these classics in your collection.

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You can install all at the same time people, when you install undergroud first or Most wanted first, or vice versa just change one of the speed.exe's name to like speed3.exe just by renaming then you can install all three of them :)

I have not encountered any problems running these games on Windows 7 64bit, using a GTX 570