Need for Speed: Underground 2 [PS2]

The original Need for Speed Underground did a great job of conveying the glamorized street racing scene (as boosted in the movie The Fast and the Furious and the rest). It's a world that's as much about style as substance and the whole aesthetic screams on in Need for Speed Underground 2. The game rolls super-slick visuals, tricked-out cars, and a free-roaming California vibe into a solid street racing experience.

In terms of the single-player career game, the buzz phrase of the week is "emergent gameplay." Being big Grand Theft Auto players, we tend to smile at this. Need for Speed Underground 2 wants its players to pay attention to aural and visual hints as they navigate the freely roamable environs of a sort of "Calfornia gone wild" (a virtual world jamming the slick glitz of Los Angeles with the borderless sprawl of the San Francisco Bay Area).

Arriving in Bayview, players assume the role of a hotshot on the street-racing scene with lots of promise and an initial set of wheels granted by a friend of a friend. As might be the case in real life, you're obliged to cruise around the new city all by your lonesome for a little while, getting the lay of the land, picking up little secrets here and there. It's a neat system: Participating in a race you've discovered by just poking around can lead to news about a tune-shop you weren't previously aware of (which then becomes visible on the mini-map).

On the way to or from that location, you might become involved in a target-of-opportunity "outrun race," victory in which opens even more opportunities. Even the most inconsequential throw-down is challenging enough -- and the overall world interesting enough -- that we actually wanted to prowl around, getting familiar with our surroundings. This is the game that Street Racing Syndicate wanted to be, minus the hot real-world tuner scene cover girls. OK, Underground 2 has Brooke Burke, the former host of E! Entertainment's Wild On travel series... but it's not the same thing at all.

The visuals here are crisp and beautiful, and the resultant sense of speed is truly a thing to behold. If you're one of those people remotely prone to apparent-motion sickness, you can forget all about this game. Drag- and drift-racing elements keep the experience fresh, particularly the drifting elements. Other available race modes include the tight-quarters Street X, Sprint and the speedway-based Underground Racing League.

While not as huge in America as in its birthplace of Japan, the drift-racing scene has come up in the West in recent years, particularly in the world of video games. Drifting -- which is its own class of stylish racing, requiring masterful, easy slides around corners -- requires different skills than standard mash-the-pedal video racing, and is a welcome addition to Underground 2's variety.

The game's sprawling virtual world offers some 200 kilometers of drivable road, spread out through five unique neighborhoods connected by freeways. It also features over 30 vehicles -- makes including Nissan, Ford, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen, Hummer and Cadillac, a more than adequate selection of European, American, and Japanese cars.

Customization is king is the street racing/import world, and Underground 2 offers hundreds of brand-name parts to install, including sponsored deals and exotic mods like side skirts, scoops, wide-body kits, neon, and scissor/gullwing doors. Even your first, basic ride is equipped with SMS messaging and a GPS system that provides a constantly updated (if not particularly comprehensive) radar map indicating new events and even eligible pick-up race opponents.

Style encompasses more than looks, so Need for Speed Underground 2 hands out the props for the skill and style with which you drive your car. Pull off those slick drifts, sketchy near-collisions and one-on-one street challenges and you'll rack up the style points, unlock new parts and accessories... and even make the occasional magazine cover (a nice true-fantasy touch for any street-race fanatic).

Online play is painless, as it should be: Players have access to messenger, buddy list, and chat functions, as well as news, NFSU2 community, quick-game setups and the all-important rankings. If you're not into the whole ranked-game thing, you can also just race for the love and attitude of it all in unranked competition.

The game's mentionable drawbacks are nit-picky things, some of which won't concern many gamers. First, the ambient traffic in the well-presented environs is still very light. Also, there's no real damage modeling, and as a result, only the most horrific, high-speed collisions warrant the special attention of the cut-away crash-cam.

No question either way: Whether you enjoyed the first Need for Speed Underground or are taking your first dip into the world of high-end street racing games, Underground 2 is a must-see. The world is elaborate, the sense of speed is dizzying, and the customization could cost you a job or a girlfriend. But you'll still have Brooke to keep you company.