As part of our exploration of the five part city (and thus a five-part feature), we spoke with Kristian von Fersen, associate producer of NFSU2, who explained the ideas behind the design of City Core, the center part of the downtown area. To show this in realtime, we have captured an EA producer driving from one side of the city to the other side in one fell swoop. It's worth noting that the game is fully streaming at all times, so you can go to any section at any time without a single load time. Or you might find a glowing purple ring, indicating a place to start a different kid of race. The OutRun Challenges, however, aren't mandatory, echoing the game's open-structure theme. If you can stick with a tuner car for long enough, he'll challenge you to race (called "OutRun Challenges") in which the winner must get ahead of the other by more than 300 meters. The streets are filled with regular traffic cars and tuner vehicles. You might find an opponent to race by simply driving the streets. The PDA will tell you of an upcoming race using the on-screen system, or you can just cruise. You'll find races to enter by exploring the city and by using a PDA message system. All of the modes from the previous game have returned, so players can enter into career mode, quick race, drag racing, drift races and the like, but they're structured in a different, non-linear way. There are distinct sections ranging City Center, Beacon Hill, Jackson Heights, Airport and Coal Harbor. The game's main goal is to uncover the "Underground Tuner Culture." Players start with enough cash to buy a low budged ride, and as they cruise the huge cityscape, they find races in which to enter. There are 30 licensed cars in the game, many of which have yet to be revealed. Now you can switch test out your changes on the Test Track and if you don't like them, you can instantly switch to the performance section and change them, switch back to the track and continue racing without ever actually leaving the track. In a very impressive addition, EA's test track is exactly what the doctor ordered.
BEST GAMES LIKE NFSU 2 MOD
EA Canada has done an excellent job of blowing out the customization sections of the game, ranging from the exterior mod parts (hoods, doors, spinners, roof scoops, trunks, dashboards) to the innards (torque, NOS, turbo, aerodynamics, etc.) where you can check out a Dyno and test out your changes on a test track. There are five parts to the city, each section presenting gamers with a different kind of racing style, part shops, opponent drivers, and surprises. The wide-open, imaginary city of Bayview is five times the size of the previous game, with an amazing amount of real estate to drive across - 200 km of cityscape in NFSU2 compared to the 40 km from NFSU. Need for Speed Underground 2 is a huge expansion of last year's game in every direction. The comfortable, recognizable brand, the simple, easy take on the import-tuner culture and the sleek graphics (albeit, all wet night tracks) combined to make EA's racer a monster with which to contend. But across the world, NFSU2 sold more than any other game (7.5 million), period.
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In North America, Need for Speed Underground was the second-best selling game of the year, shifting more than 3 million plus units into homes. What was surprising was the consumer response. The game itself was good (IGN's average score was 8.9 of 10), but it had some issues.
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In 2003, after Madden NFL 2004, Electronic Arts shocked the videogame industry with its new rendition of Need for Speed Underground, a different take for the series that has at that point seen more than eight iterations.