Need For Speed Underground 2 may be one of the biggest dissapointments of 2004
The racing in Need For Speed Underground 2 is alright. At the start of the game the cars will go very slow, which makes it pretty boring, but as you progress through the game the cars become faster and the racing becomes an enjoyable experience, but until you get up to the faster part of the game for the most part the racing is dull.
Though you can get performance upgrades for your cars its pretty hard to get the money at the start of the game because winning races will only get you about $300, but then of coarse as you progress you will get more money for winning races and then you will be able to easily purchase the proper performance upgrades for your car, sadly these upgrades don't make your car that much faster, unless you have unlocked better parts.
By now you should probably know that Need For Speed Underground 2 features a free roaming city. Unfortunately after about a half an hour or so of messing around with the stuff in the city it becomes pretty boring, and the outrun races you can do with your enemy aren't really that much fun. Another feature in Need For Speed Underground 2 is that instead of just going to a menu and choosing to customize your car you will have to find the proper shop in the city. And there are 4 types of shops, Body shops where you can customize front, back and side bumpers, spoilers, rims, front and tail lights, your hood and roof scoops, theres car specialty shops where you can customize your windows (window tints), neon, speed dials, Nitrous purge and the stereo's in your boot, there are paint shops where you can edit your car's colors, vinyls, decals and rim color and finally there is performance shops, where you can get performance upgrades for your cars.
There are a variety of race types in Need For Speed Underground 2. There is circut which after a while can get very boring and repetative, drift, drag which is probly the best of the bunch aswell as 3 new additions, Street X which is basically racing in drift tracks, downhill drift which is drifting down from high points of the city and URL races, which stands for Underground Street Racing races. The URL races have the most to do with the story of the game, but unfortunately the actual URL races are very boring after a while.
Visually Need For Speed Underground 2 is pretty good. The frame rate is pretty good, but you might get some issues once a in a while especially on the Gamecube version. The cars themselves look great, and all the visual upgrades just make them look better. The traffic cars however look a biut sloppy and aren't really detailed at all.
The soundtrack is pretty good. As always the EA Trax feature some good song. The cars sound realistic, the engine noises are decent. Unfortunately the dialogue is pretty bad at some points. Brooke Burke does a pretty good job and uses decent expression, but she constantly uses quotes that make her sound really stupid.
Overall the game is just bad and unenjoyable. Especially at the start of the game, but if your dying for a street racing game to play, you should probly rent this game, but purchasing it is not a good idea unless you have played it first. I said it once and i will say it again Need For Speed Underground 2 may be one of the biggest dissapointments of 2004.