Nice idea let down by over tricky handling and suddenly acquiring rubber banding half way through the career mode.
The core of the game is the ubiquitous career mode where like most of the later Need For Speed series has some loose story, where you take on the roll of a street racer called Ryan Cooper. Insulted by another street racer the ultimate goal of the game is to beat Ryo, the Showdown King and prove you're the better racer.
Along the way as you gain track records in different disciplines such as drift, drag and grip racing you'll get the opportunity to challenge the "Kings" of those disciplines and take their crowns. You can think of them as "sub-bosses" if you like.
With no free roaming ability your career has a graphic map each with groups of race days separated from each other by showdown events. Think of these groups of race days as leagues and you get the general idea.
Each race days itself consists of several events such a grip, drag, drift etc and you have to enter cars in each category which means a dreift car cannot enter a grip events unlike other Need For Speed games where one car did all. A bit of a pain this but certain cars do work better a certain events so not too much of a problem. Each events you take part in you can attain points no matter where you come and earn enough point you can win that race day. However entering the same event twice will not boost your points unless you do better and then you will only gain the difference. Win enough points and you win the race day. If you do particularly well at stuffing the opposition you can dominate a dace day.
Race days wins and dominations is what opens the showdown events and inevitably the path to Ryo. However by gaining track records you will; get the opportunity to challenge the various kings of individual disciplines long before you take on Ryo.
That basically is the game play and for the first part it runs quite well until after the second showdown, when the game seems to change from a real racer to an arcade racer which is my biggest gripe. As with most of the Need for Speed series you can enhance your ride to give it better performance or different looks, the latter being pointless but looks nice. For the first half of the game your performance upgrades really do give you an edge. I got a Subaru with 625hp and absolutely killed the opposition in grip races but then after the second showdown your upgrades will all be for nothing as the game drops it realist pretence and goes into full "elastic band mode!"
One example of this was in one race I have a Zonda 800hp+ vs an Escort RS Turbo 633hp. Not only did the Escort out accelerate me but continued for the next ¾ mile to stay ahead which to me is completely bonkers. Only the drift and drag racing modes are les immune to this which is really odd considering it you take on the individual race kings they do not have this elastic banding. This means you can have stupidly hard races in your career and easy races against the sub bosses who are supposed to be the elite of their disciplines, which does make me think if the developers simply got bored half way through the game.
To further add to your irritation in the second part of your career your AI opponents have gain cars that have "cheat" performance parts fitted to them. On fast circuits if you create a powerful car such as an EVO IX one of your opponents will have one with more horsepower, I know I put stage 4 parts in my EVO IX and still was shy of around 100hp! On slow tight circuits you may think your onto a winner by being able to enter the most powerful car but then the AI cars all have unbelievably good handling and still beat you!
This form of AI cheating is nothing new for Need for Speed games but in one touted as "the most realistic" is playing fast and loose with the facts, which can at time be like the handling of your cars which is my only other gripe.
I could accept that is the AI had as crappy handling as you own but they don't which is very annoying. On high speed runs for instance you will have difficulty turning without slowing but flick you analogue stick the wrong way to correct your alignment to the track and bang you get instant opposite lock meaning on long straights your car wobbles from side to side like the suspension has been replaced by jelly. I tried stiffening the suspension to the max and it did not stop this. Your AI opponent will then not only bash into you with no ill effects but can weave fully in control to block you. I guess the developers were having a holiday at this point in the game or having too many late night parties because even GT2 on the PS1 behaved better at high speed.
Things do not get much better on the grip and drift events. On drift events your cars will gain super slicks making it hard to drift whilst in drift events someone will smear your tires with grease. Whilst I can cope with sliding everywhere on corners I got increasing frustrated on some small circuits with hairpin bends. Here you will find the racing line shows you how to turn but you cannot get enough lock to do so! Having seen the AI cars go round such corners on one circuit, using an Action Replay infinite cash cheat I bought whole series of different card and not one could make the same corners without having to drift around it which the AI cars did not need to do thus they gained extra ground on you. In one trial one of the AI cars actually went around the outside of me on said hairpin bend like it was on rails and carried on going with absolutely no sliding around!
Having tried the PC version of this the PS2 is certainly weaker in the graphics department. Whilst the PC version also had body parts that flew off in crashes this is absent in the PS2 version. However PS2 fans should rejoice for if you came within sniffing distance of a barrier in the PC version your car seemed to self destruct, with heavy damage of even totalling your ride so at least a plus point or this version of the game in that it is more forgiving. Please note the PC version has all the other non realistic flaws.
Though others have complained, I thought the sound quality was quite good as far as engine sounds go although sometimes the occasionally a bug creeps in whereupon your engine sound goes extremely quiet. The music soundtrack is a little limited but I confess like everyone else my most hated part of the game is the DJ announcers who just do not shut up! I am so sick of hearing the name Ryan Cooper and is would not have been so bad if the DJs were limited to the load and menu screens but know the developers have them screaming Ryan Cooper each and very race.
All in all to summarise this is a missed opportunity. If EA had made this an Arcade racer or a real racer but not both and fixed the deliberately challenging handling then this could have been something special but to me it seems the second half of the game was designed by a different team and a major disappointment. Lets face it we play games for entertainment but when a company thinks our entertainment should be based on being irritation and not fun then this is the result which is a real shame.