Jacob St-Amour from Link-Cable Writes: "Rewinding all the way back, fourteen years ago in 2004, my life was far simpler than it is now. At 11 years of age, my worries and hobbies were just to play as much street hockey with my friends that the days would allow, playing and trading Yu-Gi-Oh cards, watching Dragon Ball Z and of course, playing video games. Between playing World of Warcraft, Runescape, Super Smash Bros. Melee and even NHL Hitz 2003, there is one game that I and my friends spent more time on than any other and that would be with Need for Speed: Underground 2. Looking back at the racing game and what came out afterwards, it is easy to say that its 2004 title races past any other and was the best in the series."
After nearly three decades of NFS games, here's a list of the best Need For Speed titles that have ever been released in the past years, ranked by The Nerd Stash.
Discover why EA's latest racers may fall short of capturing the captivating experience of Need for Speed Underground 2.
I remember those drag races gear shifts…No game has managed to recreate that since.
Need for speed underground was waaaaaayyyyy better than underground 2. Reason i didn't like it was SUV as street racer big No No for me
I am serious how can a hummer keep up with a supra or Rx7....is impossible and yes underground was better, y'all might like it because of the upgrades hooking up the cars but to me it was all about the drag racing,
Everyone loves to hate on the concept of "live service" games, but if EA released a PS2-era style Need for Speed today as a standalone game, people would immediately start whining about the lack of support. It would be "it's been three months, where are the new cars? Where are the new tracks? Why would they release this game and just abandon it? They sent it out to die."
People hate the terms "live service" and "games as a service" but they also react negatively to any multiplayer games that aren't a live service.
Not me, I'm the definition of a 1 and done type with games, I prefer single player games which means I like to move on to the next big single player game.
Give me a solid career/campaign mode and I'm happy.
Well, there are people like you of course who like single player games. Obviously those can still be super successful (GOW: Ragnorak, Hogwarts Legacy, etc). What I'm saying is that any game with a multiplayer component, as any racer at this point will, is going to get attacked for not having a live service with a constant churn of new updates.
I'm against this, by the way. I love fully single player games, and I also prefer a multiplayer that is more static. I'd rather have an early 2000s style shooter where the online mode is the same maps forever, there isn't any progression system/microtransactions, and you just play because the game is fun. I just recognize that I'm in the minority on that.
Or Underground 1. Or Most Wanted 2005. UG1&2 and MW2005 was the holy trinity of peak NFS for me.
Need for Speed Underground 2 is a beloved entry in the racing franchise. Now there's a fan-made Need for Speed Underground 2 remake in UE5.
Damn. EA were insane for not doing this themselves ages ago. I think this is literally exactly what tons of NFS fans wanted. An EXACT remaster of NFSU 2. Nothing added, just the pure game but nicer looking.
EA and Activision are weird companies.
They're at the top, and when they make changes, they're usually awful. When they keep things the same, they need to change. They haven't really figured out what works and what doesn't.
The first NFS underground had an amazing Soundtrack with some good gameplay but my favorite NFS game is easily NFS Hot Pursuit 2. That game is legendary!
The Need for Speed series definitely has some highs, but my favorites were Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit ('98), NFS: Underground ('03, even though that ending was almost infuriating), Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 ('02), and then finally Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit ('10), which was undoubtedly because of the magic of Criterion Games.
And now that I look at my list I'm beginning to see a trend.
It was a highlight but I'm not sure anything made it so special I think it was released when open world games where really taking off and was the first NFS not stuck on linear tracks. It had a great soundtrack to boot but sacrificed graphics for a bigger world (nfsu1) looked way better.
I remember at that time every game under the sun just went open world from Spiderman 2 to nfsu2 it was just popular and it worked if you could design an open world right
Been replaying this recently with a widescreen fix on my PC and it's still just as fun as when I first played it on PS2. Does anyone else remember the hydraulics glitch? My brother and I used to drive our cars against walls and spam the hydraulics button 'til our cars launched in the year, I personally prefer the original Most Wanted (2005) over Underground 2 but it's a close second for me.
I actually didn't like UG2 as much as I liked NFSU, I know you all may slaughter me on the boards but seriously NFSU was special to me. NFSMW (ORIGINAL) was the next best NFS that came out after NFSU IMO