Need For Speed: Underground 2

[Firefly]

Need for Speed: Underground 2
Go where u want. And quick...

NFSU2 is the latest game in the NFS: Underground series. It is a great game, if you like racing.

Thing that are new
You can drive free in a big city which has 200 km road There are also 4 kind of new races: street X, outrun, URL and downhill drift. You also can tune your car into the smallest details.
There are 5 kind of shops you have to discover in the city to unlock parts:
- Carlot: you can change your ride here. But if you trade a car that is upgraded for a new car you will loose all the upgrade. You can have 5 different rides at the same time, so there will be choice enough
- Performance shop: here you can you buy parts to upgrade the speed, acceleration and handling of your car. You can buy the parts in a package with discount or buy the loss from each other if you have not enough money and still want the parts.
- Body shop: here you can buy bumpers, skirts, head- and tail lights, rims and a lot of more stuff. You can also change parts to carbon fiber. It is very expensive, but gives your car a lot of style points.
- Graphic shop: here you can paint your car, put vinyls or decals on it.
- Car specialty shop: here you can buy parts to make your car very cool. You can put neon under it, put woofers in your trunk, give your windows a different tint, give the head lights of your car an other color so your opponents know that you are coming.
There is also a new system called race breaker. When the driver makes a stunt and get points for it, you will regain nitro so you can use more and go faster.

Gameplay – 8/10
The game has a good gameplay. The moves of the car are almost realistic. When you drive to hard into a turn, you probably hit the wall. So you have to slow down. Drive on the ideal line and half the turn give gas to win time and be faster then the others. There is also a stability control in the game. If you turn this off, you will slip faster. You should let it on if you start with the game. When you drive on the dirt or grass, your car will slow down. So always try to drive on the road.

The city is very big and has 5 sections. You will need to unlock by completing a stage. The only bad thing is, when you need to go in 1 or 2 minutes to the other end of the city, there is much more traffic on the road. I get very frustrated by it.

Story – 7/10
The story is been told by the main character, called Rachel. She is a friend of the main character in NFSU1. Rachel has the voice of Brooke Burke. The movies you get have a different style then normal. It look likes the movies in Max Payne. The game is based on an animated comic that you will see in the movies.

Sounds – 8/10
The game has great songs. The most are remixes of old songs. You can control the volume of you engine and tires also.


Controls – 9/10
The controls are easy to handle and have 4 different settings. I like the normal settings from NFSU1.
Here is a short list of the controls:
Steer - Control Stick
Throttle - R-button
Brake/reverse - L-button
Change camera - C-stick up
Look behind you - C-stick down
Handbrake - A-button
Nitro - B-button
Shift up - Y-button
Shift down - X-button
Challenge an opponent - D-pad up
Carrier statistics - D-pad down
SMS system - D-pad right
World map - D-pad left
Reset car - Z-button
Pause - Start/pause – button

Total score – 8/10
This game you should have. It is very good and you are busy with it for a while. There 3 difficulties like in NFSU1. I had a lot of fun with it. At the moment I am playing it for the second time.

+ Explore big city
+ Lots of customization
+Several interesting race types
- The game can crash

[Alex Davies]

What console is this review for.... since the game never crashed for me (on a pc aswell)

[Firefly]

oops, i forget to say it ( it was 4:30 am here when i post it )

It is for the NGC. It crashed by me twice.

One time the sound stuck. The other was last week, when i drived into a garage to change some parts, My game send me to the begin of the game ( that you arrive on the airport with rachels car) Only this time my own car was there. (A shinning yellow peugot 106 )

[Alex Davies]

i might have to find my discs again and complete the POS game for the 3rd time