Need for Speed Underground 2

Soup up your road rockets! Last year��s hottest racing game is back on the road. Need for Speed Underground 2 is well into production, and this time, you won��t be forced through strictly linear courses. Instead, you drive around and pick up challenges in an open city. Indeed, NFSU2 aims to immerse players in the tuner culture with a customized gaming experience.

��Nos�� to Meet Ya

Instead of presenting races in a linear fashion, NFSU2 is driven by an open-world concept. While searching for challenges, you can scout out any of the game��s five distinct neighborhoods, which are linked together by freeways. What��s more, you can choose your own battles. Not into drag racing? Don��t bother with it. Race drift challenges instead.

In the Outrun challenge, you attempt to outrun your opponent��s car within a set number of miles. The tough part is keeping up with your foe as he tries to evade you; the nonlinear nature of the game map means that your rival can drive anywhere he wants, losing you instantly with a sharp turn if you aren��t quick enough.

Free-form gameplay gets boring quickly if there��s no underlining point to it. Knowing this, the development team has focused on providing choices with purpose: A player��s success or failure will hinge upon the choices made in the overarching story that steers the game.

Open-ended gameplay isn��t the only thing to look forward to. Famed beauty Brooke Burke will star as Rachel, a wise and enticing race organizer. Think of her as your own personal hot Yoda, guiding you on the path toward racing enlightenment.

Fender Bending

NFSU2 will include LAN capabilities, but the development team still hasn��t decided whether there will be multiplayer cross-compatibility between the PC and console versions. While this feature was offered in the original, cheating PC players undermined the online experience for all. This sequel would have to be cheatproof.

Plus, with the huge number of missions and exercises available, there��s always the possibility of ��too much of a good thing.�� Hopefully, each of the race world��s five neighborhoods will capture a distinctive look while maintaining that ��hard to nail�� sense of a natural city. Otherwise, it would be easy to get lost, leaving you to roam the city��s streets in search of something to do. Let��s hope this one smokes some rubber come fall 2004.

Publisher: Electronic Arts Developer: Electronic Arts Canada Genre: Racing Release Date: Fall 2004

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Computer Gaming World.