Need for Speed Underground 2 (Xbox, 2004)

Need for speed underground 2 is in my opinion the best out of the need for speed series, play style wise. How ever, if you are looking for a game that will hug to realism better then you car will to a turn i would not recommend this game or any need for speed game. It is a beginners racing game that spends more detail in the customization of visual aspects of the car (decals, hydrolics, split hoods, neon under glow, etc). It is more of a racing game to kick back and constantly slam on the NOSS while ridding walls without suffering more then minor cosmetic scratches that reset after every race. almost any turn can be safely navigated in this game with a one or two flutters on the brake wile letting up on the gas a bit to break the car loose. Features with the decals are not as flexible as they are in need for speed carbon were you can play around with layers and stretch and skew the decal to make it truly your own. Under ground 2 is compatible with the xbox 360 if you have a hard drive and live to download the updates. Their are some compatibility issues though, the sub scenes are choppy both in video and audio and it seems to take on a polyphonic distortion in the audio. This game does play as smooth as glass on an original xbox but normal game play is more then bearable on a 360. To sum things up, not realistic but not bad, compatible with 360 with fine normal game play but choppy videos, perfect on original xbox. I recommend this game if you like races that you are not doomed if you go into a turn a couple MPH too fast. Its a nice break from Grand Trismo, Dirt and Forza which are on the more realistic side of the racing spectrum.

Need for Speed Underground 2 is the best Need for Speed game i have ever played.
You start of with a basic, stock car (A civic,golf,miata....etc..). As you progress you add better parts to your car, you add cooler paint,decals..
Then you can buy new cars (Nissan 350z, Nissan skyline, Hummer H2, Infinity G35..etc.) You add cooler parts to those, make them look great.
In game you drive around, through a pretty big virtual city, there is traffic and other racers (who you can have a outrun with). To upgrade your car you turn on your GPS and drive to a shop. To tune your car go to a dyno.
Online you race other people, and if you find on, join a glitch game and just goof around. The race types are: drag,drift,sprint,circut,stree​t X and outrun (i think thats all of them). Overall its a really fun game to play, a little short, but great.

Ok, so hears the deal: Underground 2 is all about driving to the location of secret or know races, while narrowly avoiding traffic along the way to get your NOS up. Pimpin your ride out with hydraulics and an awesome stereo is a great way to kill time. Then you can kick it in to overdrive with one of the most extensive garage performance tuning system. If you absolutely can't get enough of this game, you may not like Most Wanted as much. Comparing Underground 2 and Most Wanted at the same time would be almost like comparing comparing Cruisin USA with PGR; They are both just racing games with completely different premises. Here's the schpeel on Most Wanted. In this game, they replaced a few of old race types (drift, street X, URL) with new ones (speed trap and tollbooth) which are actually quite fun. Your NOS refills slowly just with driving over about 80 MPH. When new performance upgrades are available, you put them on your car and that's it, no tuning it up. The performance tuning is extremely simple: instead of 50 different little bars to slide left and right, there are only 7. Don't get me wrong, you still have to tune your car so you don't lose, you just spend more time driving and less time in a garage. Here, in my opinion, is the major deciding factor in whether you like Underground 2 or Most Wanted: the police. In Most Wanted, the police have a very extensive system to catch you or to give a hint on where not to go. You actually listen to the police chatter and because of that, know where to run to, to either run away from or attract the attention of the police. Now it's your choice to decide whether you like running away from the police, or whether you like spending 3 hours getting your turbo fixed just right and making your car look as cool as you please.

NFS Underground 2 is one of the best racing games out there. The free-roaming city environment is extensive, and gameplay stays interesting for a long time. There are several different types of races: Drag, Circuit, Point-to-Point, Drift, and URL (Underground Racing League). All have their own strategies and even free-roaming the city provides a lot of driving fun. Also tricking out the cars both performance-wise and visually is cool. It's like having your own tuner garage. I have used this with the standard controller and with a racing wheel controller and while the hand controller is 'tighter', the wheel is still great fun, especially in Drift races where you have to counter-steer. You really get a feel for the trajectory of the car and managing the drift.
This title gets an "excellent" from subgenius30.

Need for Speed Underground is the ultimate racing game for the true racing fan that likes tinker with his or her car's engine as much as their racing strategy. Usually in racing games there are only cars to race but here the additions of altering ther car's body style and engine modifications add a whole new dimension to the game. There are other games you can tinker with your engine on like Nascar but I'm not a fan of driving in circles. There are other games from need for speed out (Carbon and Most Wanted) but they are a lot more expensive. If you want to play most wanted or carbon but haven't played this one yet, buy this first. Its inexpensive and fun. By the way, its backwards compatible for the 360 as long as you have downloaded the latest updates. IT doesn;t get an excellent because it is a racing game and unless I get a story line or weapons to blow cars up it can't recieve an excellent rating.