Need for Speed Underground 2

Mother must not have told the stunningly hot brunette never to play with traffic. It’s beyond midnight as she strolls to the middle of a dim lit street tucked away in a sleeping city. Arms raised she summons the roaring beasts that await her signal. She drops to the asphalt, green lighting four turbo charged monsters ready to rocket deep into the living breathing winding roads of BayView. Welcome to Need for Speed Underground 2.

Underground 2 - the younger brother to EA’s previous forage into underground tuner culture which was wildly ambitious, cohesive, and the most successfully selling video game of 2003 – takes the series to unparalleled depths. Set in a massive city, the geography covers hundreds of square miles littered with friendly traffic, real world advertising, car lots, car shops, and even a fully functional highway grid. The various distinct neighborhoods represent true to life shopping districts, industrial zones, a city center, and winding roads of the country surrounded by natures blanket. The load-free streaming world of Bayview is a technical achievement worthy of praise and the artistic style is equally ambitious. If players were able to step out of their car they may discover some less than impressive scenes, but the visual trickery and Hollywood visual effects fused with the fine tuned driving mechanics create engaging and believable graphics that are a blessing to witness time and time again. Even without a single ray of daylight, Electronic Arts somehow managed to pull off a beautifully atmospheric city landscape with some nightlife and impressive dreamscape dusky skies. It should be mentioned that the occasional closed-circuit racetracks can leave you desiring more and the intrusive advertising may deter drivers in the wrong direction, but Underground’s style – and it has this in spades – outweighs any visual shortcomings.

Underground 2 is as fun to play as it is to watch. Brooke Burke welcomes you to the tuner scene the minute your off the plane and she will lend her car so you can drive by and get your own wheels. Once you trade in her custom shiny Nissan for your own shoebox on wheels you are free to do what you please, instant freedom rocks by the way. The feeling of being lost and not knowing what to do quickly subsides to video-game europhia as you aimlessly criss-cross city streets and highways, even when you receive your first challenge the choice is still yours to freely drive around in circles. However, certain key neighborhoods need to be unlocked so you’ll need to search for challenges, explore the city skeleton, get distracted by advertisements, and eventually blow your mind reaching break neck speeds once you find your way onto the expansive highway system.

Racing has never felt as engaging as it does with Underground 2, and the design of the environments only heighten your sense of speed. There are highways, bridges, tunnels, dirt roads, and lively architecture that all come together quite impressively on screen. Players will race in circuit, drag, and drift events and each is as exciting and diverse as the next. Events may take place on the street or on closed-circuits, for example Drag events may be in a stadium or play out on steep winding hills. If you want to get the most juice out of this game you need to drive standard and play on Hard, for this game will school your ass like never before. Literally. This game will school you, educating you how best to explore the world and navigate through its tricky landscapes. If you don’t crave the incredible learning experience and want only to rush through the streets against your buddies that is wise decision too, which brings me to multiplayer. This is where the fun lies but to unlock all the cars and tracks you’ll need to finish a significant amount of the career mode. The splitscreen works like a charm and a surprisingly large amount of race track is open during two player. Dream on if you think you’ll have the freedom of the single player “Go Anywhere” freedom, but there are a number of tracks that span multiple neighborhoods, there is even one circuit that crosses all five.

The options to customize your cars performance and visual look seem endless and voicing your self expression into your car has never been this easy and accessible. Scattered throughout Bayview are a number of car shops that tune your vehicles performance and look, as well as a test track (but more on that later). The performance shops offer upgrades to parts like engine, tires, suspension, nitrous boost as well as other aspects. Various visual shops sell upgrades to your cars shell such as vinyl, skirt packages, hydraulics, window tints, and neon lights to name just a few. Each section unfolds to offer different styles and colours of skirt packages or neon lights and the vinyl section can make your car stand out with just minutes of experimentation. That’s what its really all about when it comes down to tuning your car – experimentation, and putting the extra effort into crafting your ride to represent who you are is gratifying as it is visually appealing.

You’ll gain respect and Benjamin’s as you conquer the underground which unlocks new neighborhoods, upgrades, and cars. The thirty cars range from a sexy mini Peugeot, to a bulky yet powerful Escalade, to the rice rocketing Honda civic. The choice is yours on where you put your money, be it looks or under the hood, and you can always fine tune your engine and vehicle set-up by visiting the test track. The test track offers dozens of options such as tuning your brake balance, adjusting your suspension, and deciding where to put the power; acceleration or top speed. On top of that there is literally hundreds of other options to test and change, which come in handy when you need to fine tune your ride to cope with different race modes. The knowledge is mind blowing and this is what really took me into the game, its geared towards race veterans but is easy to pick up considering this is my third racing game I’ve ever played. Once you know how and why your car works you’ll begin to notice your driving skills increase and you’ll pay attention to things you never knew existed before. This gives you the extra edge when battling friends in multiplayer too.

Voice-overs by Brooke Burke and other talented actors lend that Hollywood vibe to the comic-style storyboard cinematics which unfold as you make your way through the underground. Engine exhaust, tire squeals, and frantic traffickers all fit in appropriately but are often overshadowed by the games pounding soundtrack. Personally the soundtrack is a little too heavy and frantic but I’d believe it would appeal greatly to the games teenage target audience. Artists like Chingy, Queens of the Stone Age, MudVayne, and an original song from Snoop Dog give the streets a unique tune and gets racers pumped. There’s only a handful of songs I couldn’t stand while cruising the streets so I turned those ones off through the custom EA Trax section, and it should be known the exclusive Snoop Dog song is bitchin’.

Hundreds of miles of artistic nightlife, mixed with the endless customization options to cars that handle as good as they race, give Underground 2 a look and feel that stands out from every other racer. Living cities have been done before, but never this good. EA’s Bayview is truly an incredibly fun sandbox for racers to play in. I’ve tried my hardest to find flaws in this impressive game but to be honest there really isn’t anything that drags this game down. It’s a vehicular success worthy of any racers attention, and it’s a blast to cruise the diverse streets with your friends. If you like fun racers that pack a whole lot of play, get into the Underground now.

And because I got this game for free, I’ll plug EA’s official Need for Speed Underground 2 website right here. Check it out for more information on all versions of the game.