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NFSU:2 Thread
- Thread starter PornStar
- Start date
News.
Hold on to your hot rods, because in a move which will surprise absolutely no-one, EA has announced a sequel to its all-conquering urban racer, Need For Speed Underground.
In just under five months since release, NFS Underground has rapidly become one of the most popular console racing games ever, shifting over five million copies around the globe.
However, Underground 2 is set to shift the goalposts even further by introducing a new free-roaming city mode which allows you to explore five distinct inner city districts.
Prowling these neighbourhoods will be rival urban racers who'll challenge you to compete in different events and challenges, tip you off on the hottest courses and also show you where to buy the coolest custom upgrades.
EA is also promising new game modes, deep new performance customisation and more than 30 licensed motors. The ability to customise your racer will also be hugely expanded, and EA has stated NFS Underground 2 will feature "a staggering 70 billion possible car combinations for total automotive self-expression." Blimey.
Need for Speed Underground 2 is currently being developed by EA Canada and in a lightning fast turn around, it's promising a release on PC, PS2, Xbox and GameCube this Autumn.
More News.
EA have launched the official site for Need for Speed Underground 2 which offers some new media and information on the upcoming tuner culture sequel. Expect more cars, more racing modes, a lot of free-roaming and now, following the E3 Microsoft EA truce, online play for both PS 2 and XBox.
Taking place in a massive, free-roaming city featuring five distinct interconnected neighborhoods, Need for Speed Underground 2 claims that in its world, the streets are your menus. As players explore the city, they’ll encounter rival racers who will school them in the ways of the underground and tip them off to the hottest racing spots in town.
Deep new performance tuning allows gamers to fine-tune every aspect of their ride’s handling and performance, while hundreds of new visual customizations guarantee players can create their own personalized, totally unique car.
All-new game modes join Circuit, Drift, and Drag events to add depth and variety, pushing car and driver to the limit, while more than a dozen new cars and hundreds of aftermarket parts from the biggest names in the business make Need for Speed Underground 2 the deepest, most authentic tuner experience ever.
Key Features
Free-Roaming City: Explore a massive city divided into five distinct, interconnected neighborhoods, ranging from serpentine suburban hills to an intense downtown grid. A complex series of drivable freeways connect the neighborhoods together.
Emergent Gameplay: Want to make a name for yourself in the underground? You’ll need to find it first. Races can happen anywhere and at any time and as players encounter rivals on the street they’ll be clued into where they can buy the hottest upgrades or enter the most elite events.
New Gameplay Modes: Three new gameplay modes are added to last year’s circuit, drift and drag competitions, challenging gamers to hone their skills in a number of driving disciplines.
Performance Tuning: Tune every aspect of your car’s performance with hundreds of licensed aftermarket performance upgrades and then fine-tune everything from the gear ratio to the suspension for the ultimate ride.
The Hottest Cars: More than thirty of the most sought-after tuner cars are available from the hottest manufacturers--from Mitsubishi Motors, Nissan, and Toyota to Ford and Volkswagen, if they’re hot on the street, they’re in the game.
Visual Customization: With more than twice the visual customizations of last year’s game, there are literally billions of car combinations available to gamers. Featuring audio upgrades, scissor doors, spoilers, headlights, side skirts, roof scoops, hoods, rims, wide body kits, neon and more, if you can trick it out in real life, you can trick it out in Need for Speed Underground 2.
Environmental Variety: Each of the five distinct neighborhoods in Need for Speed Underground 2 feature a unique look and feel, including varied driving conditions and track types. Road surfaces, real-time weather effects, and environmental hazards will keep gamers on their toes as they race from dusk till dawn.
Online: Gamers can put their reputation on the line, challenging the world’s best racers online for the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system.*.
*An Internet connection, Network Adaptor and Memory Card for the PlayStation 2 are required for online game play.
Hold on to your hot rods, because in a move which will surprise absolutely no-one, EA has announced a sequel to its all-conquering urban racer, Need For Speed Underground.
In just under five months since release, NFS Underground has rapidly become one of the most popular console racing games ever, shifting over five million copies around the globe.
However, Underground 2 is set to shift the goalposts even further by introducing a new free-roaming city mode which allows you to explore five distinct inner city districts.
Prowling these neighbourhoods will be rival urban racers who'll challenge you to compete in different events and challenges, tip you off on the hottest courses and also show you where to buy the coolest custom upgrades.
EA is also promising new game modes, deep new performance customisation and more than 30 licensed motors. The ability to customise your racer will also be hugely expanded, and EA has stated NFS Underground 2 will feature "a staggering 70 billion possible car combinations for total automotive self-expression." Blimey.
Need for Speed Underground 2 is currently being developed by EA Canada and in a lightning fast turn around, it's promising a release on PC, PS2, Xbox and GameCube this Autumn.
More News.
EA have launched the official site for Need for Speed Underground 2 which offers some new media and information on the upcoming tuner culture sequel. Expect more cars, more racing modes, a lot of free-roaming and now, following the E3 Microsoft EA truce, online play for both PS 2 and XBox.
Taking place in a massive, free-roaming city featuring five distinct interconnected neighborhoods, Need for Speed Underground 2 claims that in its world, the streets are your menus. As players explore the city, they’ll encounter rival racers who will school them in the ways of the underground and tip them off to the hottest racing spots in town.
Deep new performance tuning allows gamers to fine-tune every aspect of their ride’s handling and performance, while hundreds of new visual customizations guarantee players can create their own personalized, totally unique car.
All-new game modes join Circuit, Drift, and Drag events to add depth and variety, pushing car and driver to the limit, while more than a dozen new cars and hundreds of aftermarket parts from the biggest names in the business make Need for Speed Underground 2 the deepest, most authentic tuner experience ever.
Key Features
Free-Roaming City: Explore a massive city divided into five distinct, interconnected neighborhoods, ranging from serpentine suburban hills to an intense downtown grid. A complex series of drivable freeways connect the neighborhoods together.
Emergent Gameplay: Want to make a name for yourself in the underground? You’ll need to find it first. Races can happen anywhere and at any time and as players encounter rivals on the street they’ll be clued into where they can buy the hottest upgrades or enter the most elite events.
New Gameplay Modes: Three new gameplay modes are added to last year’s circuit, drift and drag competitions, challenging gamers to hone their skills in a number of driving disciplines.
Performance Tuning: Tune every aspect of your car’s performance with hundreds of licensed aftermarket performance upgrades and then fine-tune everything from the gear ratio to the suspension for the ultimate ride.
The Hottest Cars: More than thirty of the most sought-after tuner cars are available from the hottest manufacturers--from Mitsubishi Motors, Nissan, and Toyota to Ford and Volkswagen, if they’re hot on the street, they’re in the game.
Visual Customization: With more than twice the visual customizations of last year’s game, there are literally billions of car combinations available to gamers. Featuring audio upgrades, scissor doors, spoilers, headlights, side skirts, roof scoops, hoods, rims, wide body kits, neon and more, if you can trick it out in real life, you can trick it out in Need for Speed Underground 2.
Environmental Variety: Each of the five distinct neighborhoods in Need for Speed Underground 2 feature a unique look and feel, including varied driving conditions and track types. Road surfaces, real-time weather effects, and environmental hazards will keep gamers on their toes as they race from dusk till dawn.
Online: Gamers can put their reputation on the line, challenging the world’s best racers online for the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system.*.
*An Internet connection, Network Adaptor and Memory Card for the PlayStation 2 are required for online game play.
rpvankasteren
Fan Favourite
Nice, there's already a NFS:U2 thread though. This old news, and the new screenshots are already mentioned in there...
I
IceBlu
Guest
This thread is better 
\o
The game does look stunning ! The features sound too good to be true but hopefully they live up to the expectations.
70 Billion car combinations - Impressive to say the least.
\oThe game does look stunning ! The features sound too good to be true but hopefully they live up to the expectations.
70 Billion car combinations - Impressive to say the least.
Áļéאָ
Fan Favourite
the gfx dont look good to me. only the road lighting effects look impressive, but still they look like it's ice instead of asphalt... probably it looks like that just because the game is in its early stages of development
PSVFOREVER
Fan Favourite
looks quite the same as NFSU 1
Will there be cops?
Will there be cops?
NFS:UG2 Live On XBOX.
EA SPORTS AND EA GAMES PERFORMING LIVE ON XBOX
Agreement With Microsoft Brings Madden NFL, NBA LIVE, FIFA Soccer, and Other Blockbusters to Xbox Live This Year
Redwood City, Calif. – May 10, 2004 – Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced one of the most anticipated events in the history of videogames: EA and Microsoft have struck an agreement that will allow players of EA SPORTS™ and EA GAMES™ titles to compete and play online through Xbox Live™. Players will have access to voice communication, tournaments, ladders and all the fun of online play. Terms of the agreement were not released.
he first game to include Xbox Live capability will be NCAA® Football 2005, scheduled for release in July. Madden NFL 2005, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® 2005, NASCAR® 2005: Chase For The Cup, NBA LIVE 2005, NHL® 2005, and NCAA® March Madness™ 2005 will follow. EA GAMES titles on Xbox Live include GoldenEye: Rogue Agent™, Need for Speed™ Underground 2, Battlefield: Modern Combat™, Burnout™ 3 and TimeSplitters Future Perfect™.
“Microsoft has always been one of our best business partners,” said EA Chairman and CEO Larry Probst. “This agreement took time because we needed to get it right. This agreement enlists EA to further expand the Xbox Live community and allows us to build a business around premium content. The agreement is good for Microsoft, good for EA and most of all, good for the players.”
“Since launching the Xbox Live service less than 18 months ago, we already have nearly a million subscribers in 24 countries around the world,” noted Microsoft Chief Xbox Officer Robbie Bach. “The addition of blockbuster EA franchises to the Xbox Live service promises to reinforce our strong online position and bring even more gamers into the Xbox Live community.”
EA’s Xbox Live titles will provide features that bring the unified Xbox Live experience to the millions of EA Xbox gamers. EA’s Xbox Live features will deliver world-class EA games, as well as an online community through EA online. EA Xbox Live features include Quickmatch and Optimatch, as well as supporting current Xbox Live Gamertags and voice communication. EA also will support the existing Xbox Live friends list, and additionally offer the EA Messenger service for easy communication amongst other Xbox Live friends.
ABOUT ELECTRONIC ARTS
Electronic Arts, headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world’s leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, EA posted revenues of $2.96 billion for fiscal 2004. The company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers and the Internet. In 2003 EA had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA has more than 15 titles available on the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, offering online play. Together, EA SPORTS and EA GAMES brands have online registration for more than 700,000 players on the PlayStation 2 console. Electronic Arts markets its products under three brand names: EA SPORTS™, EA GAMES™ and EA SPORTS BIG™. EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA’s products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com. Additional EA at E3 information can be found at http://www.ea.com/e3/home.jsp.
About Xbox
Xbox (http://www.xbox.com/) is the video game system from Microsoft that brings people together for the most exhilarating game and entertainment experiences. Xbox delivers an expansive collection of breakthrough games, powerful hardware and the unified Xbox Live online service. The tag line, “It’s good to play together,” captures the spirit of Xbox as the social hub of the new digital entertainment lifestyle. Xbox is now available in North America, Asia, Europe and Australia.
EA SPORTS AND EA GAMES PERFORMING LIVE ON XBOX
Agreement With Microsoft Brings Madden NFL, NBA LIVE, FIFA Soccer, and Other Blockbusters to Xbox Live This Year
Redwood City, Calif. – May 10, 2004 – Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced one of the most anticipated events in the history of videogames: EA and Microsoft have struck an agreement that will allow players of EA SPORTS™ and EA GAMES™ titles to compete and play online through Xbox Live™. Players will have access to voice communication, tournaments, ladders and all the fun of online play. Terms of the agreement were not released.
he first game to include Xbox Live capability will be NCAA® Football 2005, scheduled for release in July. Madden NFL 2005, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® 2005, NASCAR® 2005: Chase For The Cup, NBA LIVE 2005, NHL® 2005, and NCAA® March Madness™ 2005 will follow. EA GAMES titles on Xbox Live include GoldenEye: Rogue Agent™, Need for Speed™ Underground 2, Battlefield: Modern Combat™, Burnout™ 3 and TimeSplitters Future Perfect™.
“Microsoft has always been one of our best business partners,” said EA Chairman and CEO Larry Probst. “This agreement took time because we needed to get it right. This agreement enlists EA to further expand the Xbox Live community and allows us to build a business around premium content. The agreement is good for Microsoft, good for EA and most of all, good for the players.”
“Since launching the Xbox Live service less than 18 months ago, we already have nearly a million subscribers in 24 countries around the world,” noted Microsoft Chief Xbox Officer Robbie Bach. “The addition of blockbuster EA franchises to the Xbox Live service promises to reinforce our strong online position and bring even more gamers into the Xbox Live community.”
EA’s Xbox Live titles will provide features that bring the unified Xbox Live experience to the millions of EA Xbox gamers. EA’s Xbox Live features will deliver world-class EA games, as well as an online community through EA online. EA Xbox Live features include Quickmatch and Optimatch, as well as supporting current Xbox Live Gamertags and voice communication. EA also will support the existing Xbox Live friends list, and additionally offer the EA Messenger service for easy communication amongst other Xbox Live friends.
ABOUT ELECTRONIC ARTS
Electronic Arts, headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world’s leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, EA posted revenues of $2.96 billion for fiscal 2004. The company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers and the Internet. In 2003 EA had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA has more than 15 titles available on the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, offering online play. Together, EA SPORTS and EA GAMES brands have online registration for more than 700,000 players on the PlayStation 2 console. Electronic Arts markets its products under three brand names: EA SPORTS™, EA GAMES™ and EA SPORTS BIG™. EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA’s products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com. Additional EA at E3 information can be found at http://www.ea.com/e3/home.jsp.
About Xbox
Xbox (http://www.xbox.com/) is the video game system from Microsoft that brings people together for the most exhilarating game and entertainment experiences. Xbox delivers an expansive collection of breakthrough games, powerful hardware and the unified Xbox Live online service. The tag line, “It’s good to play together,” captures the spirit of Xbox as the social hub of the new digital entertainment lifestyle. Xbox is now available in North America, Asia, Europe and Australia.
Some more INFO.
The Debut of "The Need For Speed" in 1996 really impacted all the hardcore racers in the world. For its time it really was a great arcade style racing sim. EA continued to release more games and they have created the "Need for Speed Franchise". In 2003 EA released Need For Speed : Underground which brought the world into a new type of racing genre, Street Racing. Need For Speed : Underground was the biggest of the NFS series and EA is gonna keep them comin' by releasing Need For Speed : Underground 2!!
Derek dela Fuente Spoke with Need For Speed : Underground 2 Associate Producer - Scott Neilson. Scott has let more info out of the bag on this upcoming game and, from what i'm hearing it appears to be an awesome game!
Free Roam: As you all know, the main part of NFSU2 is Free Roaming. You drive around looking for races instead of plain old "selecting them from the menu" you get to choose what you want to do and you get to choose it in style!!
Scott has metioned that there will be a lot of stuff in NFSU2 that will keep you wanting to explore the "open" environment.
He has not told us yet but we all know if they keep it secret, it must be good!!
Cops: Sadly there will be no cops in NFSU2. Scott has said that Police is the the main focus of the Hot Pursuit Farnchise, not the Underground Franchise.The Underground Franchise is more about exploration, tuning, racing and customisation of your car.
Visual Efects: The visual effects in NFSU blew us all away. Options such as "Motion Blur" and 'Light Trails" gave us an awesome sensation of speed. In NFSU2 they will be adding specials feels/moods for each different area of the world. So if you decide to race in a industrial type zone you'll get the feel of being in an industrial type zone.
Game Modes: NFSU Feature 4 modes that you could race in. Dift, Drag, Sprint and Circuit. NFSU2 features 7. We only know of three, Drift, Drag and Circuit. This leaves 4 "unknown" race types that won't be shown to the public. Also, there will be much more freedom so racers can finish the game without doing several of the game types even once!
More In-Depth Tuning: Players can now modfy specific parts on there car so that the car fits them. EA have done this to the point that, a hardcore racer can play the game and be able to squeeze that little bit of extra juice out of each part, and that a playere who has never played a racing game in his life can just pick up the game, add the parts and race!
What Cars? : EA has not told us the car list for NFSU2 but they have mentioned something very interesting. Quote:"We’ll be going back in time to bring back a couple of older models and we’ll also be looking into the future for a few cars we think will be big on the scene in the next year or so." Does this mean they will have muscle cars for all those "muscle fans" or future cars that haven't even been released yet? Only time will tell.....
NFSU 2 looks to be a good game. NFSU was one of the best games in 2003 and NFSU2 promises to dominate over all in 2004!!
More INFO.
The June edition of Australian gaming magazine, 'Hyper', contains a world exclusive interview with Need For Speed Franchise Executive Producer, Chuck Osieja. While there is still much that can't be revealed, Chuck lets more than a few items outta the bag! Here's a wrap up of the article...
Supported Platforms: PS2, XBOX, GCN, PC
Release Date: Fall 2004
The Vision: To take Underground 2 to a whole new level in terms of the experience and how the player interacts with the world.
Free Roam: NFSU2 is set in a metropolitan environment with a city core. Players need to go out and find their races in a huge interconnected world that can be driven from one end to the other. The world is made up of five distinct neighborhoods interconnected by intricate highways. You can drive to any place you can see on the map. Each neighborhood opens up as you progress through the game acquiring more cash and reputation.
Find Your Race: You can drive from a circuit event to a drift event to a drag event without ever leaving the world. You can be racing a point to point race and drive right past an area whare a drift event is taking place. The world is alive and things are happening as you drive through it.
In Game Tuning: You drive to all of the the tuner shops in the world. Find where they are by talking to other drivers. Shop inventories change dynamically and new parts arrive all the time so knowing where to find the best shops is a distinct advantage.
Non-Linear Gameplay: The event system is designed such that you need only drive the events you like and still finish the game. If you love drifting and circuit, you can complete the game without ever running a drag race. Events are also designed such that you can go back and play any event over and over again.
New Modes: There will be over seven different race modes in NFSU2, including all the modes from the original game. The new modes are not yet announced.
Deep Tuning Options: While the performance packages idea is still available, a deeper set of performance tuning options is also available for those with a deeper understanding of things automotvie. The player can buy and tune individual performance parts: Gears, shocks, torque curves and much more. Also, you'll be able to save multiple set-ups and then load them before each race.
Dynamic Environments: There will ba a range of lighting effects from evening light and sunset through to sunrise. Daylight racing does not seem to be an option. There will be dynamic weather effects that will change dramatically while you drive.
No Police: There will be no police in NFSU2
Car List: The car list is final, however the actual list cannot be released until negotiations between EA and certain manufacturers are complete. The majority of the list will still be hardcore tuner cars. EA state that they had to make some painful cuts from the NFSU car list to get the list done and that they'll be going back in time for a couple older models as well as into the future to include a couple cars they believe will be big on the scene in a year or so.
Car Classes: Careful inspection of the mag article by eminent forumer UrQuattro has revealed that NFSU2 cars will indeed be divided up into various classes, as many people have wished for.
Technology Enhancements: While Chuck's not giving away any secrets, he does say that there are a few new visual techniques added to crank up the sensation of speed.
Online Experience: Chuck is stunned at the numbers pf people playing online. However he won't say anything about EA's plans for the online NFSU2 experience.
Where To Next?: When Chuck is asked where he thinks the street racing sub-genre is headed, he draws heavy parallels between NFSU and the Gran Tursimo series. Sounds very promising that he can compare the two favourably, especially for lovers of intricate tuning options.
The Debut of "The Need For Speed" in 1996 really impacted all the hardcore racers in the world. For its time it really was a great arcade style racing sim. EA continued to release more games and they have created the "Need for Speed Franchise". In 2003 EA released Need For Speed : Underground which brought the world into a new type of racing genre, Street Racing. Need For Speed : Underground was the biggest of the NFS series and EA is gonna keep them comin' by releasing Need For Speed : Underground 2!!
Derek dela Fuente Spoke with Need For Speed : Underground 2 Associate Producer - Scott Neilson. Scott has let more info out of the bag on this upcoming game and, from what i'm hearing it appears to be an awesome game!
Free Roam: As you all know, the main part of NFSU2 is Free Roaming. You drive around looking for races instead of plain old "selecting them from the menu" you get to choose what you want to do and you get to choose it in style!!
Scott has metioned that there will be a lot of stuff in NFSU2 that will keep you wanting to explore the "open" environment.
He has not told us yet but we all know if they keep it secret, it must be good!!
Cops: Sadly there will be no cops in NFSU2. Scott has said that Police is the the main focus of the Hot Pursuit Farnchise, not the Underground Franchise.The Underground Franchise is more about exploration, tuning, racing and customisation of your car.
Visual Efects: The visual effects in NFSU blew us all away. Options such as "Motion Blur" and 'Light Trails" gave us an awesome sensation of speed. In NFSU2 they will be adding specials feels/moods for each different area of the world. So if you decide to race in a industrial type zone you'll get the feel of being in an industrial type zone.
Game Modes: NFSU Feature 4 modes that you could race in. Dift, Drag, Sprint and Circuit. NFSU2 features 7. We only know of three, Drift, Drag and Circuit. This leaves 4 "unknown" race types that won't be shown to the public. Also, there will be much more freedom so racers can finish the game without doing several of the game types even once!
More In-Depth Tuning: Players can now modfy specific parts on there car so that the car fits them. EA have done this to the point that, a hardcore racer can play the game and be able to squeeze that little bit of extra juice out of each part, and that a playere who has never played a racing game in his life can just pick up the game, add the parts and race!
What Cars? : EA has not told us the car list for NFSU2 but they have mentioned something very interesting. Quote:"We’ll be going back in time to bring back a couple of older models and we’ll also be looking into the future for a few cars we think will be big on the scene in the next year or so." Does this mean they will have muscle cars for all those "muscle fans" or future cars that haven't even been released yet? Only time will tell.....
NFSU 2 looks to be a good game. NFSU was one of the best games in 2003 and NFSU2 promises to dominate over all in 2004!!
More INFO.
The June edition of Australian gaming magazine, 'Hyper', contains a world exclusive interview with Need For Speed Franchise Executive Producer, Chuck Osieja. While there is still much that can't be revealed, Chuck lets more than a few items outta the bag! Here's a wrap up of the article...
Supported Platforms: PS2, XBOX, GCN, PC
Release Date: Fall 2004
The Vision: To take Underground 2 to a whole new level in terms of the experience and how the player interacts with the world.
Free Roam: NFSU2 is set in a metropolitan environment with a city core. Players need to go out and find their races in a huge interconnected world that can be driven from one end to the other. The world is made up of five distinct neighborhoods interconnected by intricate highways. You can drive to any place you can see on the map. Each neighborhood opens up as you progress through the game acquiring more cash and reputation.
Find Your Race: You can drive from a circuit event to a drift event to a drag event without ever leaving the world. You can be racing a point to point race and drive right past an area whare a drift event is taking place. The world is alive and things are happening as you drive through it.
In Game Tuning: You drive to all of the the tuner shops in the world. Find where they are by talking to other drivers. Shop inventories change dynamically and new parts arrive all the time so knowing where to find the best shops is a distinct advantage.
Non-Linear Gameplay: The event system is designed such that you need only drive the events you like and still finish the game. If you love drifting and circuit, you can complete the game without ever running a drag race. Events are also designed such that you can go back and play any event over and over again.
New Modes: There will be over seven different race modes in NFSU2, including all the modes from the original game. The new modes are not yet announced.
Deep Tuning Options: While the performance packages idea is still available, a deeper set of performance tuning options is also available for those with a deeper understanding of things automotvie. The player can buy and tune individual performance parts: Gears, shocks, torque curves and much more. Also, you'll be able to save multiple set-ups and then load them before each race.
Dynamic Environments: There will ba a range of lighting effects from evening light and sunset through to sunrise. Daylight racing does not seem to be an option. There will be dynamic weather effects that will change dramatically while you drive.
No Police: There will be no police in NFSU2
Car List: The car list is final, however the actual list cannot be released until negotiations between EA and certain manufacturers are complete. The majority of the list will still be hardcore tuner cars. EA state that they had to make some painful cuts from the NFSU car list to get the list done and that they'll be going back in time for a couple older models as well as into the future to include a couple cars they believe will be big on the scene in a year or so.
Car Classes: Careful inspection of the mag article by eminent forumer UrQuattro has revealed that NFSU2 cars will indeed be divided up into various classes, as many people have wished for.
Technology Enhancements: While Chuck's not giving away any secrets, he does say that there are a few new visual techniques added to crank up the sensation of speed.
Online Experience: Chuck is stunned at the numbers pf people playing online. However he won't say anything about EA's plans for the online NFSU2 experience.
Where To Next?: When Chuck is asked where he thinks the street racing sub-genre is headed, he draws heavy parallels between NFSU and the Gran Tursimo series. Sounds very promising that he can compare the two favourably, especially for lovers of intricate tuning options.
Parra Power
Manager
looks amazing..... i seriously cant wait for it 
An exclusive 2 part interview with Chuck Osieja
Can you tell us about the concept behind Underground 2, give us some background to the sequel?
Osieja: Underground 2 has been in development since last Fall [2003], before Underground actually shipped, and the goal behind it was to create something that was quite different to Underground, so we're very conscious of the fact that we didn't just want to throw out a sequel to the game and have it be more of the same thing.
Work's really focused on the discovery of the tuner culture, and what I mean by that is, anywhere where you happen to live - especially if it's a big city... There's sort of two layers to every city. There's what everybody sees, so if you're a tourist in a city you see all the tourist spots and all the restaurants etc. and then there's a sub-culture whether it be clubs or places that you only get to know if you're local.
And that's the premise of Underground 2 - it's about discovering the tuner culture and finding out where all the races are and finding out where all the cool kids are, finding out the information about how to get the best cars, how to get best races and how to get all the best parts for you car.
What are the major differences between Underground and Underground 2?
Osieja: What's different about this than in the first Underground is that Underground was one big city, but, as you may have noticed, it was a selection of tracks that sort of interconnected and you weren't able to drive anywhere in the world. In Underground 2 you can drive anywhere in the game world. It's roughly about three times the size of the Underground city, with probably two to three times the density in terms of streets.
In Underground we had a lot of dead-end streets and things you couldn't go down, but now you can actually drive down any street, everything's interconnected which creates a far wider variety of race types. For example, just in one section of the city we've come up with - not that all these will ship with the game - about 80 different circuits that we can do just in one area of the entire city.
We're going through and doing that for each section of the city. There are five distinct areas in the city. It is going to be one city this year, it's not going to be a collection of two or three cities.
The reason we do that is because we really want the player to grow and create a reputation and establish themselves as the best street racer in a city. It doesn't make as much such to us to have you drive for a little while in one city and then jump to another city.
This takes place in a brand new city and there is a story that goes around it about why you left Underground's city to go to Underground 2's city. That's where the story picks up and you re-establish yourself in the city and figure out who all the cool kids are and where all the best cars are and where all the hot races are.
The game's going to have a wider selection of vehicles that we had last year, so there'll be more vehicles. Broader is what I'm saying, so if you pay attention to what's going on inside the culture - and I think the culture's really evolved - we're trying to approach a broad base of cars to appeal to a wider audience. It'll be a cooler set of cars than it was last year and a lot different to what it was last year.
What about game modes for the sequel? What can you tell us about those?
Osieja: New game modes... Ah, we'll have more game modes than last year [laughs]. I'm not going to get into specifics but all the game modes we had last year will be coming back and then we found things like drag racing and drift racing were really popular and they brought a different type of game mechanic and experience to the player.
For people that don't just like the pure race experience of running laps or trying to shave seconds, drift and drag created a different challenge for them.
And what we did is concentrated on one, looking at the culture and seeing what people are doing - seeing where the culture's going to be, or where the scene is going to be, we think a year from now or two years from now and trying to apply that type of alternate thinking to additional game modes that we're putting in.
So we're going to have some more stuff that is a lot different to what anybody's seen inside of racing games before but certainly relevant to the tuner culture.
What else can you tell us about the city?
Osieja: The city is going to have five distinct neighbourhoods. Some of the stories on our press release say five inner city neighbourhoods, but it's not. They'll actually be in the inner city, but there'll also be the outlying areas as well. Each one is going to look visually distinctive, so that your eye isn't treated to the same neon vision over and over again. You'll have suburban areas and such.
It's not going to be all neon and wet streets this year. We'll have things like real-time weather in the game, so it'll rain and the streets will actually get wet and then get dry and those things will affect the way the cars handle. The areas of the game world are really distinct, so we'll have stuff that feels different in terms of the drive than we had last year.
We'll still have some of it take place in the city grid but we're going to expand on it and bring in some of the racing style of previous Need For Speed games, so some stuff is more wide-open - it really creates a wider variety of driving experiences and that's one of the focuses of we have in the game.
Can you elaborate on the incorporation of racing styles of previous Need For Speed games?
Osieja: Last year we distinctly wanted to change what Need For Speed had been - wide-open racing on country roads at 150-plus miles per hour - and the tuner cars were much more adept at running through very short city environments - running through turns and things like that.
This year we wanted to do a wider range of that stuff, so we're going to have stuff that's very short and very technical and very fun that's going to lead into some of the Underground-style races, and broadening out into something that feels like Need For Speed-style races where they're hilly and wide-open and a different driving experience.
I think people who like racing games will get a lot of different racing styles to choose from, so it's not always going to be the same type of tracks every time out.
How much more of a challenge was it making a world where you can go everywhere while still maintaining the quality?
Osieja: Huge. The reason why it's a huge challenge for us is because... We're very self-aware. I think maybe half the drives in last year's Underground were good, and maybe half of them weren't, and it's very hard once you start trying to create a city with ineffective roads to make every drive really good.
The way we did that last year was we created a drive and then interconnected it with something else - we made sure we tried to connect sections of road that were good together.
It was exponentially harder this year because there's so much more of that that goes on. The distinct neighbourhoods help us do that, so when you get up into the hilly area, those drives are of a similar style, so it was easier to get those drives together - it's the interconnected aspect of it that's more difficult.
What's ended up being really neat is that we have an entire freeway system that runs around the entire length of the game world. Which is insane when you see it.
Now you're able to do that, will there be a mode where you're able to wander around the game world and choose your own challenges and so forth?
Osieja: Yeah, that's sort of the basis of the entire game. You'll start off in free-roam, and you'll actually have to drive and find different events in the game world. Some things will be available to you on a map, but if you want the cool stuff in the world, you have to go and find it, so you do have to do exploration.
The free-roam aspect of the game probably encompasses 50-plus percent of the experience, and the cool thing about it is the city is large enough and there are enough alleyways and other things inside the game world that... I think players are going to find themselves talking to other players and asking "Have you found this yet?" or "Have you seen this yet?".
Once you find things by exploration they become a part of your map and they're easy to find again, but we really wanted to exploit the idea of having to become familiar with the city - just like when you move to a new city.
Will we be able to drive everywhere right from the start?
Osieja: No.
How will that be boxed off then?
Osieja: Well, we'll do it cleverly with construction and things like that. The problem with opening an entire city to the player at first is it's overwhelming. I remember the first day when they said the entire world was driveable, and you get dropped down into it and it's insane - you go "Okay, this is big". And it made us think of a couple of things.
One is, we had to put in a really clear navigation system for the player to allow them to understand where they're going at any one time, so it's very similar to what you find in a real city where you have signs pointing you to the freeway or giving you access to other parts of the city for example.
But by dropping a person into an entire city all at once, we just thought that'd be overwhelming. You'll be able to accelerate through that very quickly, but at first you'll be confined to a smaller area.
So where's the line drawn between linearity and non-linearity, and how does the sequel compare to the original Underground in this regard?
Osieja: One thing that's really cool about the game this year is it's much less linear than it was last year. Our goal last year was to create a non-linear experience where if you liked drift you could do all the drift stuff and maybe not some of the other stuff. This year, because of the way we're designing the game and the layout structure and the free-roam aspect, you actually won't have to do everything to get through the game.
You can actually pick and choose - if you like drifting you can do that, or if you like this other mode you can do that, if you like the circuit stuff you can go and do that. And you'll only have to do a certain percentage of them to be able to open up another part of the game world and continue the story.
The idea is for the free-roaming environment to basically take the place of a front end, so instead of selecting a race and entering it, winning it and going back out to the front end to select your next race and back and forth - basically it's a series of races connected by an interface.
Instead of doing that, the interface is the city, and you go and if you actually want to start a race you can actually drive to the start of that race and then begin a race at that point.
Can you tell us about the concept behind Underground 2, give us some background to the sequel?
Osieja: Underground 2 has been in development since last Fall [2003], before Underground actually shipped, and the goal behind it was to create something that was quite different to Underground, so we're very conscious of the fact that we didn't just want to throw out a sequel to the game and have it be more of the same thing.
Work's really focused on the discovery of the tuner culture, and what I mean by that is, anywhere where you happen to live - especially if it's a big city... There's sort of two layers to every city. There's what everybody sees, so if you're a tourist in a city you see all the tourist spots and all the restaurants etc. and then there's a sub-culture whether it be clubs or places that you only get to know if you're local.
And that's the premise of Underground 2 - it's about discovering the tuner culture and finding out where all the races are and finding out where all the cool kids are, finding out the information about how to get the best cars, how to get best races and how to get all the best parts for you car.
What are the major differences between Underground and Underground 2?
Osieja: What's different about this than in the first Underground is that Underground was one big city, but, as you may have noticed, it was a selection of tracks that sort of interconnected and you weren't able to drive anywhere in the world. In Underground 2 you can drive anywhere in the game world. It's roughly about three times the size of the Underground city, with probably two to three times the density in terms of streets.
In Underground we had a lot of dead-end streets and things you couldn't go down, but now you can actually drive down any street, everything's interconnected which creates a far wider variety of race types. For example, just in one section of the city we've come up with - not that all these will ship with the game - about 80 different circuits that we can do just in one area of the entire city.
We're going through and doing that for each section of the city. There are five distinct areas in the city. It is going to be one city this year, it's not going to be a collection of two or three cities.
The reason we do that is because we really want the player to grow and create a reputation and establish themselves as the best street racer in a city. It doesn't make as much such to us to have you drive for a little while in one city and then jump to another city.
This takes place in a brand new city and there is a story that goes around it about why you left Underground's city to go to Underground 2's city. That's where the story picks up and you re-establish yourself in the city and figure out who all the cool kids are and where all the best cars are and where all the hot races are.
The game's going to have a wider selection of vehicles that we had last year, so there'll be more vehicles. Broader is what I'm saying, so if you pay attention to what's going on inside the culture - and I think the culture's really evolved - we're trying to approach a broad base of cars to appeal to a wider audience. It'll be a cooler set of cars than it was last year and a lot different to what it was last year.
What about game modes for the sequel? What can you tell us about those?
Osieja: New game modes... Ah, we'll have more game modes than last year [laughs]. I'm not going to get into specifics but all the game modes we had last year will be coming back and then we found things like drag racing and drift racing were really popular and they brought a different type of game mechanic and experience to the player.
For people that don't just like the pure race experience of running laps or trying to shave seconds, drift and drag created a different challenge for them.
And what we did is concentrated on one, looking at the culture and seeing what people are doing - seeing where the culture's going to be, or where the scene is going to be, we think a year from now or two years from now and trying to apply that type of alternate thinking to additional game modes that we're putting in.
So we're going to have some more stuff that is a lot different to what anybody's seen inside of racing games before but certainly relevant to the tuner culture.
What else can you tell us about the city?
Osieja: The city is going to have five distinct neighbourhoods. Some of the stories on our press release say five inner city neighbourhoods, but it's not. They'll actually be in the inner city, but there'll also be the outlying areas as well. Each one is going to look visually distinctive, so that your eye isn't treated to the same neon vision over and over again. You'll have suburban areas and such.
It's not going to be all neon and wet streets this year. We'll have things like real-time weather in the game, so it'll rain and the streets will actually get wet and then get dry and those things will affect the way the cars handle. The areas of the game world are really distinct, so we'll have stuff that feels different in terms of the drive than we had last year.
We'll still have some of it take place in the city grid but we're going to expand on it and bring in some of the racing style of previous Need For Speed games, so some stuff is more wide-open - it really creates a wider variety of driving experiences and that's one of the focuses of we have in the game.
Can you elaborate on the incorporation of racing styles of previous Need For Speed games?
Osieja: Last year we distinctly wanted to change what Need For Speed had been - wide-open racing on country roads at 150-plus miles per hour - and the tuner cars were much more adept at running through very short city environments - running through turns and things like that.
This year we wanted to do a wider range of that stuff, so we're going to have stuff that's very short and very technical and very fun that's going to lead into some of the Underground-style races, and broadening out into something that feels like Need For Speed-style races where they're hilly and wide-open and a different driving experience.
I think people who like racing games will get a lot of different racing styles to choose from, so it's not always going to be the same type of tracks every time out.
How much more of a challenge was it making a world where you can go everywhere while still maintaining the quality?
Osieja: Huge. The reason why it's a huge challenge for us is because... We're very self-aware. I think maybe half the drives in last year's Underground were good, and maybe half of them weren't, and it's very hard once you start trying to create a city with ineffective roads to make every drive really good.
The way we did that last year was we created a drive and then interconnected it with something else - we made sure we tried to connect sections of road that were good together.
It was exponentially harder this year because there's so much more of that that goes on. The distinct neighbourhoods help us do that, so when you get up into the hilly area, those drives are of a similar style, so it was easier to get those drives together - it's the interconnected aspect of it that's more difficult.
What's ended up being really neat is that we have an entire freeway system that runs around the entire length of the game world. Which is insane when you see it.
Now you're able to do that, will there be a mode where you're able to wander around the game world and choose your own challenges and so forth?
Osieja: Yeah, that's sort of the basis of the entire game. You'll start off in free-roam, and you'll actually have to drive and find different events in the game world. Some things will be available to you on a map, but if you want the cool stuff in the world, you have to go and find it, so you do have to do exploration.
The free-roam aspect of the game probably encompasses 50-plus percent of the experience, and the cool thing about it is the city is large enough and there are enough alleyways and other things inside the game world that... I think players are going to find themselves talking to other players and asking "Have you found this yet?" or "Have you seen this yet?".
Once you find things by exploration they become a part of your map and they're easy to find again, but we really wanted to exploit the idea of having to become familiar with the city - just like when you move to a new city.
Will we be able to drive everywhere right from the start?
Osieja: No.
How will that be boxed off then?
Osieja: Well, we'll do it cleverly with construction and things like that. The problem with opening an entire city to the player at first is it's overwhelming. I remember the first day when they said the entire world was driveable, and you get dropped down into it and it's insane - you go "Okay, this is big". And it made us think of a couple of things.
One is, we had to put in a really clear navigation system for the player to allow them to understand where they're going at any one time, so it's very similar to what you find in a real city where you have signs pointing you to the freeway or giving you access to other parts of the city for example.
But by dropping a person into an entire city all at once, we just thought that'd be overwhelming. You'll be able to accelerate through that very quickly, but at first you'll be confined to a smaller area.
So where's the line drawn between linearity and non-linearity, and how does the sequel compare to the original Underground in this regard?
Osieja: One thing that's really cool about the game this year is it's much less linear than it was last year. Our goal last year was to create a non-linear experience where if you liked drift you could do all the drift stuff and maybe not some of the other stuff. This year, because of the way we're designing the game and the layout structure and the free-roam aspect, you actually won't have to do everything to get through the game.
You can actually pick and choose - if you like drifting you can do that, or if you like this other mode you can do that, if you like the circuit stuff you can go and do that. And you'll only have to do a certain percentage of them to be able to open up another part of the game world and continue the story.
The idea is for the free-roaming environment to basically take the place of a front end, so instead of selecting a race and entering it, winning it and going back out to the front end to select your next race and back and forth - basically it's a series of races connected by an interface.
Instead of doing that, the interface is the city, and you go and if you actually want to start a race you can actually drive to the start of that race and then begin a race at that point.
Part 2
This all part of immersing players in the tuner culture presumably...
Osieja: Yeah, not just driving to other places but you can drive up to other drivers in the world and challenge them. I might be driving along the freeway and a guy comes up next to me and he could challenge me or I could challenge him. Or maybe I can drive down a certain street and see something going on over there and I can drive over to that guy and challenge him to a race. We're trying to make it as organic as possible.
I think that from that standpoint it differs quite a bit from what the original Underground was. If we couldn't have done something like that we wouldn't have done the game. The fear was that we'd just push something out the door that felt like a version 1.5, and I think we've got enough history with products... [where we've seen] that you can do more damage to a franchise than help it by pushing something out.
Anything you left out of Underground that we'll see in the sequel?
Osieja: Quite honesty we had ideas for Underground that we knew we couldn't implement into the game given when we needed to ship that game. A lot of the stuff still went into development because they were great ideas, so Underground 2 really has been in development for quite a bit longer. We've just announced it now, but obviously we had to keep our really good ideas really close to our chest.
That's because of the competition, presumably?
Osieja: The competition that's out there, especially the screenshots I've seen, blow me away how much they look like they're mimicking the tone and style of Underground. Basically they'll be reading every word of what you guys write to see what they can do to actually trump us in terms of features.
Part of what we want to do is unveil these things in a timely fashion but in a way that doesn't leave them [the competition] with any choice but to go out with what they've got planned already - and at the [same] time hopefully release enough content to help you guys keep track of the game.
There's some really cool stuff we've put in the game this year, but it's really easy to do and if we revealed it now I guarantee you'd see it in every other game because it's not that hard.
So, you started working on Underground 2 before Underground shipped. How much was it already set in stone and how much did you respond to feedback you got on the first game?
Osieja: We responded an awful lot to feedback actually. In fact after Underground shipped we did a whole bunch of focus testing and we did a lot of surveys and things like that because the response was so good to the game we really wanted to make sure that we were getting feedback from the consumer and finding out what it is they wanted.
Obviously [we received] things like "There's no performance tuning in the game". Well, guess what, there's going to be performance tuning in the game this year. That's a big thing that we're doing, and that's directly from the response we got from fans that said they wanted to be able to tune cars from a parts aspect as well as from a visual parts aspect. We're doing it in such a way as to be considerate to people such as myself who aren't so performance savvy.
But for a player who understands cars, they can get in there and can fiddle with torque and gear ratios and camber and things like that to eek a little bit more out of the car than your basic player will get. I actually think that's going to be as robust a feature as the visual parts of the cars were last year.
The cool thing was a lot of the feedback we got was actually inline with what we had planned, so it was almost confirmation that these were really in fact good ideas and we should continue with those as well as picking up on some new things. We were pretty happy with the top ten most requested improvements. These were already covered by what we'd already planned for or things we were adding this time.
I'd probably say that 80 percent of what we had planned for Underground 2 came back as confirmation from the consumers, which is good. What that means to me is we're pretty in touch with the consumer and the culture and being able to marry those.
What sort of research have you done into the tuner culture to present it better?
Osieja: [We've] actually [been] to the offices of a major tuner magazine in each of the major territories and... We're trying to build a global product so, although the team is here in North America, we want to make sure that if there is something that's quite unique in Europe [for example] that we're incorporating those ideas.
Our European marketing mirrored our focus testing, so we based their research of off the same focus screener and discussion document that we had here, and that happened simultaneously so we definitely had those. We probably sold nearly half our product in Europe this year, so we're really considerate about what the European market wants and how does it differ from what we do in North America.
We've got four or five guys on the team who are really heavily into the tuner culture, they have their own cars and show them, race them. We go to local and national shows, we're in touch with people who are part of the scene, we spend a lot of time on the different Need For Speed sites. We spend a lot of time on research. It'd be insane for us to think that we know everything that people want and I think it'd be insane for us to think that we understand what the tuner culture is.
Are you going to be doing anything cool online with this open mode, because that would lend itself quite well to it?
Osieja: Yes... (laughs).
Underground was hugely successful so it makes sense for you to do a sequel - what about the rest of the Need for Speed franchise?
Osieja: Still there. We have a few games in development. We're getting ready for the next generation of platforms, we're getting ready for the follow-up to Underground. Our group is a pretty large group, and we have a few irons in the fire. We're not abandoning the traditional Need for Speed. What we're finding is that a lot of things that we've done traditionally, and a lot things that we didn't in Underground... That we're finding we can apply [these] to the Need for Speed franchise.
So I think it'll be interesting to see what the reaction is when we apply some of the things we've learned from Underground to some other driving games we're putting together right now. Without giving too much away, what you're seeing in Underground is really the basis for what our next product will be.
Is the whole of Underground 2 set during night time?
Osieja: It'll be set at different times of the night, so basically post-sunset to pre-sunrise, so it'll be more than just pitch black essentially. Even though it's still at night there'll be a variety of night time settings and the different areas of the game world will also create different visual effects. We're very conscious about having the five areas of the game world very distinctive in terms of visual look.
With the open plan thing, was that directly because of seeing the likes of GTA - like a GTA Underground type thing?
Osieja: Yeah, I think that's definitely an inspiration for it. Those games have sold phenomenally well and they're a lot of fun to play and I think that... When you look at the industry as a whole and when you look at where it's been going and where the biggest evolutions or revolutions have come from, it's from GTA - that open-world environment opens up a lot of possibilities, not just for an action-shooter style game like that but I think for almost any type of game.
For a long time GTA was categorised as a driving game, not an action-adventure game, and for us we saw it as direct competition so we felt like in order to revolutionise driving as a whole we needed to go to a different space and that made a lot of sense to us.
How do you decide which cars make the final cut?
Osieja: We poll a lot, we do an awful lot of research to see what's hot in the community and in the culture. We think about... We pay a lot of attention to trying to figure out where the culture is going to go. Even though 'little Timmy' doesn't realise this car's cool now, there are enough people that are hardcore into the environment that say "This is going to be a good car and these are all the reasons why".
We look at those things and say "Okay, has it got style, do we think it's going to wind up being a big tuner car in the future, do we think it's going to be popular?" And that's sort of how we cull down the list.
Will the PC version differ much from the console versions of Underground 2?
Osieja: No, probably not. They're all built on a standard platform and we wind up having PC leads [lead designer] and Xbox leads and NGC leads who do some specific rendering tasks to take advantage of what those platforms can do, but as a general rule we try and make sure that we don't put anything in any one game that's not going to appear in the others. It's not really good to short-change the PC guys with something that the Xbox guys get or vice versa.
We've debated with each other a lot about which cars to include and which not to, and we're trying to get the ones that most people drive. Occasionally there's an obscure one in there... We've got a couple in Underground 2, a couple of the classics that didn't make it into Underground; but the hardcore tuner guys are really clamouring for it so some of those will make it in.
What do you think is the single coolest part of Underground 2?
Osieja: I think the open world is pretty amazing. People are going to be stunned at how big it is and what the experience is when they're driving through it.
This all part of immersing players in the tuner culture presumably...
Osieja: Yeah, not just driving to other places but you can drive up to other drivers in the world and challenge them. I might be driving along the freeway and a guy comes up next to me and he could challenge me or I could challenge him. Or maybe I can drive down a certain street and see something going on over there and I can drive over to that guy and challenge him to a race. We're trying to make it as organic as possible.
I think that from that standpoint it differs quite a bit from what the original Underground was. If we couldn't have done something like that we wouldn't have done the game. The fear was that we'd just push something out the door that felt like a version 1.5, and I think we've got enough history with products... [where we've seen] that you can do more damage to a franchise than help it by pushing something out.
Anything you left out of Underground that we'll see in the sequel?
Osieja: Quite honesty we had ideas for Underground that we knew we couldn't implement into the game given when we needed to ship that game. A lot of the stuff still went into development because they were great ideas, so Underground 2 really has been in development for quite a bit longer. We've just announced it now, but obviously we had to keep our really good ideas really close to our chest.
That's because of the competition, presumably?
Osieja: The competition that's out there, especially the screenshots I've seen, blow me away how much they look like they're mimicking the tone and style of Underground. Basically they'll be reading every word of what you guys write to see what they can do to actually trump us in terms of features.
Part of what we want to do is unveil these things in a timely fashion but in a way that doesn't leave them [the competition] with any choice but to go out with what they've got planned already - and at the [same] time hopefully release enough content to help you guys keep track of the game.
There's some really cool stuff we've put in the game this year, but it's really easy to do and if we revealed it now I guarantee you'd see it in every other game because it's not that hard.
So, you started working on Underground 2 before Underground shipped. How much was it already set in stone and how much did you respond to feedback you got on the first game?
Osieja: We responded an awful lot to feedback actually. In fact after Underground shipped we did a whole bunch of focus testing and we did a lot of surveys and things like that because the response was so good to the game we really wanted to make sure that we were getting feedback from the consumer and finding out what it is they wanted.
Obviously [we received] things like "There's no performance tuning in the game". Well, guess what, there's going to be performance tuning in the game this year. That's a big thing that we're doing, and that's directly from the response we got from fans that said they wanted to be able to tune cars from a parts aspect as well as from a visual parts aspect. We're doing it in such a way as to be considerate to people such as myself who aren't so performance savvy.
But for a player who understands cars, they can get in there and can fiddle with torque and gear ratios and camber and things like that to eek a little bit more out of the car than your basic player will get. I actually think that's going to be as robust a feature as the visual parts of the cars were last year.
The cool thing was a lot of the feedback we got was actually inline with what we had planned, so it was almost confirmation that these were really in fact good ideas and we should continue with those as well as picking up on some new things. We were pretty happy with the top ten most requested improvements. These were already covered by what we'd already planned for or things we were adding this time.
I'd probably say that 80 percent of what we had planned for Underground 2 came back as confirmation from the consumers, which is good. What that means to me is we're pretty in touch with the consumer and the culture and being able to marry those.
What sort of research have you done into the tuner culture to present it better?
Osieja: [We've] actually [been] to the offices of a major tuner magazine in each of the major territories and... We're trying to build a global product so, although the team is here in North America, we want to make sure that if there is something that's quite unique in Europe [for example] that we're incorporating those ideas.
Our European marketing mirrored our focus testing, so we based their research of off the same focus screener and discussion document that we had here, and that happened simultaneously so we definitely had those. We probably sold nearly half our product in Europe this year, so we're really considerate about what the European market wants and how does it differ from what we do in North America.
We've got four or five guys on the team who are really heavily into the tuner culture, they have their own cars and show them, race them. We go to local and national shows, we're in touch with people who are part of the scene, we spend a lot of time on the different Need For Speed sites. We spend a lot of time on research. It'd be insane for us to think that we know everything that people want and I think it'd be insane for us to think that we understand what the tuner culture is.
Are you going to be doing anything cool online with this open mode, because that would lend itself quite well to it?
Osieja: Yes... (laughs).
Underground was hugely successful so it makes sense for you to do a sequel - what about the rest of the Need for Speed franchise?
Osieja: Still there. We have a few games in development. We're getting ready for the next generation of platforms, we're getting ready for the follow-up to Underground. Our group is a pretty large group, and we have a few irons in the fire. We're not abandoning the traditional Need for Speed. What we're finding is that a lot of things that we've done traditionally, and a lot things that we didn't in Underground... That we're finding we can apply [these] to the Need for Speed franchise.
So I think it'll be interesting to see what the reaction is when we apply some of the things we've learned from Underground to some other driving games we're putting together right now. Without giving too much away, what you're seeing in Underground is really the basis for what our next product will be.
Is the whole of Underground 2 set during night time?
Osieja: It'll be set at different times of the night, so basically post-sunset to pre-sunrise, so it'll be more than just pitch black essentially. Even though it's still at night there'll be a variety of night time settings and the different areas of the game world will also create different visual effects. We're very conscious about having the five areas of the game world very distinctive in terms of visual look.
With the open plan thing, was that directly because of seeing the likes of GTA - like a GTA Underground type thing?
Osieja: Yeah, I think that's definitely an inspiration for it. Those games have sold phenomenally well and they're a lot of fun to play and I think that... When you look at the industry as a whole and when you look at where it's been going and where the biggest evolutions or revolutions have come from, it's from GTA - that open-world environment opens up a lot of possibilities, not just for an action-shooter style game like that but I think for almost any type of game.
For a long time GTA was categorised as a driving game, not an action-adventure game, and for us we saw it as direct competition so we felt like in order to revolutionise driving as a whole we needed to go to a different space and that made a lot of sense to us.
How do you decide which cars make the final cut?
Osieja: We poll a lot, we do an awful lot of research to see what's hot in the community and in the culture. We think about... We pay a lot of attention to trying to figure out where the culture is going to go. Even though 'little Timmy' doesn't realise this car's cool now, there are enough people that are hardcore into the environment that say "This is going to be a good car and these are all the reasons why".
We look at those things and say "Okay, has it got style, do we think it's going to wind up being a big tuner car in the future, do we think it's going to be popular?" And that's sort of how we cull down the list.
Will the PC version differ much from the console versions of Underground 2?
Osieja: No, probably not. They're all built on a standard platform and we wind up having PC leads [lead designer] and Xbox leads and NGC leads who do some specific rendering tasks to take advantage of what those platforms can do, but as a general rule we try and make sure that we don't put anything in any one game that's not going to appear in the others. It's not really good to short-change the PC guys with something that the Xbox guys get or vice versa.
We've debated with each other a lot about which cars to include and which not to, and we're trying to get the ones that most people drive. Occasionally there's an obscure one in there... We've got a couple in Underground 2, a couple of the classics that didn't make it into Underground; but the hardcore tuner guys are really clamouring for it so some of those will make it in.
What do you think is the single coolest part of Underground 2?
Osieja: I think the open world is pretty amazing. People are going to be stunned at how big it is and what the experience is when they're driving through it.