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Gameplay:::…
The
game can use all the main different kind of controllers.
The
ideal choice would perhaps be a steering wheel controller,
but I didn’t have one to try it out. For
this kind of racing game each person has a different preference,
I’m used to playing with the keyboard and it played quite
nicely.
 The story starts off with Rachel telling you what you
need to know to get out there and work your way to the very
top of the racing circuit. She
will guide you along the way through the rest of the game,
giving you the heads up on the where and how.
The
way the story is told is through the use of comic book style
pictures or short animations. Rachel’s
voice over done by Brooke Burke and Rachel is also modeled
as Brooke.
The
races are good and depending on your car sometimes very
challenging.
Standard
racing types we know from part 1 are the drift, sprint,
drag and circuit races., but as I mentioned now have the
addition of outrun, streetX, URL and downhill drift races.
 Drift races is where the object is to score big points
by making the best drifts or continuous drifts on a circuit,
doing several laps.
Downhill
drift races are much harder and take place on the street
with traffic, moving downhill from the start line to the
finish line.
Sprint
races are simply sprinting from one point to another.
Drag
races are dragging along a long narrow strip of asphalt
on or off the circuit. You
have to change gears manually and at the right time to win.
Circuit
races are like the name says, races on the circuit laid
out on the city map, URL races are circuit races on a real
circuit.
StreetX
races are a little bit different to all of the above, you
don’t have to drift and you don’t get to use nitro, even
if you have it.
These
races are won by keeping the rest of the pack behind you,
using any means necessary to get and stay ahead.
The
free roaming ability is a new feature and really useful
in getting to know the car you chose to buy.
Also,
it allows you to choose which race you want to do first
and it allows you to practice racing certain parts of the
track. This
adds to the variety of the game and makes it much more fun.
Along
the way you’ll see other racers in the city, who you in
turn can challenge to a race.
Some
of them will even inform you, as you advance in the game,
where the unmarked races are.
You
can also find different short cuts through alleys or back-roads,
which you can even use in some races.
A
nice feature I like is the messaging system.
You
will get important messages throughout the game about races,
new parts, upgrades, locations of shops and new cars that
are available, all of that with the aid of a short text
message (using SMS) or a phone call.
The
text messages you receive are stored in a mailbox and sorted
appropriately, so you can also check back with the messages,
in case you need to find that one last car specialties shop.
Some
of the messages are colour coded. Purple
usually indicates an upgrade has unlocked and has become
available in a shop. Green
messages are usually general information.
You’ll
see a message icon pop in the upper left hand corner, when
you receive a new message.
Finding
your way in the city can be hard sometimes, but you can
use the map and GPS satellite system to find what you are
looking for.
The
map shows the shops you have found and the locations of
some of the races or some of your competitors.
You
can click each item on the map to enable the GPS system
and an arrow will guide you along the way to the item.
Each
shop or race has its own color, this way you can easily
sort your shops and races and decided what you want to do
first. Winning
races will increase your reputation and cash flow.
These
will unlock parts, upgrades and cars throughout the game
and you buy those at specific shops.
 For performance tuning and upgrades you spend most time
in the performance shops. The
rest of the shops are primarily for the visual upgrades.
Like
I mentioned earlier, the shops have their own color on the
map, but also on the street. Each
shop has its own colored light shining on the street.
That’s
a good visual clue where to find them when you are driving
around, because the shops are not shown on the map by default,
you have to find them first then they get marked on the
map afterwards.
Shops
are also a good point to save your progress, after you buy
an upgrade you can choose to save the game if it’s not done
automatically already with auto-save enabled.
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