A 2021 Review of Need for Speed: Underground 2

hey everyone and welcome to this 2021 review of need for speed underground 2. underground 2 is a very special game to me and well honestly to a lot of people tuner culture was really just starting to seep out of japan in the late 90s the fast and the furious hit the big screens in 2001 and need for speed underground one was hot on its tail being really the first major racing game to take on the tuner scene underground 1 was good but underground 2 took it to a completely new level introducing an open world something almost unheard of entirely in racing games among other features like incredibly in-depth car customization true career progression with sponsors special events multiple career stages and almost rpg-like unlocks and upgrades it's no secret that for its time underground 2 was a monumental accomplishment and just a massive success but today i'm here to see how this now 16 year old game holds up in today's world is it worthwhile to give underground 2 another playthrough in 2021 or if you've never even played it should you now my own return to underground 2 began about 3 months ago as a way to kick off a series of let's plays on my newly formed twitch channel and if you are interested in watching the whole playthrough there will be a vod playlist on youtube and as of the time of writing this script we're about to start need for speed carbon as well now for underground 2 i only used a few mods a texture upscaler to fix things like low-res roads the very popular widescreen patch and then a custom soundtrack replacer to avoid dmca issues on twitch and then later on a mod to rework the visual reputation requirements more on those two later and i'll also be putting out a video soon on how to install these mods and play the game well on pc in 2021 alright so with that out of the way let's get into the review proper although not likely it's most memorable feature underground 2 starts off with a continuation of underground 1's story you've beaten eddie's gang and become the best street racer in olympic city then you're betrayed by a mysterious man after being invited to join his gang and we as the player wake up six months later flying to a new city bayview with a note from our friend samantha to get in touch with a girl named rachel whose iconic 350z is waiting for us right outside the airport this is a big moment handing you the keys to a modded 350 and letting you pretty freely cruise the city right out of the gate of course there isn't much to do most of the map is still locked and you're intended to head straight to the dealership to pick out a starter car but even now over 15 years later being dropped into the map like this it feels awesome it's full of possibility and somehow gives the world an immediate breath of life even though you actually never see people in the entire open world and i guess this is a good time to talk about the game's world you start with only the city center unlocked then as you progress gain access to beacon hill jackson heights and coal harbor bay views downtown is what always comes to mind to me when i'm reminiscing about this game there is some seriously good world design here every street feels unique the city has a good bit of elevation and plenty of road and corner variety the city isn't just a grid of copy-paste office buildings there's the hotel plaza south market the stadium the airport just outside of the city center the section of the map isn't huge by modern standards but it feels so big because it feels so real and so diverse every street is uniquely memorable and you'll learn your way around the city pretty quick because of that it's also worth noting here that it's important to learn how to get around the city because underground 2 has no fast travel a decision that in my opinion is very smart because it forces you to actually drive and experience the whole map something modern open world games often abandoned for the sake of convenience soon in the campaign you'll unlock beacon hill a sort of first level suburb right outside the city then jackson heights the land of nothing but beautiful mountain passes that manage to give you these incredible views of the city below and finally the last stages of the game take place in coal harbor a large industrial complex with a lot of tricky split roads and even some off-road sections too these four major districts lead to a game world with impressive size and variety even compared to today it might not be able to match up in terms of raw square mileage but in general the roads are packed pretty tight and each one is actually valuable to the map as a whole there's no copy paste or space fillers here if you're a new player to underground 2 or just returning and worried that maybe the map just felt bigger as a kid don't worry bayview is just as big and beautiful as it always has been even though this is a 16 year old game a simple resolution bump is enough to modernize the vision the art team had back in the early 2000s the color palette lighting and weather design and just general art style of the world brings so much life and a strange sense of comfort to the game's world bay view is a nice place to drive and outside of some very minor low res textures here and there i was more impressed by the graphics than i was let down by them alright so let's talk about the cars you'll be driving in bay view underground 2 has a car list totaling about 30 cars largely consisting of tuner icons from the us europe and japan you won't find exotics here and although 30 cars might pale in comparison to forza's current 800 or so you're still guaranteed to find a few things you'll like and each and every car has full access to an insane amount of customization we started our playthrough with a nissan 240sx a tuner classic if there ever was one picking a car is meaningful in underground because throughout the entire course of the game you only get 5 slots every car is meant to feel like yours individually customized built and tuned to your preference so let's talk about customization both visually and in terms of performance visual customization is absolutely one of underground's strongest selling points you can add crazy underglow scissor doors colored nos purges unique hud gauges wide body kits mirrors headlights engine neon trunk speakers hydraulics i mean to this day nothing touches underground 2's overall customization depth you can find some better livery editors in games like forza but even still the paint and vinyl system in underground 2 is plenty strong enough to beat out most modern titles even including need for speed heat there is however one glaring issue here the early 2000s american tuner scene was a lawless time filled with many ridiculous and questionable design choices and that sadly means that even though you have dozens of body parts to pick from by modern standards only a small handful of parts actually look good that being said there's still plenty of fun to be had in building the ricer of your dreams now let's talk performance customization you might be tricked into thinking that underground 2 is a full-blown arcade game without any sim merit but boy are you wrong you'll unlock and apply real performance parts like sway bars headers cams and even fuel filters from real brands like brembo greti or hks the brands even make a difference sometimes too with different exhaust or turbo manufacturers changing the sound of the car this is a great touch that and i'll be saying this a lot in this video even by today's standards is impressive once you've got the parts on your car you can tune it with a surprisingly in-depth tuning system that to be honest i had entirely forgotten about until encountering it again in this playthrough this is some serious level stuff ecu and turbo pressure tuning suspension and aero tweaking and an official test track to try out your new adjustments now let's walk things back a bit no need for speed underground 2 is not nor is it trying to be anything near a simulator the cars handle very arcady even though there is a base layer of real physics under there somewhere and the drifting well the drifting can be rough but the point here is that all this car building and tuning is real stuff makes a real difference in your car's handling and is actually quite important especially if you're gonna play the game on hard mode somewhere in the last 15 years racing game devs forgot that tuners actually like to tune their cars but here in underground 2 largely enjoyable and accessible arcade driving is paired beautifully with in-depth and realistic customization and tuning okay so it's time to talk about the real meat of the game here the campaign the general structure goes like this you unlock a new section of the world sign a new sponsor then spend your time meeting the sponsor's requirements by winning a set number of races and trying to land magazine or dvd covers by upgrading your car's looks once the stage is complete you get some cut scenes unlock a new section of the world sign a new sponsor rinse and repeat there's an impressive variety of events to compete in here outside of your standard circuits and sprints there's ultimate racing league events which take place in one of two locations outside of the regular map and are often multi-race championships with no traffic there's street cross which puts you in tight garage or industrial complexes and restricts your use of nitrous and drift competitions as well there's also open world racing called outrun races where you compete head to head against other drivers in the open world for a chance to build some rep and cash and even unlock hidden parts i chose to play the game this time around on the hard difficulty and this isn't something to be taken super lightly if you're as anti-meta stubborn as i am the ai can be straight up ruthless there's no rewind like we get in today's racing games and there are real performance differences between some of the worst and best cars available to you i quickly snagged a mark iv supra after unlocking it and sadly quickly realized that the 240sx i started the game with was actually a much better choice and it ended up carrying me through the entire game even though i did pick up an is-300 civic and evo later in the playthrough if you want to play the game on hard be ready to choose a handful of meta cars or just know that you might be restarting quite a few races that's the thing with underground 2. second place may as well be last you have to win in order to proceed and that's one of my major two issues with the game's campaign on normal you'll likely never notice as the ai is tuned down and any properly upgraded car should carry you nicely through most events but on hard when the ai seems to have been raised in online gta lobbies things can get frustrating if i had it my way i'd keep a sponsor requirement of still having to win some races while allowing you to podium or even just finish the others obviously at the expense of reduced rewards hitting a traffic car around a blind corner on the last lap of a 10 minute race to end up in second and having to restart the whole damn thing that's a feeling all too familiar to me on this last playthrough this brings us then to the second issue i have with the game's progression and luckily one that can be fixed with a mod that i mentioned earlier the nfs underground visual reputation remover let me explain one of the main requirements to progress through the campaign involves a system called your star or visual reputation a numerical value assigned to each car that shows how cool the game thinks it is as you win races and find customization shops you'll unlock more parts with higher star rep values this means that when you unlock cooler parts you have to put them on your car in order to meet the reputation requirements to get on magazine or dvd covers this leads to your car slowly throughout the game turning more and more into the actual tuner vehicles from the movie cars back in 2004 that was rad as heck dude but these days most car guys prefer a bit more modesty in their builds and that's where this mod comes in it tweaks the rep system to not base off of how many parts are installed on your car but instead how many parts you've unlocked in total essentially meaning that you're always at your max unlocked possible star rating even if you're still rocking that stock body 240 with a few decals on the door and maybe some nice wheels i wanted to keep my playthrough as true to the vanilla release as possible but this is one mod that i can fully recommend to anyone looking to play underground today alright so before we wrap up here i do want a quick touch on the other game changing mod i used a soundtrack replacer if you know underground 2 you know that the soundtrack is as iconic as the game itself riders on the storm is integral to the underground experience and it definitely could be considered a bit of sacrilege to rip it out in favor of some modern copyright free tunes but sadly with the state of twitch and youtube as they are i couldn't take the risk i will however say this i spent roughly three days building my new soundtrack making sure to carefully replace songs with a modernized track list that in all still felt very true to the original vibe even finding a remix of writers on the storm that was copyright free it didn't hurt the experience at all to me and often people would ask in twitch chat for names of the songs or compliment the original soundtrack not even realizing that it had been replaced so if you're gonna play the game on your own use the original music it's easier and it's important to the experience however if you're looking to play underground 2 on twitch youtube or anywhere else copyright is an issue or just want to mix things up for another playthrough i will leave a link in the description to the entire new playlist and have instructions in my next nfs video on how to swap out the music so in total my underground 2 playthrough lasted about 30 hours and the finale was good if not a bit sudden and when it was all over and the events had been cleared off the map no more random calls from fellow racers telling me about secret events no more hilarious text messages dissing my driving skills or my car the city just felt so quiet nothing had changed really traffic still flowed other drivers still cruised the map and the city still lit up just as it had before but that breath of life had gone the story had ended it was a feeling i really hadn't expected at all during my time playing maybe i had taken for granted how much those little interactions with npcs had helped to make the world feel more alive or maybe it was just that this game that has lived on in my head for the 15 years since i first played it had now finally really ended but one thing was obvious it was worth it it can be hard to see through the nostalgia and treat this game fairly but i can honestly and confidently say that for returning players and new players alike need for speed underground 2 is a game worth playing in 2021 thank you guys for watching i hope this video inspires you to boot up your old save on your ps2 or redownload the game for a fresh run on pc or maybe even just finally take a first dive into this legendary game you've undoubtedly heard about over the years if you do let me know and if you have any fond memories about underground 2 please feel free to share them in the comments here i'd love to hear them thanks again and i'll see you in the next video

Channel: HokiHoshi

Views: 592,189

Keywords: nfs, underground 2, nfsu2 mods, need for speed, review

Id: ChMVy8ouMtQ

Length: 16min 43sec (1003 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 05 2021