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Relesing Date Nov-9-2004
First Reviwe of Under Ground-2
Last year, EA took its long-running Need for Speed series in an exciting new direction with the release of Need for Speed Underground, a racing game that focused on making the import tuner scene the star of its arcade-style racing show. The game worked really well, combining the right level of car customization with good track design, challenging opponents, and impressive graphical effects. Now, one year later, a sequel is on the streets, adding some new race types and a big, open city to cruise around. The actual racing in Need for Speed Underground 2 is still pretty good, but unfortunately most of the stuff you do in between races keeps you away from the game's best moments.
Need for Speed Underground 2 tries to inject a story into your care
er mode using static-image cutscenes that pop up before some races. The effect is similar to what the Max Payne series does with its noninteractive sequences, though that game pulls it off much better than Need for Speed Underground 2 does. Dopey story short, you're sent off to a new town after getting ambushed by a rival racing crew, and you'll have to start from scratch with one car and a handful of races to get you going.
The biggest change made by this year's game is that the action now takes place in one large city. You're given free rein to drive around wherever you want, and you'll have to drive to races to drive in them. You'll also have to drive to different parts shops to customize your ride--in fact, you'll have to find most of the game's shops by cruising around the city, looking for the right type of colored lights. The game gives you an onscreen map, but shops don't show up until you've found them, and some races don't actually appear on the map, either.
On paper, this whole open-city thing sounds like an interesting idea. Someone probably sat down and said, "Well, everyone likes Grand Theft Auto, and it has an open city, so our game has to have an open city as well. In fact, let's even make it so that different sections of the city are locked away until you progress to a certain point in the career mode." In practice, driving around the city is a real drag that keeps you out of the action longer than you'd like. The game also rarely takes advantage of the open city for racing purposes, staging a majority of its events on preset tracks, rather than attempting to go for a Midnight Club-like "get there however you can" feel. There's a menu in the garage that lets you jump to a handful of different events, but most races don't show up here, and none of the shops do, either, making it completely useless.
You'll start out in some pretty slow cars, so the racing isn't very exciting until you earn enough for a full set of upgraded performance parts. But once you've done so, the racing is fun and the cars handle well. The cars are fast, and things like turning, powersliding, and proper corning technique are easy to pick-up. Like in last year's game, there are a handful of different race types: Circuit races are long lap-based events, sprints take you from point A to point B on a set course, drag racing lets you live your life a quarter mile at a time, and drift races rank you based on how squirrelly you can get on the track. New in this year's game are the street X races, which are essentially regular races that take place on drift tracks. Outrun races take place in various parts of the city--you roll up behind another racer, tap a button, and then try to pass and outrun him or her. You'll also encounter a few races against the clock, in which you'll have to get from one point in the city to another before a photographer leaves the area. Make it, and you'll get to put your car on the cover of one of the game's magazines or DVDs for extra cash. The big new race type is the "underground racing league." These races are the sort of mysterious events where you'll see most of the game's cutscenes. They mostly involve some knucklehead breaking the lock on a race track and then swinging open a gate so your street-racing posse can race on a "real" track, though you'll also bust into airports and such, too. These races are essentially circuit races with racetrack scenery instead of cityscape scenery. 
Though there are three different difficulty settings for the career mode, none of them put up a particularly good fight. As a result, most of the races simply boil down to getting in front of the opposition and then doing what you can to not make a mistake. Between nitrous boosts and drafting, gaining the lead isn't very difficult, and the game doesn't seem to employ any heavy rubber-band AI routines to retake the lead from you, so you can usually stay in front without any trouble at all. When you consider that it will take you about a minute to get in front, and that some of the circuit races can last six minutes or more, this means that a great deal of your race time is spent just cruising along, dodging traffic and not paying any attention to the other cars unless you screw up and get into a wreck. In the event that you do crash, regaining the lead usually isn't too tough, especially if you've purchased a nitrous-oxide upgrade, which shamelessly lifts concepts from the Burnout series, translating powerslides and near-misses into extra boost for your tank. The opposing cars will slow down quite a bit if they take a big lead, making them very easy to beat.
Need for Speed Underground 2's crashes are laughably weak. While high-speed collisions with other cars trigger a slow-motion, cinematic shot of the crash, the game doesn't model any damage at all. It's like you're watching two plastic car models bump up against each other, accompanied by the sounds of an actual car crash. While it practically goes without saying that modeling damage in a game with licensed cars is still a tricky proposition, that fact doesn't make these wrecks look any better. Fortunately, the game's car customization features somewhat make up for this lack of visual detail.
A big part of Need for Speed Underground 2 is the ability to customize your car's performance and appearance. On the performance side, you'll purchase parts that have been organized into stages, which gives the game an easy way to lock the better parts away from you until you're ready for them. While the parts fall into different categories, like engines, brakes, tires, and ECUs, the only thing you really need to know is that you need them all to win races. The visual enhancements are a little more involved and give you a little more leeway, but ultimately you'll need to trick out the look of your cars to proceed, as having a flashy car is the only way to get noticed and end up on magazine and video covers. Each set of parts has a number associated with it, and these contribute to a meter that sums up how many pieces of flair you've bolted to your whip. Spoilers, neons, vinyls, roof scoops, spinner rims, custom gauges, and even speakers for your trunk are just some of the available modifications, and they all help your car stand out. This is especially handy online, where you can show off your stuff to the world.
Need for Speed Underground 2 is online on the PS2, PC, and new to this year's game, the Xbox. The online mode is pretty straightforward, letting you set up races in any of the game's race types, and it also features a free run mode, in case you just want to cruise around the city with other players. As you'd expect, the online mode works well over an average broadband connection, even with a full six players in a race. The game also does a good job with statistics and rankings, which can help you find evenly matched races. You can also limit races to cars of a certain rank, or just open it up and let people take their career-mode vehicles onto the track. The GameCube lacks online play, and to add insult to injury, the already-shaky frame rate gets a little shakier when you play in the
GameCube version's splitscreen mode.
While Need for Speed Underground 2 is attempting to emulate an illegal scene of "underground" street racing, the game really tries to drive its product placement down your throat. Things like billboards on the sides of the roads aren't too bad (though with an ad for a financial service popping up on some signs, you have to wonder who EA's target audience for this game is), and the occasional real-life fast-food joint does its part to make the city feel a little more realistic. But basing the game's whole onscreen display around the logo for a cellular phone service provider crosses the line. Sorry, but there's nothing "underground" about forcing a bunch of non-car-related corporate logos on people. The game's hokey dialogue also adds to the counterfeit feel. The overzealous script is constantly throwing poorly placed slang at you, having Brooke Burke use her teleprompter voice to tell you that "you've got to be racing tight," constantly calling you "dawg," or being very careful to always call your money "bank."
Graphically, Need for Speed Underground 2 looks good, unless you're talking about the GameCube version, which has a wildly unstable frame rate that really gets in the way of the action in some races. But in the other three versions, the car models are sharp and the city looks fine. For the most part, the game keeps running at a smooth frame rate, even in the later stages, when you're moving much, much faster. But at the same time, it isn't quite the effects show that the last game was. You still get nice little effects, like the shaky camera used to show drag races, but the blur effects are much less pronounced now, which is too bad, because they were really well implemented last year. Now, you get blurring at very high speeds or when you kick in the nitrous oxide, but more would have been better. Like last year, the PS2 version is the heaviest on the effects, though the overall look is still a little subdued. For the most part, the different versions of the game look very similar, with the Xbox and PC versions allowing for slightly higher visual fidelity than the PlayStation 2 version, and the GameCube version bringing up the rear, but ultimately the only major differences come down to the GameCube version not having online support, the Xbox version's analog triggers being the best control scheme for the game, and the PC version not playing very well with the keyboard controls (you'll need at least an analog gamepad if you're planning on playing this game on the PC).
The game's sound rises above its lame dialogue and poorly delivered speech. The engine sounds aren't quite as deep or as throaty as you might like, but the game is great at changing the sound of your car as you purchase upgrades. Also, things like the whoosh of wind when you fly under an overpass really help sell the game's sense of speed. 
Musically, Need for Speed Underground 2 is all over the place. The schizophrenic sounds start with the game's lead song, which is a remix of The Doors' "Riders on the Storm" done by prominent rap producer Fredwreck. Snoop Dogg joins Jim Morrison on the vocals here. For some people that will be blasphemy, but the remix sounds pretty good. The part that ruins it, though, is that Snoop is rapping about the racing--Need for Speed is specifically mentioned in the lyrics. Again, if you're going to have a game with "underground" right in the name, showcasing a song that does double duty as both an ad for the game and as an extreme case of exploitation of an old favorite probably isn't the best idea. Other songs on the soundtrack include "Lean Back" by the Terror Squad, "LAX" by Xzibit, and tracks from Sly Boogy, Felix Da Housecat, Paul Van Dyk, Cirrus, Ministry, Queens of the Stone Age, Mudvayne, Helmet, and more. This is a textbook case of a soundtrack that tries to appeal to too many different audiences and ends up not including enough of any one style to please anyone. Xbox users won't be able to fix the problem, either, as the game doesn't contain custom-soundtrack support. However, you'll be able to at least turn off tracks that you don't like.
Need for Speed Underground 2 starts with last year's game as a template and builds from there. Unfortunately, almost everything that has been added to this year's game detracts from the overall experience. Once you're in and racing and customizing your cars, it's a lot of fun, but there are too many obstacles standing between you and the best parts of the game.
End of Review, Postby VineetDwivedi......,
http://www.gamexposer.blogspot.com/
Post 14/02/2008......
Now Start preview......
Need for Speed Underground 2 Updated Impressions
The rubber will meet the road once again in Need for Speed Underground 2.
(Note: All footage is from the Xbox version.)
Our demo of the game started out with a look at the circuit and drag races you'll engage in. In terms of basic structure, the races aren't much different from those found in the original NFSU. You'll still take on a group of opponents, and you'll still tear through the streets while avoiding traffic in a race to be first across the finish line. The circuit races will require you to make your way through challenging routes that send you on scenic tours of the vast, new racing environments the team has crafted for NFSU2. The races we saw demoed were all set in the Bayview area that we've taken a look at before, but some new parts of the neighborhood were shown.
The new areas showed both the variety within the neighborhood and the fresh approach to design that keeps your surroundings much more visually interesting than those found in the original game. Whereas the original game's tracks all had a very similar look and feel to them, NFSU2 throws in new visuals, such as radically different buildings and new design touches (like undulating roads and hills), that make for a richer experience overall. The drag races we saw didn't feature quite as much variety, for obvious reasons, but they still managed to include a greater variety in the surroundings.
The gameplay in the circuit and drag races was similar to what NFSU offered, although the overall experience was different due to the new nitrous system. Unlike the original game, NFSU2's nitrous system will be much more dynamic, allowing you to fill it up by performing all manner of racing feats. The style points system has been beefed up and now awards you with points for near misses and other stylish moves, in addition to powerslides. The points go toward filling up your car's nitrous meter (if you have a nitrous-equipped set of wheels). This new system includes the mighty "nos breaker," which you'll earn by charging your meter twice. If you manage to pull it off, you'll be able to access the über speed burst, which lets you roll faster and longer than your standard nitrous burst allows you to.
While the race modes have undergone some tweaking to their gameplay and visuals, the new career mode has gotten a much more comprehensive overhaul. The game's story still follows the same basic underdog premise as the original NFSU. You'll still be cast as a lowly newbie to the racing scene who's mentored by a vet as you work your way up the ranks of the car-tuning set. The mode's overall scope and structure have been overhauled to offer a richer overall experience that you can tailor to your preferences. The beginning of the mode finds you landing in Bayview--new to town and eager to find out what's up in the racing world. You'll be contacted by Rachel, your mentor in the game who is voiced by Brooke Burke; she'll walk you through the basics of playing the game after you pick up her car from the airport.
The intro sequence familiarizes you with your minimap, a handy tool that you use to try to get around the massive areas in the game, and the Satellite Messaging System (SMS), which is built into all the cars in the game. The SMS system conveniently lets you communicate with Rachel and other folks you'll encounter in the game. In addition, you'll find some Global Positioning System (GPS) functionality as well, which ends up being vital toward getting around the game's neighborhoods. The minimap and GPS work nicely together and help paint you a serviceable picture of your surroundings. However, as we've mentioned in our previous looks at the game, one of the fun new aspects of NFSU2 is exploring the neighborhoods. Your map shows you both the basics of your surroundings and key points of interest, such as shops and places to pick up race events. However, each neighborhood holds more than a few secrets for you to discover. You'll find hidden shops and other surprises peppered throughout the 'hoods that will yield some nice perks if you can find them and have the funds.
The career mode's open-ended structure gives you a significant level of control over your experience, allowing you to decide what races you want to participate in. Whereas the original game locked you into a set, linear experience that forced you to participate in every style of race, NFSU2 is far friendlier. You'll be able to determine which races you participate in. While progressing to the next neighborhood will still require you to have a set number of wins under your belt, where you earn them is up to you.
Once we got our demo out of the way, we squeezed in some quick circuit races just because we had to. The two races we played were set in different parts of Bayview, and each featured some notable touches. The 4088 Bayview International course runs near the local airport. The nicely designed track has its fair share of twists and turns, as well as eye candy in the form of planes coming and going. The second course, 4024 Park Drive, is a fairly twisty course that is complicated by a rainstorm. While the rain looks nice, the extra water on the track can really mess up your racing groove, so you'll have to be extra careful that you don't wipe out in spectacular fashion while trying to zip by the competition.
The graphics in the game are shaping up nicely. The environments are looking good and shiny, with a liberal helping of special effects and interesting layouts. The lighting is showing a broader array of gradients, ranging from the bright and garish light blazing from certain buildings and street lights to more subtle hues from neon signs. The weather effects are looking good and even offer the old "rain on windshield" effect that puts drops of water on the game screen as you race.
The effects for using nitrous are just as eye-popping, and they present a more intense sense of speed that's further complemented by the new system, which lets you use nitrous more often. The cars in the game look great and present a high level of detail that's shown by the new lighting system and damage modeling. The game's frame rate is coming along well, and the version of the game we saw kept the action going at a fairly consistent clip, with only the occasional inconsistent hiccup.
On the audio front, the game is taking the same stylized approach to sound as its predecessor by featuring a good mix of exaggerated effects and authentic engine noises. You'll also hear a collection of effects--such as the beeps from your SMS system--that contribute to creating a very cohesive aural mix. We were only able to hear a bit of Brooke Burke's voice work, but from the sounds of it, she comes across as pretty natural, which is a welcome improvement on last year's female guide.
Need for Speed Underground 2 looks to continue on its positive road to moving the franchise right along. The improved gameplay and visuals are headed in the right direction, and they continue to leave us wanting more time with the game. If you dug the original game or are curious to see what all the fuss was about, you would do well to keep an eye out for Need for Speed Underground 2 when it ships this fall for the GameCube, PC, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. Look for more on the game in the coming months, but until then, check out an exclusive, new developer interview with a direct feed from the game in motion on the
EA takes the wraps off the next entry in the Need for
Electronic Arts finally took the wraps off the sequel to Need for Speed Underground today. The first look coincided with the announcement that EA has signed TV star Brooke Burke to appear in the game as Rachel, an adrenaline junkie who becomes your mentor and initiates you into the world of tuning up production cars. We were able to see an early PS2 version of the game in action, including a showcase of one of the game's five neighborhoods and a handful of new features from the game. Even though the game is still a long way off, there certainly seems to be a lot to get excited about in this sequel.
Uncover the underground with EA executive producer Chuck Osieja in this exclusive interview. Click "stream" for a larger view.
According to what we were shown, the game's development began in July of last year, before the original Need for Speed Underground even shipped. Apparently, given the overwhelmingly positive response to the first game, the decision was made to begin working on the sequel immediately to accommodate some of the team's ambitious ideas. Whereas the original Need for Speed Underground featured roughly 40 kilometers of track, Need for Speed Underground 2 packs 200 kilometers' worth of track. Each of the five neighborhoods will be interconnected via a lengthy and intricate freeway system. We were able to catch a glimpse of some of the game's new locales, which appeared to be based on familiar cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The main goal in the single-player game is to become the best of the best in the underground racing circuit.
However, this time out, your focus will also be on discovery--how to advance in street races and tune up your car, with the help of Rachel. Instead of offering a linear story mode, like the original game, which forced you to work your way through a set number of races before progressing, this next game will offer much more flexibility. You'll be able to progress through a level by completing a few event races of your choice. In addition to the story races, you'll be able to find or initiate additional races (there should be roughly 150 races in the game) by doing some exploring and finding AI-controlled cars eager for a race. If you win, you'll receive information or a tip on finding other hidden opponents.
Exploration will apparently be a major part of the game, since you'll be able to find a number of hidden shops and opponents. Finding both will give you more than just bragging rights, since computer opponents will yield information on where to find other hidden competition and how to uncover shops that feature parts or cars you won't find anywhere else in the game. Fortunately, as you discover these hidden shops, they will become permanently visible on your minimap display, as the normal ones are. As for parts and cars, once you discover a shop with parts and cars you haven't seen before, they're added to all the shops you visit in the game so that you don't have to go back and forth to one single shop to get what you need.
The new game also offers an improved upgrade system for your car. In fact, tweaking your car will be a much more accessible process to casual players who aren't terribly hip to gear ratios and suspension types, though there will still be plenty for those who know the degrees by which a single gear has to be adjusted to get a half-percent performance boost. Basically, you'll have two options when buying a performance upgrade in the game. You can buy a premade kit and be done with it, or you can customize the different upgrades in the kit to fine-tune your wheels. You'll even be able to use a wide variety of kits and decals to make your car look sharp. We watched a Mazda RX8 get the star treatment with numerous kit options.
Start Your Engines
Since you'll be racing in such large environments, you'll be kept in the loop via a virtual phone that will send you messages that offer challenges from other players in the city or updates from the parts or car shops in the game. This level of interaction is decidedly different from the previous game and seems to add a welcome bit of variety. In many ways, what we've seen is reminiscent of the rather free-form approach taken by the snowboarding game SSX3, which made the entire mountain your mode menu. In Need for Speed Underground 2, it appears that the various cities you roam are your menus. You'll initiate races by accepting challenges that arrive over your virtual phone, by finding specific locations that trigger certain races, or, in the case of the new outrun race mode, simply by closing in on an AI car and matching its speed. If you manage to do it correctly, the game will seamlessly segue into a race and will add an onscreen meter that tracks your distance from your opponent. If your opponent gets too far from you, the race is lost; but if you keep up, victory, in the form of cash and information, is yours.
The racing gameplay has undergone some tweaks that seem to offer a faster-paced overall experience. The biggest change we were shown was that the style points you earn are now added to your car's nitrous meter, offering a much more tangible benefit to driving stylishly than the first game's point modifiers. Drifting is being tweaked to better take advantage of the varied street types in the game and to make for a more-dynamic racing experience. The team mentioned that all of the race types from the previous game are returning, in addition to new modes, like the aforementioned outrun. While EA was not able to give many details about multiplayer, it was confirmed that the PC,
PlayStation 2, and Xbox games would be online, while the GameCube
version would support split-screen play only.
The graphics in Need for Speed Underground 2 are coming along pretty well. We'll be honest and say we weren't totally blown away by what we saw at first. The game doesn't appear to offer an exponential improvement over its predecessor at first blush; but once you start to scrutinize it a little, you'll see there's an impressive amount of business going on. First and foremost, the game appears to be maintaining and improving on the graphical quality of its predecessor while offering the five massive areas to go through. There will also be a broader range of time periods to race in, including different times of night. Weather effects will also be added to the game and will affect the way environments look.
The team is also using every trick in the book to guide players t
hrough the game's massive areas without being too intrusive. For example, your headlights now reflect off the cat's-eye markers on the road. The reflections will help point you to where you need to go as you make your way through the game. The audio didn't seem quite as remarkable--car sounds such as engine roar and tire skids stood out the most, while the music and ambient noise were still fairly low key. Then again, given the strong audio in the previous game, we have high hopes that the sequel will sound even better. Based on what we've seen so far, Need for Speed Underground 2 is shaping up to be a promising next step for the burgeoning franchise. The development team's work reflects the impact that user feedback from the original Need for Speed Underground has had on the game and has ensured that the next game will, at the very least, offer a strong, stylish racing experience. The addition of new modes and the host of gameplay refinements being added throughout the game contribute a considerable amount of optional depth that should please hardcore racing fans. While the graphics at this early stage don't appear to offer a quantum improvement over the first game, the fact that the visual quality of the game is looking better even though you have an entire city to play through certainly bodes well for the final game. Need for Speed Underground 2 is currently slated to ship this November for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, PC, and Xbox. Look for much more on the game in the coming months.
Enter the following codes without spaces at the Press
1.gottaedge <------Cheat
Unlocks Edge Sponsor Vinyl *works in career* <-------Effect
Gives $1,000 to start Career mode, and Unlocks Nissan Skyline and Mazda RX-8 in
13.gimmechingy <----Cheat
Chingy Navigator sponsor car <------Effect
14.davidchoeart <------Cheat
David Choe sponsor car <-----Effect
15.opendoors <------Cheat The
Doors sponsor car<------Effect
16.shinestreetbright <-----cheat
ShinestStreet sponsor car <------Effect
17.wantmyd3 <------Cheat
D3 sponsor car <-----Effect
18.yodogg <------Cheat
Snoop Dogg sponsor car
19.wannacapone<-----Cheat
Capone sponsor car <-----Effect
20.regmybank <------Cheat
Extra 200 in the bank in Career Mode <------Effect
NFS Underground 2 Unlockables
Magazine Covers
Unlockable
How to Unlock
Turbo <------Unlockbel
get 4 wins in stage 2 <------How To Unlock
Sports Compact Car <-----Unlockble
get 8 wins in stage 2 <-----How To Unlock
Street Car Magazine <------Unlockble
get 2 wins in stage 3<--------How to unlock
Get 6 wins in stage 3 <-------How To Unlock
GTI Magazine <---------Unlockble
get 11 wins in stage 3 <------How To Unlock
Hot 4's <------Unlockble
Get 18 wins in stage 3 <-------How To Unlock
Elaborare <-----Unlockble
Get 3 wins in stage 4 <----How To Unlock
Maxi Tuning <------Unlockble
get 7 wins in stage 4 <------How To Unlock
Spoiler<------Unlockbel
Get 11 wins in stage 4 <------How To Unlock
AutoMaxx Magazine <------Unlockble
get 16 wins in stage 4<-----How ToUnlock
Stuff Magazine <-------Unlockbel
Get 20 wins in stage 4 <------How To Unlock
Chrome und Flamen<-----Unlockble
Get 27 wins in stage 4<-------How To Unlock
Import Tuner <-------Unlock
Get 4 wins in stage 5 <--------How To Unlock
Street Car Magazine <-----Unlock
Get 9 wins in stage 5 <------How To Unlock
GTI Magazine <------Unlock
get 16 wins in stage 5 <-----How To Unlock
Auto Motor <------Unlock
get 20 wins in stage 5 <------How To Unlock
Swiss Tuner Magazine <-------Unlock
Get 25 wins in stage 5 <--------How To Unlock
Super Street <------Unlock
Get 28 wins in stage 5 <-------How To Unlock
Power Magazine <------Unlock
Get 32 wins in stage 5 <-------How To Unlock
Street Tuner <------Unlock
Get 34 wins in stage 5 <------- How to Unlock
Post By Vineet Dwivedi
Now Photos of Nfs Under Ground-2
Videos of Nfs Underground.....
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