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Too much trick out, not enough soup up!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: June 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Let me start by saying that this game had the potential of being the GTA of all street racing games, Unfortunately this potential could not be realized due to some stupid restrictions that EA had to throw in.

The idea of racing though a detailed city environment with un-lockable locations, hidden shops with hidden parts and "out run" races at every turn may sound fun, and it is, for a few hours. Eventually it becomes clear that this game, at least the PC version, suffers form "game progress lock syndrome" this is to say that one can get into a situation in the game were one cant make any progress, its more then just being stuck, in terms of moving though the levels and so on. There are several reasons for this which are as follows:

1.The main reason has to do with the AI. when you start, it seems ok in terms of difficulty, how ever it suddenly becomes almost impossible beat latter on.

2. Performance upgrades are limited and hard to unlock. The limited amount of upgrades available seems to be the main problem with this game in general. To keep up with the competition/AI, which as I said earlier is almost impossible, one must be able to upgrade the performance of his or her car. The lack of performance upgrades available in this game coupled with the difficulty in un-locking them, due to locating hard to find shops as well as tying to win enough races with what performance you have, make the game difficult to play.

3. You cant buy a car, you must unlock a place to put it in your garage. No matter how much money you make, you cannot buy a car, you must unlock it buy completing a bunch of races with sponsors. This, at least as far as Im concerned, destroys the idea of owning your car and satisfaction in how you tricked it out. Also, having the ability to earn the money to go out and buy a really cool ride when ever you want. Here you must first get the sponsor, win the races and get the car or, give up one of your highly tricked out rides to get another car. You won't see a penny of the money you put into the car period.

On top of this, like this games predecessor, there is no damage at all. Nor is there anything to fix on the older cars offered in this game, like the 1985 Toyota corolla. In fact, its shown as if this was the latest model of that car! In fact, the game dose not even give us the years of any of the cars, come on!

Finally. to much trick out. Yes it is cool to put huge subwoofers into your car or a big 21 inch screen in your trunk but, these will not get you to the finish line any faster. Infarct, in really life at least, they add weight to the car. there are some parts in the game were these come in handy, and they are cool, i just with that EA would have put more time into the performance upgrades instead.

In the end, its frustrating to see a game like this go the way it did. it could have been one of the greatest game available if EA had not gotten so wrapped up in the mess of the trick-out culture and put more emphases on buying and tuning

This game suck.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 10
Date: November 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Max Payne like cutscenes + GTA style gameplay = NFS:U2 suck big time. You'll be spending a lot of time cruising the city before getting on the actual race. It's such a drag. I literally fell asleep whileplaying it. I wonder why the developers don't keep the mechanics of the game like the first one. My advice to them: If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Racing in an immersive 3D city.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: June 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Ever wished you could own several high performance "Tuner"
cars and race them on the highway and streets in your city?
Need for Speed Underground 2 is an amazing simulation that starts with the purchase of a stock import and building it to a powerful racer with all of the name brand high performance goodies added as you make a name for yourself earning cash racing on the streets. With what must be thousands of options and performance tweaks your car will be unique.

There is a lot of game play countless tracks winding through a 3D city plus free roaming exploration with solid car physics, spectacular particle effects, it took an adrenaline filled week to play through to the end. This is a single player racing sim that will stay on my computer for a long time.

Er.. Online Play?... Your skill will build a win rating on the EA site and earn unique online upgrades for your car. Complex slow online browser interface, too few opponents on a track at one time. Forced to wait in the online racing "Lobby" at the end of each short race. CD Registration/Email locking with a central server. EA creates a password for your player name and email address + birthdate and gender. Don't lose your password and player name Write it down. lose it and you will need a new CD. If you host a game on your machine make sure you have enough CPU power/RAM EA will make sure you do or block you until reinstall if you don't. NFS Underground 2 is the ninth release in the series. Need for Speed Hot Pusuit 2 (7th) is where you'll see me online.

If you want online play, pass on this

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: April 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The single player racing for this game is good, with decent graphics and good sound effects. However, if you want to race online, forget it. Don't waste your money. I don't know exactly what the problem is, but it is practically impossible to find an another player to race with online. Judging by the number of "help me" message posts on EA's website, many others have the same problem. No one seems to have any answers.

I bought this game to race online, as they advertised, so it's a frustrating waste of $20.00.

Overpriced, more show than go....

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 10
Date: February 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Yet another console game crammed into a PC format. This is the only racing game that you can spend more time in the menu than actually racing. I can see spending time on a car's setup to improve it's simulated handling, but goofing around picking out roof scoops, side mirrors, spinning hubcaps, under-car neon, trunk audio etc. is just plain silly. Otherwise, it's a fun game with challenging races. If you're the chrome muffler tip, rear wing sporting, cel phone talking type then you will probably love this game. If you're a racing fanatic, you will probably be disappointed. If you're somewhere in between, wait until the price drops.

kindergarten driving

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 9
Date: December 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Actually - "spending a lot of time cruising the city before getting on the actual race." is not so bad. You just have to figure out how to use GPS to eliminate needless cruising. The actual race really sucks. The same "kindergarten driving" we used to drive in previus versions of NFS. No matter how many accidents you've made just keep mantain your speed and you'll be first. Graphics are pretty good thou. All of the races except drag race are ridiculously simple and in the same time you could spend whole night just to win one of the drag races. It seems a little bit inconsistent with whole idea of this game. In drag race you rely mostly on your luck instead of skill. I mean you should avoid bumping into incoming cars to avoid become totaled (after that race is over). When you use oxygen to boost speed (the only chance to win the drag race) the steering wheel seems to be unresponsive and it means you 100% dead because of numerous obstacles you should avoid during this time. So you have either lose the race because of crash or lose it because of insufficient speed. In the same time all others races as simple as "the french fries", you can complete them in five min with no competition at all, just keep it floored. Another fact - It's absolutely no matter for your car, in terms of handling, what speed it got when you trying to make a sharp turn. It could be 20 miles per hour or 150 if you don't use brakes you will bump into some wall anyway. Something wrong with AI.

Better Graphics

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 6
Date: December 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Than PlayStation 2, Nice price, Very customizied controller, But wait! you must have a high quality Video Card, I have MSI 9700 256 MB and no use, looks like the game graphics is bad not video card.

Any way better than PlayStation 2.

Best race game ever

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: December 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

First off, the PC version with a decent system simply blows XBox and PS2 away, there simply is no comparism in graphics and gameplay.

Second, I see alot of posts talking about this game in the early stages (Miata, Supra, Hyundai etc). This game has to be PLAYED to be appreciated. Ive played it for weeks, have unlocked ALL parts, ALL cars, and am only about 60% completed with the game, and thats playing every day, and winning very well. The top end cars (Skyline, 350z, WRX, Mustang GT) are absolutely exhilerating. The gameplay makes every car stand out in different ways. Have a front wheel drive car? Its going to COMPLETELY handle different than a rear wheel drive counterpart. Have great handling but no power? You will own on tight courses. Etc etc. Again Ive been playing this for about 3 weeks and its still my favorite game and Ive unlocked all parts and cars.

Its nice that you can customize the looks (or even add different spinner or hydraulics) to your car in a million ways (literally) but the real shine of this game is the racing. Its awesome, its a challenge, and ITS REPLAYABLE (umm I have only picked about 8 cars throughout the game and there are like 30 to choose from)

Stop reading these silly pros n cons, if you have a PC with decent vid card (high end ATI or NVidia), you will no way be dissapointed and you will put the Xbox and PS2 versions to shame.

Truly a superb game if you like racing. BUY IT

For better and for worse

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: March 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I must admit, I'm quite fond of both the NFS:U games and the second in the series proves a worthy if somewhat fluffy sucessor.

The basic formula is unchanged: you buy, trick-out and race high performance cars through the moonlit streets of a thriving metropolis. The most notable difference in NFSU:2 is the wide-open city that spraws beneath your wheels. Some have said this aspect serves to distract from the flow of the game, but for the most part, I find it to be a welcome and generally enjoyable addition. To me, the racing engine in this game is nice enough to make cross-town trips less of a chore; not to mention the scenery is pretty nice.

Another flaw (though it depends how you look at it) in the new design is that rather than having tracks built to look like a city (as in NFS:U1) you have a city with built-in tracks. Most oof the races in the game will put you in a closed-off section of the city. While this is nice for continuity, the "real-life" streets of Bayview are at times somewhat less enjoyable to race on that the specifically-designed city tracks of the original game. The excess of sharp corners and the like are a contrast to the more race-friendly tracks of NFS:U1.

This brings us to the next aspect, the cars. NFSU:2 features a metric buttload of machines for your tuning enjoyment, including most of the cars that were in the original. I've found that the "power bar" rating system is somewhat misleading, and recomend that you test out cars in Quick Race to really get a feel for their performance. The rating system seems to be pretty static in nature, not accounting for a car's weight and size. The physics engine in the game, however, does. Meaning cars with identical ratings may often perform entirely diffrent from one another.

The only lingering disappointment with NFSU:2 is that while there are ALOT more customization options, many of them are firmly geared towards the flashy tuner style. While this is great for fans of flashy tuner cars, it leaves the more conventional players wishing they could find more than one style of spoiler that they like. With as much as the game offers, there's really no excuse for such a lack of variety.

The AI is competent, if somewhat less adept than that which was featured in the original game. There is a slight void between "too easy" and "almost impossible" which leads to a bit less geniune intensity in the competition, and a bit more "how the heck did he suddenly pass me and get 5 seconds ahead?!".

I think that's a long enough review. For all its flaws, if you liked the first and/or like racing game in general, NFSU:2 is still definitely worth a play.

Nothing like the first one!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I thought it'd just be more of the first one, but it's very different. You have added race tracks, and small dirt tracks. You also have SUV races, but only visible when driving an SUV.
The physics are more realistic than the first one, but the overall graphics are a small notch down. It's well worth playing if you like racing games. I do wish there was a little bit more added realism.

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