Need for Speed Underground II review

To my aging gamer eyes, the trick to racing on the Playstation 2 is not an exact physics representation, a huge variety of races and cars, or the latest hip soundtrack - it's the ability to SEE what's on the screen. As Burnout 3 fails this in a spectacular manner, I sought other arcade racing entertainment that might provide this crucial criteria. I found it in Need for Speed Underground II, a title that can be had at the lovely price point of 20 bucks.



The evolution of the "Pimp My Ride" style racing is a curious phenomenon, one more suited to a Blather than here - so I'll skip it for the moment. It can't be denied though that back in The Day™, racing consisted mainly of driving licensed cars fast - that's it. At some point Midnight Club and the esteemed Midtown Madness series introduced racing in traffic, a little title known as Burnout introduced spectacular crashes and overdone turbo effects, and popular culture introduced tuning your stock P.O.S. to look like a more plasticized, neon-colored P.O.S. that could growl like the big boys, for 1/10th the cost. Enter EA Games and the sound of opportunity.



I admit I was skeptical and didn't buy into it at first - it took me until the sequel and the universal praise for both NFSU and Midnight Club's 3rd iteration to become slightly curious. If you're into racing and are in the same situation - skeptical but curious - doubt no more. Here's why.



First of all, the driving remains the solid, meaty and firm model that racers will be used to from previous NFS games; no plasticky, twitchy change over to the Burnout or GTA style as was feared by me. Vehicles respond in a very intuitive manner, even if it's a lot harder to spin out of control than a "real" racer. Cars handle differently based on drivetrain type and weight, and tuning palpably increases the performance. This is an arcade racer that can be as deep as a Turismo title, giving you the ability to tinker with many settings - but for casual racers like me, 3 simple bars (Acceleration, Top Speed, Handling) will show you a quick overview of your car's abilities.



My second greatest fear was that the bling-centric gameplay would yield itself to, I don't know, having to have exceedingly poor taste in order to enjoy the game's customisation. I am ashamed to admit that this is true, and it's surprisingly entertaining. There's thousands of possible configurations, and it's strangely satisfying to land a custom piece for your ride through skillful (more on this later) driving.



My final worry was the entire "underground" aspect, and the fact that you have to race at night. As it turns out, it's easier to race in traffic when the traffic has its lights on - you can spot them from farther away and they're more distinct than in say, Burnout. Turns out that a blur (a car) that looks just like any other blur (a wall, a poster, crash barrels) is much easier to see with its lights on....



Some surprises



EA has taken a page from Grand Theft Auto, and put in a real city that you do your business in. While largerly superfluous to enjoying the game, as the races you can run are also available from your main garage headquarters, it adds a neat touch of "Wow, there sure is a lot to do" to the game. When you open up your world map and note all the hotspots where you can race, or receive a phone call about some "action" going down in a certain area (unmarked races which can yield extra cash), or challenge another driver to an Outrun style race, the city seems a neat idea.



Unfortunately when you have to make it to a special event at the other side of the city with no real excitement on the way there, or you have to find one of the several shops that are for some reason hidden when you start the game, the city feels like a bad design choice. You'll certainly get some moments of both elation and frustration through your career.



I do like that you can go into a shop, get your performance upgrade, and then drive around in the city to get used to the new handling before having to jump into the race. But that's just me.



Oh no! They EA'ized the music!



The music, the "story", and the language is all brimming with pseudo pop-culture references. The various "aights", "dawgs" and "bros" peppering the game get a little tiring - especially when uttered in the less-than-convincing tones of the announcers. Note to EA: "Yo" is not a comma. Still, it's a minor annoyance since I'm here for the racing and the cars.



That's another issue: there aren't that many cars. Just about any other game would laugh at the relatively small selection (there's 30, with 6 low-end starters available at the beginning) - however, when you realize just how much care (and hard earned cash) you put into making your car look sharp (and how uniform they perform anyway), you won't really want to leave it for a new ride. Still, a doubling of the stable wouldn't have hurt. By comparison, Midnight Club 3 Dub has 70.



The issue with the music is similar; while a few of the tracks aren't completely horrible, there's simply not enough of it for the hours of racing in the game. But that's what volume settings are for. You'll suffer less playing your own music anyway.



Press here to win game



It isn't really advertised, but there is a Win Button in NFSU2 for people like me who generally suck at racing - any race you lose will result in the lowering of the difficulty for your second attempt. While I can't prove this offhand, I can't count the number of times a second race has gotten a magnitude easier than the first. While I do feel a bit patronized by it, it's far more acceptable than re-running the same race a bajillion times because you simply can't afford another tune-up that would let you win it.



There are quite a few other things that are nifty about the game, like the excellent built-in navigational system or the variety of the races themselves (from straightforward Sprints and Circuits to the technical Street X and the minigame-like Drag) or the fact that you can make setup changes on-the-fly while test-driving (finally!), but I think I've rambled on enough. If you liked Need for Speed's previous offerings of an arcadey, yet solid driving model, then Underground II is a worthy successor with a huge plateful of extras and only a few minor annoyances. Check your bargain bin today.