need for speed underground 2: first impressions

germanjulian

Is all I can say. Its so cool driving around a big city. Driving to races is OK too. The only thing I dont like is "FINDING" body/tuning/car shops. They send you a text where it is but its sometimes hard to find.

The racing is just like the last one, great fun, challenging but hey I have racest 20 times now and my win ratio is 90%.
Tuning the cars and all that jazz is great again, so much more options etc.
For some reason I cannot find the colour or spray section yet maybe it will be unlocked later in the game.
Oh I looked at the tuning section where you can acctually change settings on your engine and your downforce of your spoiles etc but frankly I cannot be bothered with all this stuff since I feel this game is an arcade racer not simulator.

Graphics wise things are definatly a bit better, the city is more detailed. BUT FEAR NOT, the game performance is better, I am getting less lags and its nice and smooth for me (i do switch off some of those fog and light options though).
Loads of music but to much metal for me (bad metal not the kind of quality metal I listen too) and the sound effect... UUUHHHHH nitros...ssssshhhhhhh vvvrrrruuuummmmmmmm shhhhhhhhsssss
All in all a great game! If you liked the first one this one is even better! A LOT

All I need now is a full map to download with all the tuning shops that would be cool.

GET the game if you liked the first one.

(PS: Yes I am a game tester)

MIG-31

i intend geeting this myself,but going by the demo it's quite a different experience.but that were quite short.

bake15

sounds cool, whats it like online?

germanjulian

I dare not try online I suppose bette then the last one but I have no ideal.

As I said if you liked the first one this one is a little better if you can life with the driving to the races (only takes max 1 minute) and finding the tuning shops.
at least you dont have to refuel the dam car

Zardon

Its excellent yes, great engine, wonderful playability.

Dark Lord

i most definatly will be getting NFSU2 but im not sure what system yet. any one ever try one of those gamecube to USB adapters? with a wavebird? if one of those things works well with a wavebird, ill most definatly get the game for pc.

Zardon

I know a guy who uses one, says its great. worth looking at if you dont like car games on the keyboard.

Dark Lord

thanks for the heads up big Z. i think i can invest 15 bucks or so into one of those adapters and try it out on the NFSU2 demo. if i like it and think it works well, then i know what system im getting the game on.

Gardinen

I've tried the DEMO and I'm thinking of getting the real thing when it comes out here in Sweden.
I played the DEMO with all graphics on max at 1024x768. Though it did not lag, it did feel a bit slow. Hopefully ATI will maybe optimize their drivers for this game. Would be nice!

Junkguy

The performance is great on the demo, I've been using 1280x1024 at max (including FSAA and AF) and it still ran at decent framerates with my stock 9800 non-pro O____O

Zardon

only thing im not sure about is the contrast option, I think its better turned off.

Zardon

Actually there are so many damn options in this game im still working out if I like some of them. the added contrast gives the game a certain "feel" and im not sure if I like or dislike it yet.

As for the options and tuning, I love it. I just added a new engine and you can HEAR the difference, over my 5:1s the engine now has a nice grunt to it. very nice touches, im impressed so far.

germanjulian

yeah I have everything at high except road reflection I have medium and car reflection update rate I have low. Also that contrast thing is horrible? and I dont like both the fogs either and particel system I remeber from the old game gave me FPS drops and I switched of rain... oh well I suppose I did switch of a few things
anway 1280x960 2AA and 4AF in game (I think its a slider) I 45FPS pretty constant


bbbbbrrrrrruuuummmm

Zardon

funny thing was, I had just upgraded the engine, and I was driving to a new race, and I heard this "kabbbbbbbbbbbbommmmmmmmmmm" as I was accelerating hard around a corner, and I thought id blown the engine..... then it started to rain. it was thunder.

now aint that cool....... scary when you have your subwoofer cranked though

germanjulian

like when you listen to your walkman and you hear sirenes... and you look for the police lol


I had this one song and one part sounded like an airplane going right above you head! I JUMPED every time... lol

oh look someone got hl2 box set allready
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33790848

server is getting powned though

Zardon

my first arse car

Sgt.Slug

I'm having a hard time shelling out the cash for this game, got some questions etc. Being an original owner of NFS:U and all previous releases of NFS. I find this game graphically, including viewing the pic's shown in the thread, not overly impressive. I also find the additions to the game kind of lacking and not overly imaginative to warrant spending the cash again on it. Can I ask? Does MP offer the ability of head2head competition as in the old days with Hot Pursuit 1 where driver 1 is on top, driver 2 on the bottom. If it does, then that would settle buying it. If it doesn't I think I'll skip. Also, did you guys 'own' the previous release of Underground?

Dark Lord

playing the demo on my z680s sounds great. can hear every sound the car makes and the world around you. very crisp and clear.

germanjulian

if anyone cant be bothered to look for all the shops like me:

shop map: http://germanjulian.com/open/nfsumap!.jpg

Erroneus

Great game, funny and runs pretty smooth.

Running at 1280x1024, all details set to MAX, looking pretty sweet

In the start i didn't like the new gameplay, where you have to drive around and find shops and races, but after some hours of playing I actually like it, because it adds alot more gameplay and your more free to decide how you wonna play it

Zardon

Yeah I agree, the whole free roam thing adds a lot to the playability and structuring of the game. I played and beat the first one and loved it, in fact i played it on and off over a full year, and I cant honestly say that about any game even colin mcrae rally (any version).

This is simply a corker, some of the mods ive seen already are very well done and the whole movement of the game is excellent.

Zardon

Welcome to the forums SGT SLUG, nice to see new faces. Im sorry I cant answer your multiplayer questions as ive yet to get into that area.

As for the graphics I really dont know what people want from a game nowadays, we have almost every technique used in this game, shader DX9+ effects, lighting/blooming effects, particle effects, advanced contrasting/variable depth of field options to add more "character" to the experience, built in Texture filtering with antialiasing AAx2 + X4 options ---- all this with a super smooth engine (which is well optimised and coded from my testing on a EE/FX55 and P4 2.4ghz) improved over the already excellent NFSU1 core engine that can be tailored to suit almost any system configuration out there.

On top of these vast improvements we have a new free roam function which gives an added dimension to the game. The less "linear" a game feels to me is always a good thing.

Try the demo, if you dont like that at all then skip the game, thats the best suggestion I can give anyone, while its not going to detail the full game or in fact even hint at the amount of options its certainly the easiest path rather than looking at a series of stills which really dont do justice to the diversity, gameplay, graphic techniques and excellent engine. Now, enough analysing for me, time to play it

The375Boy

I love it they added so much detail such as when your at a dead stop and u want to go u hear it rev up to 5 grand....in real life thats true because on improta with a heavy clutch or a stage 3 / 6 puck clutch u cant just let it out and move u have to give it alot of gas in order to engauge the clutch and not stall, awesome game FREE ROAM IS the best thing ever but u can get lost i'll tell you that much

Sgt.Slug