Need for Speed - Underground 2

An update of the prequel, and it's totally worth it!

Underground + GTA3 + GT3 = Underground 2

Need for Speed Underground 2 is the sequel to the multiplatform hit Need for Speed Underground. Following the theme of the underground street racing scene found in the last title, this one takes in a few of the suggestions made about the previous one. The most noticeable feature of Underground 2 is the new Explore mode. This is similar to a few of the street racing games available on Sony's Playstation2 where players drive their souped up street racers around the streets looking for a fellow rival and then they challenge them to a street race of various sorts. This sort of gameplay encourages free roaming and allows players to just explore, as well as progress through the game at their own pace. Even though there is a very unlimited structure to the game, EA has managed to incorporate a story similar to how those “Choose your own adventure” novels work.

One of the key characters, and probably one of the selling points of this title will be the work of supermodel Brooke Burke. In Underground 2, she plays the mysterious friend Rachel who helps hook you up with the illegal racing scene. Whilst the story is nowhere near as deep or involving as that found in GTA3, a cast of interesting characters who are all connected will aid in your climb up the career ladder as a street racer.

The story unfolds initially with a flashback to the past showing the main character being forced into a ‘job' and then as he drives his souped up GTR, he gets smacked into by a mysterious white vehicle. After losing reputation, he moves to another area and has to build up his reputation as a racer there. Whilst this story shares much with GTA Vice City, as do many of the other elements of this title, Underground 2 deserves to stand on it's own.

As mentioned above, Underground 2 enables the player to explore the city and control the way that their player progresses. Initially only a handful of cars will be available, such as the Puegot 206 and one of the favourites, the Nissan 240SX. Some other cars such as the Lancer Evo VIII and the Skyline GT-R will be available later. This isn't much of a spoiler because not only are these cars advertised, they are also expected to be in this game. When driving there are now a lot more controls than previous Need for Speed titles, such as hydraulics controls. Most people will find they have insufficient buttons on their controller, even myself included as I struggled to map the keys to my PS2-PC controller. After realising that the D-pad is not used, I began to assign the Reset Car, Change View, etc.. commands to the different arrows and this worked sufficiently well.

Whilst driving in “Explore” mode, there are various cars on the streets in this large breathing city. Unlike GTA3 there are no pedestrians and there is no time progression, but there are plenty of other cars. Street racers are quite recognisable as they not only have a lot of flare with neon lights and decals (compared to the plain blocky cars which just take up space and obstruct your view), and they also appear on your mini map radar. If you happen to come across a street racer, you can use the “Enter Race” button to challenge them to an Outrun competition. Making use of all the large twists and turns of the city, the challenge involves you trying to outrun the other car. 

There are no rules as to where you can and cannot drive (except to areas which are obviously out of bounds such as restricted areas) and the objective is quite simply to get 300m away from the other vehicle. The car in front chooses the path, whilst the car in the rear must catch up and pass the other car in order to be in the lead and choose the path. This brings up a few elements of skill and tactics where if you are in the lead and you suddenly corner and change direction, the rival car can run into all sorts of mishap. In the beginning I noticed that it took a lot of effort to win an Outrun competition as not only are the cars still in ‘stock performance' (that is, unmodified), you also do not know the streets as well as you knew them in other games such as GTA3. 

 

The other way to race is to find mission points or “Race points” where you can drive up to them, press “Enter Race” and then join in on the action. All the previous game play modes such as Drift make a return in Underground 2, but with newer more refined interfaces. Either way you choose to enter challenges or races, winning them wins you money which can be used to customise your car (both performance-wise and appearance-wise) or to change your car. Losing them of course causes you to lose money.

So what makes this game different to GTA3? I've mentioned the Rockstar series' several times throughout this review, and I must reinforce that whilst there are many common elements, the two games are in entirely two different genres. Rockstar's titles focus on the gangster theme whereas Underground is more strictly a street racing game. Whilst it is possible in GTA3 to street race in certain missions, or by simply doing a drive-by shooting of other cars on the street causing them to panic and run, GTA doesn't offer the same depth in terms of customisation.

The key element of Underground 2 will be the customisation and tuning abilities. Whilst players still remain in a relatively simplified process of “Install level 2 upgrades” and so on, where there isn't really much effort required other than to win enough money from the various Outrun challenges and races, it is still incredibly satisfying to build up a beautiful street racing machine. The box boasts billions of combinations possible in this title, but most people will probably stick to the more popular brands and car models. The new parts do look unbelievably cool, albeit a bit unrealistic in my opinions. I have a family of street racers and whilst a lot of the components and parts available in the game are real, I am still yet to see anyone in my area use some of those parts, but hey, it's a video game.

 

An interesting thing to note about Underground 2 is the change of location. Instead of the Hong Kong night racing scene where twists and turns through bridges and a neon filled city centre, Underground 2 features a more civilised and calm backdrop. The large nature of the fictitious world is well suited to Underground's game as there's a good mix of city driving as well as a few straights to test out the cars. I personally prefer Underground 2's large open city nature where there is variation in the city and it doesn't feel as repetitive as the various tracks in the first Underground did. The sound in this title is great. Underground 2's soundtrack is well suited to the nature of the game and coupled with a good speaker set, the THX-certified game will really make you feel immersed in this environment. If a good set of speakers isn't available, try using a good pair of cans (headphones). There's nothing sweeter than hearing the beautiful roar of your machine.

So what is wrong with Underground 2? Not a lot actually. Apart from the high system requirements for a game which does not really look that great (maybe I have too high expectations?) but there is not that much which could be improved upon. Some people may not like the way the story is set out with the ‘comics' approach where the storyline is presented as a comic strip, and others may not appreciate the selection in cars. The graphics I suppose are still quite good for a street racer game, and they do add to the feel of the game quite well.

The one thing which does disappoint me though is the lack of a proper in-car view. New to Underground 2 is the hood-view where you can see the headlights of your car (if they are pop up), but this is nothing like the old in-car views which were popular in the older Need for Speed games. I am still yet to see any game mirror something like the in-car screen of the Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R. For those who do not know, when driving this monitors things such as acceleration/throttle, temperature of car, revs, and features them on a bar-graph. As you accelerate, the display shows a percentage of throttle applied as well as boost, and it flashes in red when it is reaching maximum power, and when the gears needs to be changed. 

 

Whilst this is not really an important part of game play, it's one of those things that would make this game even cooler to play. Another feature that would have made this game just that ‘little bit cooler' would be the ability to zoom in and view the engines of the cars. When modifying cars, it looks mad when people do up the engines, but sadly, this feature is not available. A clutch system, which requires you to press a button before changing gears, would be a great addition to add to the realism and challenge of the title, but should remain optional. Finally, I think a slight game play tweak to make crashes not so often or easier to recover from would help keep this game at pace.

In conclusion, this is by far the best street racer available on PC. Nothing comes close. If you enjoy racing games, and you liked the large size of GTA's cities, then this game will not disappoint you. Only a few minor improvements could be made to the game, but even without them, Underground 2 still stands as not only the best street racer on PC, but also as a damn good game. If you are looking for an idea for a game for Christmas, this one will be hard to look past.

NAME: NEED FOR SPEED - UNDERGROUND 2

SYSTEM: PC, Game Cube, Play Station 2, XBOX, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS

Need for Speed - Underground

A near perfect racing game that makes you swear a lot!

Yo dawgs I give you the welcomez to da toughest racer in da hood homie! NFSU iz were it's at! Y'all should be jumping on this boat and be rocking hard cuz, cuz, it's never bein this tight racing in da street befar!!! Ok... enough with the lingo, you'll get more than enough of it in NFSU, on to the facts. NFSU is the - I-lost-count-at-5 - continuation of the successful Need for Speed series. The NFS series, for the 4 of you out there who've either been dug out of a giant icicle or have lived in a crater for your whole life, is one of the most well know arcade racing series out there. NFS used to mean fast, out of this world cars and lots of open picturesque highways to bust out your wheels on. Now, that's all over.

NFSU is EA's entry in the "new and exciting" genre of street racing. Ever since REAL street racing simulators came out the world has been craving more. NFSU delivers that "more" people have been craving for and does so in style... well, if you can ignore all the abundant lingo.

GRAPHICS: For a PC game NFSU looks barely above average. The textures are pretty poor and the surroundings could have been much better done. Much of what you see is washed out or fogged out. Buildings really lack sharpness and detail and the rest of the environment could be both more destructible and livelier. That being said, NFSU does benefit from some pretty neat racing effects. The speed blur is an awesome effect that gives you a greater feel of speed. Lighting is also pretty good, with taillights dissipating in the distance and neon's giving out a satisfying glow.

As far as the resolution goes, this too is serviceable. A maximum of 1280x1024 pixels can fit on screen at one time. This is much more than what the weak hardware found in consoles can produce, and it shows. NFSU on the PC is much clearer and better looking than it's console counterparts. Hell, in fact I would even warn against downloading the demo (or the game) to try it out, or whatever on the PC and then switching to a console because the graphics will make your eyes bleed.

None of the effects are really over done, with the exception of one: Wetness. The pavement is always giving out this horrendous shine that looks like it just rained 5 minutes ago. Along with the "all night party" this is the most annoying effect found in NFSU. Finally, the PC version has the least slowdown of all of the version. The console versions suffer from monster slowdown while the PC keeps it at a minimum.

SOUND: The sound in NFSU is so good that it's in a league of it's own... shared by only one other racer. Thanks to EA Trax, NFSU has some of the best music you can find in a game to date. Lil John, Asian Dub Foundation, Static X, and more composed the tracks you'll find in NFSU. Let's just say that it's amazing how well all of these tracks fit the mood of the game. Whether you like or hate them it's readily obvious that the developers spent a great deal of time selecting these tracks and making sure they fit perfectly with the atmosphere.

The sound effects are even better than the music. The voice acting, while overly street is pretty decent... but it's NOTHING compared to the actual sound effects. I've yet to hear better engine sounds or more ambient noise than in NFSU. The sound component monitors engine modifications so well that's it's actually possible that there are hundreds of different engine sounds in the game. Every time you change a part of your engine or even your car, the sound of the whole thing changes. Together with the wind blowing, gear's changing and tires squealing the sound effects in NFSU make for some of the most enjoyable audio experiences ever.

GAMEPLAY: NFSU is an arcade racer. As such, you shouldn't expect an overly realistic racing experience, but whatever little realism there is really adds to the feel of the game and helps to further enhance a pretty solid arcade racing experience. Need for Speed features a sizeable amount of cars from a not-so-sizeable amount of manufacturers, the parts to go along with those cars, and about 100 races which you must win in order to both own and upgrade those cars.

There are quite a few racing types in NFSU. Circuit is just like what it sounds, a series of closed race tracks made up of the sections of the city in which you must out-drive your opponents while dodging traffic and finding the best route possible to the finish line. Sprint races are point A to B type races where there is only one sizeable lap that must be completed either in a limited amount of time or against serious competition from your not-so-smart rivals. Drift and Drag racing are both relatively new additions to the genre and pretty interesting, but ultimately end up being pretty boring.

Drift is inspired by the real life thing in where you attempt to take turns at absurd speeds all the while smoking your tires and posing in cool ways. The way to win this mode is for you to get more points than your opponents. Every time you meet a certain point amount, it gets multiplied by a number (2, 3, 4, 8, etc.). The more crazy drifts your able to put together the higher the requirement and the higher the multiplier. Drift is actually the game's easiest mode, and it ends up being made even easier by the looseness of the "Space" key, which is the handbrake default.

Drag, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of drift. Breaking is a forgotten concept, coolness is the least of your concerns, and difficulty can be quite a... well, you know. Drag racing is actually just a straightforward race in which you must perfectly time your shifts and your Nitrous use in order to get in front and stay there. Dodging the traffic and taking the turns at some 150-odd miles isn't easy though. Drag is by far the most annoying and difficult race type in NFSU. Your opponents always seem to time everything perfectly and it seems that no matter how good your car is, there's are always better. This can make for some 2-3 dozen tires per race.

All of these race types can be either played individually or part of the 100+ race career mode. Career mode is, obviously, the meat of the game. Here you start from nobody and you go up to pro. Take your pick from one of the cars in the beginning and then keep on going. As you advance you can unlock more cars, parts and visual modifications. Too bad that it all seems very "canned". Career mode is hardly "career", it's just a string of races, which must all be completed in order to advance, a bunch of money and a lot of bad lingo put together. As if all of that isn't enough to give the impression of a "canned" mode, the time between the unlockables is so huge that you'll end up with 10s of thousands of dollars in your bank account by the time you reach the 50th, 60th race. This could've easily been solved if you had to buy your car, but you don't. Just trade in your old car for a new one. All the upgrades get transferred and so does all your street cred.

Canned or not, the career mode is worth at least a try... mostly because of the ungodly amount of upgrades and visual tuning your car can go through. It's quite amazing to start from scrap and go to a total street animal in the course of a game. Thanks to real life manufactures such as Apex and HKS everything feels even MORE authentic than it looks. Upgrades range from on-board computer chips, to suspensions, to vinyl, to spoilers, and even PAINT. Hell, the amount of care that went in the paint system alone is amazing. Throw in a whole slew of unique hoods and a good deal of cars and you have what is possibly one of the deepest tuners around.

The actual racing is fun too, thanks, in no small part, to the huge selection of cars available. Everything from Honda Civic, Fiat Punto, to Toyota Supra and Nissan Skyline is included. The cars all have different stats and feel slightly different, but they're not exactly GT differences. Driving is a lot of fun, waving through traffic while holding down the NOS button cannot be any less fun even if they tried, but thanks to a very good feel of speed and pretty well designed tracks they made the racing REALLY fun, as compared to the much lesser "fun".

Too bad for the AI and the actual tracks though. NFSU suffers from dumb AI. Usually the AI doesn't take shortcuts and does a lot of stupid mistakes. Not to mention that once you got in front of the AI they have a real hard time catching up (unless your drag racing). The tracks themselves, while well designed get repetitive fast. There mustn't be more than 15 of them and racing 100 times with 15 tracks, 7 of which are reserved for Drag and Drift, races can get quite repetitive. This wouldn't be so bad if the AI was smarter but as soon as you catch on to the tracks and discover the shortcuts you'll easily pass the AI by and keep the lead.

The monotony of racing against the AI is broken up every now and then by some timed races. Most of the time these races are easy but some can get quite frustrating, usually later in the game when you can't upgrade and your forced to finish the race to move on. NFSU also seems to control quite well with a keyboard and mouse, hell, I even found drag racing and drifting much easier with the keyboard than with the controller. On the other hand, there is one very annoying bug that appears in the first few moments of a race (maybe the first 30 seconds) and it can become quite damaging to your race: Short 1 or 2 second bursts of slowdown. It seems like the machine is just locking up (I'd assume the game is still loading the track). If NFSU has one problem with presentation it would have to be the time of day. Trust me when I say this: By the time you will finish this game you will get sick and tired of driving at night. After a while it just gets annoying to know where traffic is only by looking at their headlights/taillights and night driving just gets trying when you realize there are 10 more racers coming out for the PC with the same "specs".

MULTIPLAYER: It's as standard as standard gets. The actual multiplayer features Split-Screen, and online/LAN play for up to 6 players. Everything in the single player game can be played online. You can also take your tuned up cars and race them online against other racers. It's not bad per se, but it's just not much to brag about.

OVERALL: Hood or not NFSU was pretty revolutionary for it's time. Not only did this game introduce real cars to the underground racing scene but it allowed you to modify and do as you pleased with them. Even now, about 8 years after this game came out, it's hard to find anything better... even it's own sequel doesn't rise to the challenge.

NAME: NEED FOR SPEED - UNDERGROUND

SYSTEM: PC, Game Cube, Play Station 2, XBOX, Game Boy Advance

Need for Speed - Hot Pursuit 2

The PC racing game with superb graphics and horrible backgrounds

I’ve always been a hardcore racing fan and the realism was my key-feature that I always searched in racing games. In 2002 only Formula 1 2003 and Grand Prix 4 were the racing games that deserved a look but only if you like Formula 1 (the European version of CART series). Need For Speed: Porsche was EA Games next step into racing realism because the game was pretty much close to reality (with glitches/bugs here and there). When I heard about Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (I will be calling it NFS6) was announced I was over enthusiastic as I am a fan of this series. Remembering the great physics of NFS Porsche I hoped for an even more realistic game but sadly those hopes have died with the wind.

The game is actually a combination between arcade and simulation. Handling of the car isn’t as accurate as in NFS Porsche but the differences between cars is big and a very important factor when choosing your car. The first thing you will notice when you start your first race is the fact that the cars accelerate almost immediately. This is one of the few things I don’t like about the new physics. In rest I can’t say they are bad, not as close to reality as I hoped but it doesn’t matter since it was sacrificed in the name of FUN. 

So after a few spins and a couple of events done I became addicted to this game and I can call it the best racing game of that year for PC (well at least so far but Collin McRae3 rally has been delayed in that time). As the name suggests “Hot Pursuit 2” the game is the direct sequel to NFS Hot Pursuit in which you were able to play on both sides of the law, against it (be the speeder) and for it (be the cop). So the great fun of the first HP is back and it’s better then ever. 

One of the first things that really surprised me was the installation. It actually only installs 50megs on your HDD. For some people it worked badly because everything needed to be loaded from the CD but I have a friend to whom it actually worked perfectly. Proceeding and running the game and getting passed EA Games new motto (which I like) the intro appeared. Can’t say it really impressed me but I don’t judge a book by its cover. I quickly made a profile and off I went. 

The single player “campaign” is structured into two event trees, Hot Pursuit mode and Championship mode. The difference between them is that in the HP mode there is traffic and cops and the Championship mode is pure racing. In the event trees you start from the top of the list. There you will find the weakest AI and the slowest cars. As you move progressively down to the bottom and to the end of the event tree the AI gets better and you get access to the real racing cars. 

I started with Hot Pursuit and after selecting a car off I took it out for a spin. The HP campaign is rather easy for a hardcore racing fan. Didn’t have major problems. What impressed me was the variety of cars raging from Opel Speedster to Ford Mustang to McLaren F1. To tell you the truth quite a decent number of cars appear and I won’t mention them all here only the known brands: Opel, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Porsche, Ford, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mercedes etc. The worlds where the races will take place are actually only 4 but there are a big number of routes for each of them, which will make around 3-4 tracks per world. On all tracks alternative routes are available. Starting from one or two alternative routes to quite a big number of five or six. But not all of them are shortcuts, some are long cuts (and can cost you big time), some are shortcuts and some are equally balanced alternative paths. For the equally balanced paths it depends if it’s faster or not on two things: 

1. The skill of the driver - because there is a very fast paced track where the road is wide and no teeth breaking corners but the alternative path is slower and quite possible it involves the car slamming to the side of the road 

2. The handling of the car - because on the same track a slower car but with better handling can make a very good use of the alternative path 

Also important to mention is that you have a couple of missions in which you are the cop. You need to give a certain amount of tickets to speeders in a certain amount of time to successfully win the mission. You do not give tickets by stopping them as you did in NFS HP but by hitting them and destroying their cars. They have a “health bar” that once it reaches 0% the speeder automatically gets “arrested”. 

The AI of the traffic has been improved compared to Porsche but they are still dumb. Cops are very aggressive but they are still easy to loose. You just need to let the cop be in front and you can spin him very easy. Job done and you walk away from a bust once again. But if you don’t stop they will call for back up that includes: another unit, road blocks or spikes (the road blocks/spikes haven’t managed to stop me, not even once) or a helicopter which flies over the road and launches barrels loaded with explosives. The AI of the opponents is weak and if you aren’t caught you should get an easy win. I have friends that seem to have problem with the opponents even if they are hardcore racing fans (strange). 

The AI in the championship mode seems tougher and I did have problems with them in a couple of races but that was more due to personal driving errors and not to the fact that they were fast. A good way to “sabotage yourself” to be slower is to pick the worst car for that race. At the start if you want to go for a single race you will be surprised when you see that most of the tracks and most of the cars are locked!!! You need to unlock them by gathering points. Points are gathered by winning events and each event has three medals you can win: Bronze, Silver and Gold. Each medal gives you more points and once you complete the game you have enough points to unlock everything. 

I mentioned before that the helicopters are dropping barrels filled with explosives. If you ask yourself what happens to the car if you hit one of them well the answer is this: You car will fly through the air. If you are lucky enough to land on the wheels you can continue the race WITHOUT damage. Only the way the car looks gets affected but there is no damage to the car itself (like in previous versions). 

Hmmm, let’s change our concentration to graphics. A plain short description is that they are very good (for the lack of better words). The cars look superb but they are not as accurate as in Gran Turismo 3 if that is what you were thinking right about…….. now. But the game has the best graphics I’ve seen in a PC racing game so far. The cars look great, the surrounding landscape looks great, the background looks HORRIBLE!!! I couldn’t believe my eyes. The graphics is so sweet and high quality raging from the cars to the houses, the trees (not the ones in the big distance, they are a flat 2D model), the fences etc but the background is damn horrible. 

The big problem of the background and of the water that is in the background is that it’s a 2D flat “wallpaper” and they added 3D models (like small islands) on that “water” and it gives a superb sensation of paranormal activity. What I mean by that? Everything that is supposed to come out of the water it actually FLOATS. Yes, it gives you such a strong feeling of floating that it’s actually irritating as heck! I have never been a person that puts graphics in the first place but the way it looks it’s just simply horrible. The water that is on the road looks very cool and when you drive through it raises a cloud of water spray. Same thing happens when you drive on earth/dust but another problem, it doesn’t appear in the mirror!!! It just doesn’t and the mirror isn’t running at the best frame per second. Nope, it’s at a reduced fps and it’s another minus for the graphics.

But more important then graphics it’s the sound (at least for me). And the sound of the engines roaring, tyres squealing is something that I enjoy hearing. Sometimes when you pass around houses or all sorts of things you can hear dogs barking, birds singing etc. The soundtrack is decent. It didn’t appealed to me. It’s supposed to be something dynamic to keep you on the edge of your seat but sometimes I forget all about it. My brain just stops hearing it and I decided to turn it off so I can hear the engine and tyres even better. Different cars have different engine sounds and some are even relaxing to hear. 

Another decision that I simply just don’t understand involves the replays. You can no longer change the camera in the replay. The replay uses the camera(s) you used in the race. So it’s almost no use of watching a replay since you cannot see a specific scene from a better angle. Added to that if you slow down the speed of the replay what the game actually does is it reduces the fps. It doesn’t slow the actual speed of the replay but it reduces the fps and the game drags exactly like when you would play the game with a computer that is capable of running the game only at the most lowest graphics setting (and tries to run it at high settings). 

What is annoying about this “feature” is that it hurts your eyes. After trying to watch the replay in slow motion for a couple of minutes your eyes will begin to hurt and once you return to normal fps you will feel how your eyes are relaxing. Terrible decision they made about the replays!!! I haven’t played the game in multiplayer yet but after the single player “campaign” I realized the game offers tons of fun in multiplayer. You will be able to race against other humans to see who is the best but you will also be able to play cops and robbers, which will increase the fun and the time a gamer won’t get bored with the game. 

So overall the game is good, perhaps very good. I don’t take into consideration the F1 2002 and Grand Prix 4 (because they are F1 games) and I dare to say that NFS 6 is perhaps the best racing game since NFS Porsche. The game does have some glitches (some intentionally added by the creators but I think its due to sheer stupidity) but the gameplay is good and probably it will replace the NFS Porsche from now on. Actually this is what counts, if the gameplay wasn’t good then the game wouldn’t have been fun but luckily such is not the case. I do hope I haven’t missed on any great racing games in this period. I did look and searched for titles and tried some games but they weren’t any good. 

AND FOR THOSE SPECIAL, CAR FASTER THAN THE SHADOW!

NAME: NEED FOR SPEED - HOT PURSUIT 2

SYSTEM: PC, Nintendo Game Cube, Play Station 2, XBOX