Fun game, keeps you playing.
Gameplay includes racing, free roam, car customizing, and the series comeback, police chases. The racing is fun, and with catch-up turned off, you better not make any mistakes! It can get a little bit repetitive, but it never gets overly hard. Free roam is always cool if you like exploring, but free roam is not necessary to get where you want, besides the car customization shops and the car lots. There are shortcuts that let you enter a racing even straight from your garage, and even a shortcut that lets you jump to your garage from anywhere in town. Still, free roam is a nice option for a little extra fun. Car customization is lacking if you have ever played Need for Speed: Underground 2, or even just NFS:U. A chioce of only 5 bodykits max, only one layer of vinyls, and no choices of exhaust tips, or engine accents, etc. No interior customization (NFS:U2 had some car audio, and allowd you to customiza your trunk layout) either. Police chases are fun. Especially when you get a higher level of heat on you. This is where free roaming pays off, because the more little nooks and crannys you can travel through during a chase, the easier it will be to lose the fuzz.
Graphics are good, the in-game cinematics, however, lack. In an attempt to combine video game vehicles with real life actors, EA has created a laughable set of cinematics that are funny, even if they do not mean to be. Also, once you get past the introductory cinematics, the next time youll ever see cinematics is at the end of the game.
The sound of the cars is good, and as for the music, it is OK, but I found myself turning it off halfway through the game because it is repetitive, and censored to keep the E rating. I played the second half of the game just listening to the cars basically.
Value: once you played the game through once, there is no reason to play it again. It is a fun game, and worth playing once, but because there are no secrets to pick up, and extra unlockables and what not, one play is all you need. And no online? Are you serious? Yes, no online play is avaliable! Gamespot.com's picture of the box-art has the little online (broadband only) symbol, but in reality, there is no online play for the PS2. Why? I have no idea. XBox's version got online play, why couldn't PS2's?
Overall, the game is worth checking out, if your into the street racing, arcade style car gtame. If not, don't give it a second glance. It needs to be online for PS2, and the cinematics need to be either real, or all animated, not a combination. I enjoyed playing the game, and many of you will too.