Compacting the superlative Need for Speed Underground 2 from console format to portable, EA's Nintendo DS version of the game is notably less dazzling than its home display brethren.

Visually and audibly, it features mostly banal graphics with chainsaw engine sounds. Too, the game's digital steering mechanism is a serious downgrade from the analog control found on consoles.

It's not all bad, however, because it is Need for Speed to go at heart, familiar yet fresh. On top of multiple play modes and bonus mini games keeping it varied, it's got that underground street racing subculture thing down pat, as you'd expect, complete with a big mix of pimpable and tweakable cars; modest to exotic and many models in between.

Each track's stats and navigation map have the whole bottom screen to themselves, which can also be used as big, fat, nitro boosting thumb-smash buttons, leaving the top screen racing uncluttered. And, odds are, you'll know someone else who bought the cartridge, so two to four of you can have a good go at its solid wireless multiplayer racing in the quiet comfort of math class.