The first time I ever played Need for Speed: Underground 2 was on a demo PS2 in a branch of Comet in Swindon, around Christmas 2004. I recall making a fully murdered-out Escalade, only to be crushed when the lads waiting in line behind me said that I'd ruined it. Perhaps out of a need to repair the hurt feelings of my younger self, or, more likely, due to a summer games drought, I've been replaying Need for Speed: Underground 2 recently.
First impressions were, if I'm honest, mixed. The slang the game throws at you had me cackling, and there's Burger King product placement all over the place, including billboards extolling the deliciousness of a Whopper. It's almost as offensive as Fight Night Round 3 including the King himself as a trainer.
Look past that, and the dated graphics though, and you're in for an absolutely stellar time. Whether you're gamely cruising around in a Peugeot 106 or heave-hoing on the wheel of a Cadillac Escalade, it's an absolute treat to go back to Bayview. Once you get into the game, you'll find a treasure trove of variety in the races. There's circuit races, drag races, sprints, and drifting contests to keep you occupied, all of which could and indeed, have, had games made about them.
Sacrificing cars to the tuner gods
We're steering you right with the best racing games
The environments, too, are fabulously varied. There's an entire section of the map that's made up of twisting, switchback-bedecked mountain roads. Customization options are as rich as you remember, too, though you will have to be enamored of 00s tuner culture to actually think that your car looks good afterwards. You can always just sacrifice an Escalade or a Lincoln Navigator to the Gods of Max Power magazine, as you'll need to reach certain visual ratings to progress. Then it's just a matter of getting your car featured on magazine and DVD covers, often accompanied by an extremely low-res pic of some buxom lady superimposed in front of it.
After digging into Underground 2, I decided to try out a game that I'd never owned back in the day, and one of its closest competitors: Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition Remix. In comparison to Need for Speed, the game looks crisper from the start. It, like Underground 2, is a little too in love with lens flare, but the two extra years between Dub Edition Remix and Underground 2 shine through, and what's more, it actually has a kind of day/night cycle, which Underground 2 does not. The race types aren't as varied, though – the races are all just that, standard street races with some limited mutators applied.
However, the car customization is deeper, and there are vastly more cars to choose from. There are 94 vehicles in Dub Edition Remix, compared to just over 30 cars in Underground 2. And yes, I said vehicles, as Midnight Club is about that motorbike life, too. The total map size in Midnight Club 3 is also huge, as it's made up of four different locations: San Diego, Detroit, Atlanta, and Tokyo (in the Remix).
Take me down, six Underground
The truth is, both of these games still have a lot to offer. Playing games from 20 years ago (19, in the case of Dub Edition Remix) is an odd experience in 2025. Growing up, playing games from the 1980s felt like stepping into a time warp. With games from the mid-00s, it's more like looking at a modern phone game, unflatteringly blown up to fit a TV or monitor. They're not good-looking, but they're not too bad. Graphical technology has obviously advanced, but the gains are smaller with each leap, like a technological Zeno's paradox. They're so refreshingly free of distractions, too – the game has a focus on racing and that's what you're going to do.
You don't really get racing games like these anymore, certainly not big budget ones. The bigger franchises lost traction sometime around 2010, leaving comparatively smaller titles like the excellent Tokyo Xtreme Racer to fill the gap. This style of game died with 00s tuner culture. Today, racing games tend to be more strait-laced, even the Forza Horizon games aren't as focused on giving you an instant burst of silliness.
I'd recommend you go back and give these games a good honest try. They're not like anything else that you'll find today, for better and for worse. I'm glad that I'll never pretend to enjoy Pimp My Ride again, but to say that there's nothing somewhat hypnotic about turning a scraper Honda Civic into a street racing machine (with neon underglow) would be a barefaced lie. Take a trip back in time with me, but leave your sense of good taste at home.
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