Need for Speed Underground 2

THE BAD:
Just one thing: No hints as to which upgrades improve which stats (ie. top speed, acceleration, handling).

SUMMARY:
WOW!! I was totally blown away by this game. Firstly, I read the review from Gamespot. Then when I actually played it I couldn't believe how little they praised the game. 8/10?! Are they kidding?! They talk about the graphics in this like it's normal to have this kind of pure quality. Do they remember racing games like GT Advance? Granted, the first NFS Underground was great, but it had many flaws. One of them was the blocky textures made it sometimes impossible to tell what exactly was coming up (a lot of the time I ended up smacking into a wall I couldn't see till it was too late). This has been rectified, with stunning crisp texture detail- it's so good it's like playing a portable PS1, no joke. Only due to the GBA screen resolution will you rarley question what is coming up in front of you. The game plays just as the first one, which is a very good thing. As in the first, the cars control perfectly. Definately the best vehicle physics on the GBA. Gameplay has been drastically improved. Gone are the horrible menus of the first game, to make way for very clear and stylish ones. Now, more options await you on every turn. In the Underground mode, you can now own more than one car, instead of having to trade in your old one every time. This way, you can pick the right car for the right race- sometimes the slower cars can be better on more bendier tracks, if they have better handling. You can choose which type of race you would like, and you can choose races you have already won just for fun. Only new races will earn you points to upgrade your car or buy a new one. But don't worry, there are loads. Upgrading your car is now easier to do. Menus are easy to understand. The only down side to this, and indeed to the whole game, is when you are improving performance parts, it isn't clear as to what parts improve which statistic- ie. does upgrading the chassis improve handling, speed, or acceleration? It doesn't tell you. Upgrading visuals is a major improvement. In the original, the car was constantly rotating, and if you were changing the front bumper, you had to keep waiting for it to come back into view to see what each one looked like. In this one YOU control the camera. Music in the original was SO annoying, I turned it off after 2 minutes. Again, a major improvement in this one, as the shouting has gone to leave purely instrumental tracks, but still funky enough to keep to the style of the game. I still have the music on now as it doesn't annoy. I could go on and on about many improvements to the original (like ramps, traffic ON the track, shortcuts), but I'll end by saying this: bar the number of faults with the original, it was my favourite racing game on the GBA. Now it's time for the sequal to take over. With ALL the faults of the original fixed, we are left with a PS1 quality racing game in a little hand held box- absolute top quality. I am still amazed by how they managed this on the GBA.