It’s a question of when Electronic Arts will pull the usual cease and desist card out of its pack.

Need For Speed Underground 2 was released in late 2004, and for many, it was the highlight of the series. The publisher took that style even further with Most Wanted and Carbon, but from there, the series took a different direction. NFSU2 has been reimagined by a fan, Ivan Novozhilov, on Unreal Engine 4. In many ways, the project can surpass the original game (which may not even be officially available from Electronic Arts anymore, although it would run on virtually anything nowadays…).

The car now has a turbo and nitrous. The latter can be recharged as in the original (jumps, drifts, getting close to traffic without causing an accident), there is new steering, the automatic transmission and clutch received optimizations, and the slip ratio is fixed (meaning there is no more stuttering); collisions have sounds and sparks, and the suspension compression is not silent. All but two of the engines are entirely ready, but the analyzer is not good enough to get the rest done; the turbos, engine, and gearbox sounds vary depending on the degree of tuning. The driving behaviour has been redesigned but modified depending on traction and slip angle; the speed has given the cars a more arcade-like behaviour, and it is possible to drift at low speeds, but it may change in the future.

The audio and reverb zones have not been neglected, neighbourhoods have been coloured, and areas have all been named; graphics have been optimized to look nicer with better performance, the weather cycle has been tweaked, and new textures have been added. In addition to the traffic system, the camera movement and radio motion blur have also been optimized. Signs and water barrels are destructible. The background music is from both Underground games and Most Wanted. You can switch between songs if you want to. The drift score counter comes with nifty messages in the interface, and there are blue-red-white zones to drift in for score multipliers. The menus are still work-in-progress.

The result is pretty strong, but even if the fan gives it away, there’s no doubt that Electronic Arts will have it removed almost immediately…

Source: WCCFTech