A decent racing game, but EA should have focused more on the "racing" instead of their product placements and modding.
Overall, this game is a decent racing game. The graphics are great, the cars look and sound realistic. There are tons of ways to customize your car. I dont care at all for the huge airplane style wings that are offered. But as you unlock more wings, its just about all you can get. Sure, you can choose not to buy them, but you need to have a certain visual rating on your car. I actually made another car just put all of the tacky, gaudy stuff that is offered, just so I could acheive a higher visual rating.
The product placement in this game is absolutely absurd. Burger King, CIngular, and Best Buy have nothing to do with racing at all. WOW, doenst my Burger King Exhaust sound great!? Check out my new CIngular intake, and my Best Buy short throw shifter! If you are going to put advertisements in this game, at least use companies that have something to do with racing. MAN!
I play a lot of racing games, and my favorite view is the bumper cam...like a 1st person type view. But for some reason in this particular view, your engine is totally silent. My race built Mustang and Lexus with loud exhausts dont produce a single decibel....interesting. Even with the Engine volume maxed out, and everything else lowered, still no sound. My point is, that I drive manual, so I need to hear the engine to know when to shift. The other views, you can hear it fine, but I dont like the other views. Switching it to auto shift is out of the question. This irritated the crap out of me.
Finally, the difficulty. I am really good at racing games. But for some reason, Medium difficulty is way too hard, and on Easy mode you leave everyone in the dust. Now on NFSU:1, I did Medium all the time, and did the Hard mode a lot too. I rarely did Easy mode on NFSU:1. So what the hell?
Overall, its a decent game. I prefer the first one to this one though. Customizing is really fun. I made into Level 5 and just plain lost interest in the game. It seems like I just wanted the races to end so I could just unlock more mods. I think this is mainly because the racing part just wasnt satisfying. I have been playing NFS Hot Pursuit 2 lately, and the racing in that game rocks! I wish EA would put out another NFS with the exotics like they used to. Customizing would be even better, as long as the racing element is there. NFS is my favorite racing series....I have them all. But this last installment, certainly wasnt the best. Its too bad too, because this could have been a killer game. Try harder EA.
**If you found this review helpful, please rate me with the thumbs up or thumbs down, I enjoy writing game reviews, so this helps, thanks. **