Well the wait is over, and it was definitely worth it. EA Games finally nailed street racing right with Need for Speed: Underground 2. This one has some the similarities to the first game, but most of it is totally different, and very fortunetly, most of the problems with the first game didn't sneak their way here.
GAMEPLAY: 10/10
Never before have I been glued to a racing game for more than 5 hours!! Best of all, this fantastic sequel lacks the problems the first one had, such as repetition, unbalance, bad graphical execution and such. First is the variety. There are lots of different types of races, and each require skill in a different field. Sprint mode, which pits you against other racers in an all-out dash towards a finish line tests your skills in avoiding traffic, tree's, pillars and such while keeping your speed high enough to stay ahead. Drag shoves you in a straight track that tests your strategy in staying ahead and keeping that speed off the graph, while at the same time, trying to avoid blowing the engine out with lousy shifting. Drift is all about style and control as you swerve all over the place trying to rack up points. Street X is 99% cornering and 1% speed. You get the point anyway. I also like the difficulty levels. The "Easy" setting will be a walk in the park for everyone. "Medium" will offer a good challenge and "Hard" is just like the first Undergrounds "Easy" mode, almost impossible. I also liked the Free-Roam. It made it feel more like real-life street racing, rather than just selecting random races from a list. Fixing rides was a blast, especially with the addition of SUV's. Racing with an uber Hummer H2 was really fun. Anyway, the gameplay is almost perfect.
GRAPHICS: 8/10
I don't know why EA made the graphics in this one slightly worse than the first. Regardless, it still looks fantastic, though I would've loved to see the same shine and reflection in the cars, like the first one. The blur effect has been significantly reduced, which makes it much easier to see where you're going at high speeds and the upgrades are beautiful. Requires a hefty system though! Most of the graphic-novel style cinematics were absolute garbage. I mean, what the heck? It looked more like a cartoonish slideshow than a cinematic. The other non-slideshow cinematics looked fantastic though.
SOUND: 10/10
Nice soundtrack, sound-effects and voice acting. Awesomeness. Everything sounded the way it should have, and the music was well suited for both off-track and on.
REPLAYABILITY: 9/10
Thankfully, since the tracks aren't the same and the fixing up system has gotten a huge makeover, there is some replayability here. When you wan't to get a new car you don't just take all the parts on your current one and apply it there, no buddy, you actually have to get that car and BUY everything all over again. Since money isn't very plentiful, you won't get to ride in everything the first time around. This will make you want to play it over again just to see how different cars look in different parts, and trust me each and every car looks totally different and absolutely FANTASTIC.
OVERALL: 9.25/10
This sequel is a whole lot better than the first one, which is pretty rare in sequels these days. Definitely worth whatever money you will have to fork over.
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