Need For Speed Underground 2, When A Franchise Peaks! - A Sort Of Review 

8:50 Not-so-fun fact about that park: On the northern end of it wou can find a sign in memory of Brad Lawless, and stating "In Memory of our Frend". Bradford Lawless was the 9-year old son of an EA Black Box employee who was aparently pretty close to the Black Box team, having followed the development of Need for Speed Underground, as well as a few EA Sports titles. Brad unfortunatelly died on May 27, 2004, 5 and a half months before Underground 2's release, after battling Ewings Sarcoma. In his memory, the Black Box team decided to make a memorial to him on Pigeon Park, including a few bridges and signs with his name. Underground 2's credits also has "In memory of our friend Brad Lawless" at the end.

I might be one of the the few people out there that likes Underground 2 more than Most Wanted ‘05.

Not gonna lie, I was never a big fan of the cops in any need for speed game outside of the pre-underground games, so the game not having them is actually a plus for me.

Finally A video where Underground 2 gets the love it deserves. Most of the mordern NFS youtubers talk smack about this game. Great video man this video is about to hit the algorithm.

I always feel like the gray UI is what made U2 so nostalgic and iconic. It's so simple, sleek and no game does it that well

Fun fact: there's no need to use a cracked version the game, you can just create an empty file called "foobar" in the folder, and that'll bypass the CD check.

Underground 2 is not only a great game that defined the racing genre, but it also such a part of his era. The edgy artstyle, the rock, rap and electronic music mashed together, and the honest attitude were just as memorable as it was in the 2000s. Even with his flaws (some of them more or less fixed in MW2005), it's still an masterpiece of a game and to this day nothing has ever came up as good as the Black Box era.

Crashing most probably occurs , when game tries to utilize more than one core of cpu, when game is launched open task manager and set cpu affinity to single cpu core/thread.

How Dutch do you want to sound? *-Yes*

I’m so appreciative that you discussed Bayview as a character, THEE main character. This is by far my favorite open world map in ANY game-over any rpg, shooter, mmo-And I think It’s ridiculously sad how uneventful and uninspired the maps were after carbon. I bought unbound thinking I could relive just a little bit of the underground era, as it seemed like that was what EA were trying to replicate-but the map seriously failed. And cops, ugh.

I will never forget the day a friend of mine invited me to his house after school to show me the cool game he bought, "you can also free roam". We spend like 4 hours playing, I can still remember the excitement. While roaming occasionally stopping to appreciate the then amazing graphics. After a week or so my father brought me a copy too (goddamn I was so happy) Started with 240sx and finished with it, I was always mentioning that 240sx that I had built in NFSU2. In 2016 as I was going through my old stuff I had stored in the basement I saw my old pc, out of curiosity I booted it up and was checking old pictures and other stuff, when I opened the games folder and saw NFSU2 I was like damn could that 240sx be in there? And it was.... I went through so many emotions while driving around with that 240 man, it's so much more than just a game at least for me, so many great memories came to my mind, playing it really makes me nostalgic, how fast the time flies man, wish I could turn back time to that day again.

I love underground 2 it was my introduction to car culture as well as my interest in jdm cars, I remember being blown away by the car customization and the way you can enter events then take a picture of your car and use it on a car magazine.

@MatthysFAIL I just want you to know that for a channel with not too many subscribers… This video if not the amount of work and effort put into this video and others you have made show that you have what it takes to take on the big boys in the nostalgic video game side of RU-vid. Keep going and don’t ever stop. You’ve got something ahead of you. Don’t ever lose sight of that.

Great video. NFSU2, MW, Carbon, and Pro Street were immense influences on me during my childhood. These games sculpted my taste in music to this day.

20 years, that makes me feel old. Drag races were my favourite though

Holy hell i thought you were a more well known guy til i saw your sub count, your editings amazing & the jokes got me dying a few times (the mention of KuruHS was fucking hilarious) you earned a sub man.

UG2 is up there as my 2nd favorite nfs (with Prostreet being first), and something I realized is despite the drag of the late game's length and the urls' repetition, I never really saw it as a bad thing, which I think I'll chalk up to the games amazing presentation and ludicrous sense of speed.

Always good to see more people talk about Underground 2, keep up the great work!

I think the main reason why ppl loved U2 was the fact that your friends could come over and customize their choice of car and race with you i split screen mode. We had game nights where we would do this, spending hours on the dyno tuning our rides to compete against each other. Halo was a similar experience in co-op and multiplayer.

The sound on this game was amazing, specially the turbo sounds where better and more satisfying than in a lot of modern games.

Great review! Those games were huge here in Brazil at the time, so many great memories. Don't give up, keep making videos!

Constant crashing of the game is due to newer CPUs having too many cores for the engine to run properly. You can fix this by setting core affinity in the Task manager to one core. Then you can create shortcut, and add startup command to it, so you won't need to set affinity every time you run the game.

My first NFS was Need for Speed 2 Special Edition. The music in that game influenced my musical taste for the rest of my life. Freaking love it.

Oh how nostalgic, thank you for bringing back zonkant memories in the first couple of minutes!

The video was so good, I assumed that you had a couple hundred thousand subs! Keep it up dude, fantastic work 🎉😁

I was fortunate enough to getting my first PC before UG released, UG2 was a logical peak. But I also adored MostWanted and ProStreet. After that I never bought a new NfS game on release, barely touched Heat last year. Iam in my 30ts now and these games are still engraved on my SSD and played every now and then :)

*1:39** me and my older brother we both always love black box era. it was masterpiece ever.*

YOOOOOO, i was watching this thinking this is some kind of 1 milion subs channel. U definitely deserve more! Love the content!

Despite the URL and late game drag I still think Underground 2 offered a preety decent experience and I love how well you presented it to your audience 👍

The fact that there is no police in the game is the main reason why I still play this game today. So make of that what you will.

A new channel about the games that shaped up my childhood, subbed! Also 10:16 absolutely agree there, Always thought Bayview to be the most varied and pleasant NFS city to look at in comparison the rest/realistic ones.

30:06 I love how the first billboard shown in game after this part is an old Cingular ad with that giant orange X LOL

Great video man, this game was a big part of my childhood so I appreciate the work you did even more! Hope you make it big! 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Any time I hear people complain about the lack of police in NFSU2, i imagine a 10 year old crying about no "wee woo". Also, were you even a teenager if you didn't have a crush on Rachel?

Jesus, I remember getting this game. I loved it so much. The drag racing was the best. Countless hours were spent stoned talking smack with my friends. Love love this game.

The soundtrack still lives rent free in my head. Chasing the perfect long drift with smooth Snoop, or navigating tight corners with Skindred blasting.

I’ll take Underground series anytime! Man, what a game. I get it, MW or Carbon gets the best storylines and iconic cars, and mostly y’all playing them and gets the first taste of what NFS can offer. But listen, jumping from the exotics getting chased by cops in Hot Pursuit, to all-out JDMs tuned to run 200+ mph, in the era where Fast & Furious line are not so cringe? It’s a no brainer. And as a bonus; you can rice it out and you’re still a cool dude!

Great and clean editing man. I hope you know that you're awesome at this.

I loved NSFU & NSFU2...my then girlfriend (and now wife) used to play together right after we first moved in together. We spent more time designing the car wraps than anything else, and at the end had a whole collection of really cool designs. I want to say that playing it was why we ended up getting a GTI later. I'm an NSF fan from way back too, I bought a PlayStation to play NSF III HP because I loved NSF II on pc, but my crappy laptop at the time couldn't play it.

I was introduced to Mazda RX8 because of underground 2, and today its exactly what I drive all this time afterwards. It has a bodykit, big stupid exhaust and loads of modifications that at 33 year old i shouldn't have, but because of this game still makes me smile every time I drive it. and yes the first song i put on the stereo when i pulled it out of the garage was riders on a storm. VIVA LA 2003

What a fire and thorough review! I would love to be able to open the doors to the cars

WDWQMRT is a hell of a throw back game along with Lego racers.....God I've gotten old 😭

widebody corrola on the rollercoaster sprint track, was my go to for like 2 years.

The thing that makes MW better is simply cops and how tense the racing and chases make you feel, especially the music as usual from Black Box was spot on!

Great video, love your transitions. Did you make the new icons yourself? And yeah, the endgame is pretty bad. MW is superior there by letting you redo old races and earn the same amount as the first time. I used to play MW for hours just chilling in freeroam, building cars and hooning my craft. Also.. Lego Racers is peak kart racer!

Nfs u2 is groundbreaking, an open world racing game and also released in the peak of tuner/import culture in USA. Because of this game, me as 8 yrs old rural kid from Southeast Asia finally had a dream to own an evo😂

Thank you RU-vid for doing something good for once, and that's putting this in my recommendations. Your review/production is seriously up there with the bigger channels. Absolutely great review/nostalgia hit! :) Instant sub :D

my fav NFS is Underground 1 xD but i never got problems with crashing or anything on my PC and on my PC version that runs on my Anroid Tablet

This video was absolutely spot on for me. This game holds so much nostalgia from me being 5 years old and getting terrifically bumed over by the sheer difficulty of the ai ( at least the rubber banding ) and then seeing my dad beat the said ai without breaking a sweat in sheer awe to me replaying the game just a few days back. Now I am much less of a petrol head yet still I couldn't be bothered to play these old nfs games on hard difficulty in my prime. The game is still just as good as I remember. Except the damn drag races and the crashes there isn't much wrong with it. To anyone who would like to play it I would recommend ( but for the best experience play on cd on said original console that being either xbox or playstation or if you want to maybe even mod it on a pc ) This game is just so satisfying to beat and play. Yet ill admit that there definitely are better racing games out there now. But is it the self established '' best '' game most wanted '05. NUH UH it isn't. This video describes exactly what I meant and I think you have just got a new subscriber.

I played this one on occasion with my new-old GeForce 4 Ti 4200 and Athlon XP on socket 462 in the later '00s. I loved how the graphics were very good for the hardware that I had, (because I couldn't get the most high-end hardware) while not being unacceptably slow.

Played and finished NFSU2 on both PC and PS2 when I was in high school on those boring days of the longer holidays lol, never really got sick of it. The car selection, customisation, soundtrack and map were great. I was a big fan of the SUVs as well, I was a huge fan of the look of the Lincoln Navigator, lol, endlessly customised it after finishing the games.

The peak was NFS Most Wanted! Underground was in the beginning nice but got super boring after a few hours. Career mode was too long without any special things. In Most wanted you had the cops which were fun alone and much nicer cars.

Franchise peaked with Most Wanted '05.

MTV still playing music hits me every time...got rid of my TV when they stopped playing music and reality shows became a daily thing. RIP. Loved NFS UG games though. The comicbook style cutscenes were very Max Payne.

This was my childhood. Still my favorite NFS game to this day. I wish video game studios would focus more on story/career mode nowadays. Great memories. Ironically I was never able to complete it, as the game simply stopped giving me new events even though I hadn't unlocked the whole map. It's also interesting you mention people wanting to fast travel: I loved driving everywhere as fast as I could, and it gave me an understanding of the streets to succeed in the events.

Underground 2 teed it up, Most Wanted knocked it out the park.

Besides car movies and tuning scene, the period also saw rise of trance music and also the peak cool of "entertainment industry", and the game brought nerdy car kid or video gamer "into the scene" by familiarising them to Paul van Dyk, Felix Da Housecat, and several others. Listening to "Lean Back" being played in nearby shopping mall really validates your past time's relevancy with real life. While EA soundtrack selection rarely misses, there is a difference between JunkieXL or Dylan Rhymes being in your game, and Xzibit rapping to it. I mean being Dutch, you will most probably agree to anything sounding like Tiësto or Armin van Buuren. At least people in Jakarta at the time seemingly agreesd. The Bayview city provides a very fitting backdrop to all these club house music, besides the street racing atmosphere. I never felt it too constrictingly small nor it is too ovewhelmingly vast. It is just at "the right size". As an old "super car" "properly engineered car", introduced by the very original The Need for Speed, I become an "anti-ricer" petrolhead. But, I am just very fine with Underground 2. I think it has a pretty good balance. It really helps that they use licensed real life brands instead of off-putting generic fantasy cars that is difficult to relate to, which so many games from this era still uses. The amount of customisation is deep enough to make it exciting and worthwhile, but not too much.

This video brought back alot of fond memories, i dont like videos very often you deserve it, thank you for the memories.

I loved and spent so many hours on the first three games and this just made my nostalgia levels go way up. Thanks for the revisit to my non adult/ fun middle school years.

Goeie review, zulke geweldige herinneringen aan deze game. Zet de playlist nog wel eens op, bij elk nummer weer helemaal terug naar vroeger!

I love the early 2Ks. I love the 80s and 90s more but even though I was dirt poor in the 2Ks I still managed to acquire a PS1 and 2 and play some amazing games for the time. NFS is one of my GOATs. I remember playing Screamer from the packaged software on my dad's new 486 back when I was a kid and I was hooked on racing games.

Dude! You sold the Performance parts short!! The brands might not impact performance, but they actually sound a bit different! The exhaust and turbos come to mind, but they might also change from engine mods as well. It's awesome!

So glad that I bought the games back then and saved my discs. It has a been an interesting experience getting this and some older NFS games working on Windows 10. Most annoying was finding a NO CD patch for Underground 2 that will run the game without CTD every other race.

I remember wearing out my custom USB modded OG XBOX controller running LAN drift competitions with my friends. Great times!

Best need for speed game ever made imo. I really wish they would re release it on new consoles

I just found your channel and while watching the video I thought you must be one of those big youtubers with 100k+. How surprised I was when I've noticed that you only have 900 subs. You have an amazing storytelling - both verbally and visually. The choice of videos alongside the engaging narrative is what makes the videos interesting. I sincerely hope youtube algorithm will treat you better but for the time being you earned yourself a sub and 100% retention viewer. When it comes to NFS, I was introduced to racing games at the rip age of 6, and underground 2 was the first racing game I've played through on my PC. To this day I enjoy replaying the game once every few years. It is fun. And I think this is what it as all about. Sure, you can break it down to the design, arcade handling, car models, etc. But the bottom line is - this game was, and still is, fun.

I just found your channel through this video and i mist say good work great Reviews keep ot up you deserve some more digits on your sub counter

The car modification was what made me play this game back in the day, it was around the time when modifying cars was at its peak. When i refer to modifying cars i dont mean just engine mods which is what people think of mostly but stuff like undercar neon's, bodykits, spinners, nitrous oxide.

This game is a legend. The thing is that you get sense of place from the whole city. The city has its own vibe, making the traveling a part of it all. The city is incredibly well designed! It is like a night drive around your home city. Also the weather and that it almost gets morning gives it a even better feeling of just "being out" even though you're gaming it at home. I REALLY WISH that someone made a similar game again. I think it would sell a lot!

14:03 loved that transition and the airplane analogy. I noticed the change in the text from “NFS” to “the” and I do appreciate it.

Still got this one playing on my Win 7 machine. Can't even remember the days I spent trying to get all of the special versions of every part.

41:55 Piracy. The only thing keeping our childhood games alive. It's a cautionary tale for the years to come. 🏴‍☠

This video's production quality is way too good, great video man

Love the video by the way. I may sound sound silly but at 31:13 the out run events. I always thought those duels where to teach you how to pit maneuver to use that tool versus an unfair match up on a race. I will always try to look for the pimp out or fastest car in the bunch and always try to line block or pit them. i was quite an aggressive driver and that behavior that was born in my victories was punish in later games.

I was confused when you talked about the game crashing. But the FPS explanation makes sense since I played through it limited to 30FPS recently while on battery. So I didn’t run into those issues.

NSFU2 is still my favorite NFS game out there. it has a special place in my heart.

05:07 was literally playing on my head when I clicked on the video

I recently played this again using the Dolphin emulator to run the Gamecube version on my Gaming PC. I do actualyl own the PC version, but this was a lot easier than trying to get it to run in 2024. I always liked the drift events, although once you realise it's best to just stay at the back so you can use all of the track it's pretty simple to win every time.

About the star rating, I always hated it, but the simple solution to that is to have a second car that you specifically just tune up to 10 stars to progress and keep your first choice car to actual driving, and you can keep that as simple as you like. I always did that.

This was when gaming was real gaming, soooo much fun. They should do a remake on this game I would 100% pay full price for it

I member seeing nfsu1 at a friends house on their pc. I was instantly sold. I played nfsu2 most of all racing games and mia was a hot drawing.

The early game cars had an issue where their mid game performance upgrades don't measure up to the cars you're unlocking when you start losing when similarly upgraded. Easy rule of thumb, the moment you unlock the Celica GTS switch to it and it'll treat you well the rest of the game. The secret performance upgrades make it stupidly fast. Each section of the unlocked map correlates to what you'll unlock after X quick races.

Thanks for this nostalgia

Great content bro, one of my all time favourite games. Probably my favourite racing game of all time. Subbed 👍

i have all the games from nfs underground 1 to pro street in physical versions for pc, wouldnt wanna live without them and its the only reason i have a dvd drive in my pc and depend on it. NFS Underground 2 is my favourite racing game to this day, just replayed it end of last year and loved it again. you can fix most of the crashing tho with giving it a fps limit in the nvidia system control center i think it crashed 3 times in my playthrough with an 75 fps lock. great video though and apprecciate you for speaking up every great point of this gem!

The memories hitting hard i think. I cand even say how many hours i spent playing underground and underground 2 when i was a child, on my pentium 4 white pc, that needed every year an upgrade on ram memory or ssd memory. Love your content so much. Let me know if you played Unreal Tournament 99'. The best arena shooter that will ever be. Much love from Romania, be safe❤

great video man, keep it going :)

I'm only two minutes into the video and I'm already loving it!

i really need to get a crt TV and a ps2 (rip my childhood ps2) to experience these older games in their full glory again

What a great video, thanks for it!

i'm surprised you only have 1.4k subscribers, but i believe this number will grow quick soon

8:44 AHHH that damn corner.

You sir earned a new subscriber. Happy to be here.

NFS U2 is my favorite game, I still play it from time to time. Mostly I do drift events because you need to be precise to link the drifts and it's fun, not like the new nfs games. I hate car games with cops so for me not having them is a big plus. I just pray EA will remaster it and maybe add forza horizon driving style, I think it will be pretty cool.

The physics were also very good compared to other nfs series. The newer ones made the cars move like toy cars. Drive nfs u2 with manual gearbox it gives you such a good feeling.

I thought i was trippin when i saw how much subs you have. Very cool video anyway :D

Love the video! But I was so shocked to hear your feelings about the drag races, they were always my favourite events

I had CINGULAR... THIS GAME...and LIFE WAS GOOD.... no joke.. this was one of my favorites... got me into cars and custom tuners... NO REGERTS

The model girl at the beginning of the game 😂 oh childhood memories

Hahaha, I too used the Peugeot from beginning to end. What's really funny is when keep tuning and tuning you don't really notice that the car becomes faster untill you get in another stock one.