Underground 2 follows closely to the original in many respects. A lot of the same events are available, the look and feel of the game is similar, as is the arcade-style handling of the cars; the major differences between the two games are in their presentation, and the addition of a new online mode. Underground 2 extends the street racer attitude of the original, packaging it with more of a story. Told in a series of stylish comic book montages that superhero action games would be wise to emulate, Underground 2 gives more of a reason for the racing, as well as presenting the game more cohesively.

The presentation of the gameplay is different also, particularly in the main Career mode. Instead of picking races from a menu, an open, sprawling city is available to drive around. Various races can be found in different parts of the map, as well as shops to improve either the looks or the performance of the car, car lots and a personal garage. In addition there are also various drivers on the streets who can be challenged in a one-on-one match, and numerous hidden spots to find shops or more races. The Career mode is quite a large, fitting well with the sprawling city.

Initially the free-riding map seems to be an improvement, but over time it becomes a bit of a hassle driving from race to race rather than just picking it off the menu. The complexity of the streets doesn't help either, although to counter this a GPS system can be activated to guide players to a desired destination. A quick jump option would have worked well here and eliminated a lot of wasted travel time.

One thing the map system does enable is the new Outrun event, possibly the toughest type in the game. In Outrun, players can challenge any rival they happen to meet driving around the streets. A one-on-one race ensues, with no set course to drive on. The object of the race is to get a kilometre ahead of your opponent. Whilst behind, players must follow their rival to try to get ahead and once ahead players can choose whichever streets or direction they desire to drive. It's an exciting and often tough event, and a great addition to the game.

Other new events include Street X, a tight race on a short course similar to those used in the Drift events, and the Underground Racing League, a series of races on actual race tracks rather than in the streets. The other events were all seen in the original Underground, including various types of street and sprint races, as well as the Drag and Drift events.

Not all events can automatically be accessed. Quite a few of the events, especially later in the game, rely on a fair amount of car upgrading. This plays more of a role in affecting how the game progresses this time round, and to aid players in that a more extensive set of upgrades is included. Both visual and performance upgrades can be bought, including those that were seen in the original Underground. Performance upgrades in particular are more extensive, covering everything from nitrous additions to differing hydraulics, fuel filters and transmissions.

Visual upgrades are also better, including the ability to apply up to 10 layers of vinyls to the car, put winged doors on the car, or adjust the amount of tint in the windows. Even the gauges the player sees while driving can be changed. The amount of customisation available here is quite impressive, ensuring that each ride can look completely different to the car you started with. To help with this a separate Customisation mode outside of the main Career mode has been added, giving players full reign to experiment without worrying about the cash to spend it on.

Driving around through the city or the various events is rather simple, with the game using a strong arcade handling system. As with the last game, drifting round a corner is often preferable to taking the proper racing line, and cornering often has little relation to the speed the car is at. Collisions are fairly meaningless, with no major consequences for driving into an opponent or the side of the track, and no way for the car to be damaged. As such racing can often be a combination of using walls and other vehicles as a means of cornering when drifting isn't quite enough.

Despite this apparent disregard for realistic racing or physics, Underground 2 still manages to be a lot of fun. The wide, sweeping corners of the courses, the relative lack of traffic on the road and the arcade handling mean that some very fast races can be run. The visuals largely keep up with this, although the large amount of neon and shine is almost overwhelming. Even the rain the city often experiences doesn't dampen this, creating even more shine off the road surface and no noticeable effect on the car's handling.

One of the major faults we found with the original Underground was with the lack of any replay feature. In Underground 2, replays are available for all modes, letting players access the thrill of watching a close drag race, or admire the driving skill displayed in a fast street race. Tied to this was the relative redundancy in applying any visual upgrades to cars, which were just a wasted effort if they were rarely seen. Now upgrades are worthwhile, which will please those that want to put time into fully customising their ride.

While the main Career mode is a monster, Underground 2 also offers a full online mode on Xbox Live. The setup for this is excellent, with a great set of leaderboards, ranking system, large number of courses and events available, as well as all the cars from the single-player game. Especially good to see is the ability to race in your own tricked out car from the Career mode, offering a great incentive to improve it as much as possible.