Sound

The sound quality is excellent, especially the engine effects. I particularly like the engine sound from the Mazda RX-8 and Ford Mustang GT.

The soundtrack is great! Some tracks I found to be just right for cruising around town and some I found to be good for racing. There were a few others though that I just didn’t like at all.

Fortunately, in NFSU2, EA provides a feature that allows you to select the songs you like. Too bad EA removed the feature in NFS : High Stakes where players get to play songs from their own CDs. I really think they should put that feature back into the game because, after all, it’s your car. You should get to choose the song you want – even if it’s Enya!

Another great point to note is the occasional comic-style cutscenes. The characters are well-drawn and the story nicely depicted. But don’t expect any complex storylines or sudden in-game twists here. The story is as simple as it appears to be.

AI / Difficulty / Others

I played the first three stages with manual transmission, stability control OFF and hard mode and I found it to be just nice, in terms of difficulty. Tough, yet not impossible, as the AI opponents are always on your tail.

Later on, I switched to Easy mode, just to finish the game quickly. Frankly speaking, it’s too easy. The AI allowed your opponents to fall back behind too easily.

The game also offers the option to play over LAN. This is definitely a plus point, as we are no longer limited to playing through EA’s NFS servers.

Save Game

You only get one slot for your game unlike NFSU, which allows multiple slots. The single slot means that you can’t save more than one game and reload another race that you prefer.

This is annoying, especially for races that you may feel like playing again some day; or a special race to allow the final car you choose to get the unique upgrade.