Game Review: Need For Speed Underground 2 (XBOX)

Written by: Jens

Since the arrival of the ol' Playstation One, the games in the Need For Speed series were one of the most popular racing games on that console. All the games were made for one thing: racing. That changed when Need For Speed Underground came. Here you could still have quick races, but it also had a Career Mode, which had a very simplistic story line. This made Need For Speed very popular for other consoles as well. But also the timing was important to make this game a success. Back when The Fast and the Furious was popular, everyone wanted to race like them: underground style. And so I’m going to review its sequel... for the Xbox.

Since the Quick Race mode actually isn't all that interesting, I'm going to start with the Career mode. You start off as a normal guy who is allowed to sleep in a garage somewhere. You need some money and so you become familiar with the underground racing world. You buy yourself a car that you can tune and paint... but you don't have any money yet. What do you do? You race for money and a reputation. That’s about the entire story. The characters return later in the game, giving advice and stuff, but really, the story is pretty lame.

The gameplay has a lot of differences if we compare it to Need For Speed Underground 1. In this game you can actually drive around in the city and challenge other speed freaks on the road. The point is still: get reputation, a nice looking car, money, sponsors, DVD and magazine covers to get more reputation, an even nicer looking car, more money... A few more possibilities are added in the tuning shop, but that's about it when it comes to differences.

Another special thing to remark about is its easiness. You race, you lose, you try again until you win. You get a special chance to recieve unique parts for your car: you have to drive from one point to another within a certain time, or else, you lose... and you try again until you get there. The tuning shop is also easier to work with. Instead of Gran Turismo's comparing and pondering which one is better... top speed or handling or whatever...

The races themselves are also easy. I've been playing this game for a few hours already and I've unlocked all the places already. The races don’t seem to be more difficult then the first races. For people who are not very familiar with racing games, or even hate them, I suggest you play this game. If you're a professional, I recommend you play Project Gotham Racing 2, as you will probably find this game boring.

Speaking of PGR2, which has amazing reality graphics, this game isn't that terrible when it comes to that point. Especially the smoke effects. The crashing is more realistic than NFSU1. Still not perfect, but an improvement.

One of the bad points is the music. On Xbox, there's no possibility of changing the music (except for removing songs out of your in-game playlist) With not a lot of songs, you'll start getting bored of the music after half an hour. I turned it off after a while actually. I found the sound of engines blowing up and crashes better then its limited music.

I would like to give bonus points to the combination of easiness, not too realistic graphics, alright graphics and fun gameplay.

Story: 6/10

Gameplay: 8/10

Graphics: 7.5/10

Music: 4/10

Sounds: 7/10

+ Addictive bonus points: 4

Total: 7.3/10

Not an awful score, but not so good, either. Overall, this game will give you an hour or two of fun.