The game nails the street racing aesthetic, something that most succeeding NFS titles have failed to do. The driving physics are pretty good, especially for an arcade racer from this era. Racing lines are actually important for instance.

Unfortunately it has numerous problems that made progression feel like a chore. Drag races are atrocious, URL races take place on the same few tracks and go on for too long, and the open world adds nothing to the game but just makes race selection take longer. By stage 3 I had seen everything the game had to offer, yet still had to complete the same events on the same tracks for another dozen hours. It all just felt like padding.

I can see why it was revolutionary for the time and I enjoyed most of my time with it, but I ended up losing motivation to continue playing.

Definitely a lot better than the first game in almost every way- there's more variety in city environments, the open world is neat especially considering it was the first NFS to have one (and better than MW's since there are actual incentives to exploration and you can't just do everything from the menu), Street X and sprint-type drifts are fun additions, you aren't forced to play every single race so you can largely ignore the modes you don't like, better customization and you can actually have multiple cars at a time in career mode, but there's still a lot of the same problems- you have the typical Black Box rubberbanding (which you can turn off by going to easy difficulty but the AI is such a joke without it that it just makes the game really unengaging), drag racing sucks as much as it does in both the first game and Most Wanted, circuit drifts are actually worse (why in the world are the other cars actually on the track at the same time?) and the game still kind of ends up feeling like a repetitive slog. For reference, I thought Most Wanted could probably have used a bit of trimming and that game required 125 races (including bosses) + 1 million in police bounty to finish. Underground 2 has 137 events, which doesn't seem like that much more than Most Wanted, and no police chases, but on top of races just feeling longer in UG2 in general (I have no idea if they actually are, that's just what it feels like) 24 of those events are URL races, many of which actually consist of 2-4 consecutive races on very similar tracks with more aggressive AI than usual, so the actual number is probably close to 160-180 races, plus even if the police stuff in MW can be a bit grindy it's at least something else to do aside from racing and there's no real boss races in UG2 other than the final race so it just feels like doing the same thing over and over again with nothing to break up the monotony at all. Not fun. The writing is also something else, people like to complain about modern racing games feeling really cringy and embarrassing but these old games are exactly the same, just in a 2004 way rather than a 2010s way. At least Most Wanted was actually funny sometimes

I think with some significant trimming I'd have had a lot more fun with this game, but as it is I couldn't enjoy it enough to finish it. Once again, I don't really get the appeal, especially in this day and age.

This was my first Need For Speed game and I think it's a major improvement over the previous iteration.

The game has a wider range of cars for you to pick from. I always pick the 240sx as a tradition since I always used that car when I first played the game. You can pretty much beat the game in any car in my opinion, just like and Need For Speed games released in this era. Interestingly, there is also the SUVs and their own races and such. I don't really mind them as I don't really like SUVs but the races were fine.

Speaking of races, this game has a lot more different scenes compared to the previous game. Aside from your industrial area and cities with neon lights, you also have an actual race track, a windy mountain road, and an airport if I remember correctly. It is very refreshing to play around in different spots of the imaginary city Bayview. I especially like the mountain roads as the windy paths make it fun to traverse through.

There is an actual plot of the game, but it is extremely forgetful to the point I have no memory of it whatsoever even though it hasn't been that long since the last time I played. This is not really a problem though as you don't come to a racing game for the plot. You come for the driving!

And the driving in this game is solid enough. It is really similar to the previous game and I suspect both games were probably developed using the same physics engine. But the cars control very nicely in the way you expect in this game. There is also the great option to tune your car and make sure it handles just the way you like it. I was never really into tuning and just purchase all the performance upgrades anyways, which works pretty well and can get you through pretty much all the races.

Speaking of races, there are several modes in this game: the standard sprint and circuit modes. There is also something called Street X which I don't really find to be much different from sprint and circuit races (I guess the tracks were smaller?). There was also the drift and drag, which were two of my least favorite. You will find many cars to have an extraordinary amount of grip that will make them hard to spin around tracks for drift modes. However if you get the right tuning setup for it, it is not that bad. The drag mode is just mid both here and in Most Wanted. You basically memorize which direction the traffic will be coming from and just shift in time, challenging at first but tedious when you know what you are doing. Overall, I still like the races in Underground 2. Oh I almost forgot, you can also race NPCs in the streets for more cash.

The game also inherits from its predecessor of the great customizations that you can put on your car. There were even magazine shooting opportunities that you can go to and I really like those! They were basically time attack modes and you get to have a great shot of your car on a magazine afterwards! It was extremely charming that they decided to implement that!

The game, however, just doesn't feel as fun as I remembered for some reason. Maybe it's because of the open world setting? You have to drive a long way to all the races and the game feels way longer than it is. Some people might prefer that but I honestly find it quite tedious when you have to drive all across the map to get to certain spots. That pretty much is my only gripe with the game.

This game is a nostalgia rush for me as well since it was my first Need For Speed game. I still enjoy playing it a lot even all these years later. It is a great game and a great classic that all racing car fans should try out. And remember, always use your seatbelts and obey the laws of the road.