UG2 promises alot, yet delivers very little.
UG2 delivers everything that's needed for a quality arcade racer... or not?
Lets see. Graphics.
Now, I know. They have a whole city modelled, and a bunch of cars. However, if they detailed the cars and the lightening effects so great, why didnt they use high resolution textures? Look at the road! DAmn it, it's like... soapy water, low-res, and it looks nothing like asphalt. The cars as mentioned are detailed, no problem with that.
Controls/physics
Given the fact it's arcade it's pretty damn good. However, It could have been better... Now physics - wise the game's weak. I think crashes with traffic cars and AI cars should be more realistic, or at least it should affect you more. Also, there's no damage, which is a bit of an illusion-destroyer, it is part of the street racing!
Gameplay
It's alright. Unlike in UG1 you have a whole city to explore, and the city has bunch of stores, markets, to buy cars, parts, and so on. It gets a bit frustrating, as map doesnt show everything.
Another thing is you can't just select race from main menu - you gotta get to the race location. It's fun, at the beginning, but then, soonly, it gets really tiring, to drive through the city all the time searching for a race. There are some competition cruising in the city, you can ask them out for an 'outrun', its adrelain pumping, definitely.
So..?
So it all sounds good. A good game. But UG2 is too repeatative. Its really cool to pimp out your car, but, other than that, there's nothing special this game offers. THe city itself looks pretty damn dead, the races are really the same all the time. Only thing that kept me excited was the canyon drifts, what a shame there are not alot of 'em.
And ,although as i said this is what UG1 should have been, its a big mistake that EA released the game so early. If it was free, or at least budget price, i'd recoommed it. But since when it came out it was 50 bucks, a price of a full game, well... it's really just a patched up UG1. Imho.