Well I fired it up and was instantly hooked because it reminded me so much of my driving school days! LOL, the first thing I drove was the Honda Civic, where in RL I had played with (albeit the 4-door version). In the game, it somehow felt deja vu
Then I started racing and the next thing I noticed was that unlike my previous racing sim affairs, I didn't try to drive by ramming into corners and scraping around them, indeed, using proper braking and maneuvering technique saves one a lot of time and NOS. Maybe its just RL driving (and crashing in driving school) experience that teaches well, but its good to finally get a gaming experience that relays itself well to that.
Second deja vu came when I played a StreetX course - after we got our driving licenses our instructors setup this neat little Stage 4 like streetcross course for us to go learn cornering and braking techniques on, no wonder I'm naturally good at the game, ha!
Enough of intros - basically I felt that while NFSU2 doesn't claim to be the most realistic driving game around I found that the whole package was setup well enough for me to think as though I were at the wheel of an actual vehicle. That is, to me, all the "realism" required for me to enjoy my gaming experience. Things like the feeling of crashing and G forces, I can drop in with some imagination - after all at my second time in a Honda Civic I was doing what seems to be hairpin turns at breakneck speed
I see a lot of training vehicles plod away at 20-40kph clogging up streets - but trainees really are entitled to proceed at "proper" road speeds here. Even better when I was taking my bike license they all taunted that we would be riding at 120kph the moment we are set free on the roads, which I ended up doing. So long as no one crashes, no one bothers, especially at night where the collared folk are sleeping and I'm having fun with traffic light drag racing etc...
Gameplay stuff (finally)
I find that the Mazda MX-5 was for me the best starting vehicle, thanks to its perfect handling and controllability - while it doesn't drift it can rack up a huge score in the stadium for sashaying around the circuit non-stop on the shoulders! Fishtailing this thing is a ball of fun because it doesn't go out of control, ever.
But of course the little rotary engine doesn't provide much kick so it loses out at the end of stage 2. I was surprised it lasted so long because another career starting with the 206 had me looking for a better car midway in Stage 2.
Then after that I picked up the RX-8 which was, to me, twice better than the MX-5. More power, enough to do proper drifts on, and while it is heavier I liked the handling all the same.
Next came mountain course racing and once again the Mazda lost out from engine power. I decided not to be a Mazda fan anymore late in Stage 3 and with the fat bank I sought to create the modern rendition of the American muscle car out of either the GTO or the Mustang - after some test driving I decided on the latter not because of its stats but on how it handled. (yes, its rated worse than the GTO but stats aren't all that count...)
Skimping on the less effective upgrades and without its side skirts and fenders, the bloody monster won me some sprint and drag races just by sheer engine power and having passed its initiation, I decided to complete my favourite mount the NightMare (mare = female horse, get it). In red, black and silver livery, the thing barks like a monster out of my lovely speaker setup
Of course the heavy car doesn't do at all when it comes to corners but makes up for it very amply in straight lines.
And that's my NFSU2 experience so far - I intend to restart the singleplayer career yet again so I can try another starting vehicle (I had also missed out on some unlocks there). I haven't done much poking around the NFS community scenes yet, but I'm looking out for custom/new vehicles, mods and NFSMW. That thing about driving like in a Hollywood movie is obviously, incomplete without the police chases...