Need for Speed: Underground 2
PlayStation2/Xbox/GameCube
Publisher: EA
Visuals: As polished as an Import Tuner cover car.
Audio: Terrible music, great car sounds.
Difficulty: Moderate
Fun Factor: Too big for its garage, but fun nonetheless.
Rating: (4 thumbs up)
The original Underground disposed of the franchise’s pure racing element to embrace the street-racing culture made popular by pop cinema like “The Fast and the Furious.” Apparently it was the smart choice, as the game went on to sell 7 million units worldwide. EA’s inevitable follow-up not so much fails to capture the magic of the original as it goes overboard in offering game play options. After a few hours, players may find it overwhelming to manage hundreds of cars and car parts, as well as reams of racing circuits and the miles of road in the fictional Bayview City, where the game is set. It’s also pretty distracting to have E! hottie Brooke Burke as an on-screen hostess/narrator/adviser. But for real import tuning aficionados, NFSU2 offers an incredible return on investment. There are literally dozens of hours of game play to be found, from competing in events like drag races and drifting jams to hanging in the garage and tweaking the licensed cars, such as Ford Mustangs and Nissan Zs, to perfection. Hopefully in the third edition–which is as inevitable as a third “Fast and Furious” movie–EA breaks from the bigger-is-better formula for a game that is manageable for casual fans as well as hard-core racing gamers.
Burnout 3: Takedown
PlayStation2/Xbox
Publisher: EA
Visuals: Spectacular crashes and an incredible sense of speed.
Audio: EA’s soundtrack label, Trax, just plain sucks.
Difficulty: Moderate
Fun Factor: The best driving game of this generation.
Rating: (5 thumbs up)
Burnout 3 is nothing short of car crash pornography, replacing writhing bodies with twisted metal pile-ups that cannot help but inspire yelps of “Did you see that?” Developer Criterion has unleashed perhaps the most viscerally exciting racing game yet, as the game rewards smooth driving skills and a disturbing sense of road rage. The game is split fairly evenly between race modes, where one half sends you on frantic circuits where reaching the finish line can only happen if you cause your rivals to crash into walls, cliffsides, each other, etc. The other half sets up Rube Goldberg-esque traffic jams and sends you zooming into the middle of it at top speed. Find just the right bumper to nick, and you can turn the scene into one of pure gasoline-soaked mayhem. And not two wrecks are the same, giving Burnout 3 almost unlimited replay value. For racing game fans, there is no better example of a “must-have.”
Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition
PlayStation2/Xbox
From: Rockstar Games
Available: Spring 2005
For the third Midnight Club, Rockstar Games has saddled up to DUB Magazine, a celebrity/car rag that puts a feature on rims opposite of a gushing profile on a new rapper. The game is geared toward the tuning lifestyle and offers more than 50 licensed vehicles to take to the garage before racing them in real-world cities including Detroit and San Diego. Because it seems that Rockstar is absolutely incapable of releasing a bad game, anticipation for Midnight Club is sky-high, especially since the previous title offered one of the best online racing experiences of this generation.
