Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA

"Speed across the USA!"

The sequel to the hot racing game San Francisco Rush proves to be awesome, just like the rush series as a whole is! You got tracks for various locations across the USA. New York, Las Vegas, New York, and more! And lots of different cars! And you can change the stripe and paint on those cars. How about a blue sportscar with double thin stripe and increase its durability (sacrifice speed for durability or durability for speed) to have a better chance of surviving in a hard course, or lower the durability to race in an open speedway! Feel the RUSH as you blaze across tracks at 150 MPH, and assorted cheats, like super speed! How about blazing across at 204 MPH???? (max speed)

Gameplay-9
You got lots to entertain you! The game's tracks are setup with lovely scenery, lots of cars with different setups ranging from durability and control and top speed and acceleration and such. You got varieties of gameplay. Race a friend or a bunch of computer controlled cars. Do you want to race a death race, where you lose when you crash? Or just get a new car everytime? How about a circuit, all possible setups on each of the normal tracks. You got regular, mirrored, and backward, and backward-mirrored, You know the track? Let's see you race it backward-mirrored! Also a stunt course to do all sorts of crazy stunts! You can also have fun just wrecking the enemy cars!

Control-10
Customizable and how hard you steer and whether you tip over or not is decided on speed, how far you tilt the stick, and whether or not you hit a bump or not. Yup. If you are good with the control stick, and make use of letting off the accelerator and/or brake, you can control your car very well. Even then, a small bump will make you flip about 20 times at times!

Graphics-9
Take pleasure in the lovely scenery as you drive at 150 MPH, toggle the View and go into drivers view (1P, you can see your hood) and front bumper view (low-rider!) and watch as everything blazes by you at lightning speed! Race in your awesome looking car against other cool-looking cars.

Sound-9
Rev your engine and listen to the hum of your engine purr, or the gearshift as you shift up on your manual, (or automatic). Realistic engine sounds make your cars sound real! And to race, you got a nice array of music to race with (Race tracks!) And hear the metal crunch as you decide to ram your opponent(s) off the road!

Playability-10
You got custimizable controls, you can sacrifice durability for speed, speed for durability as you see fit, you can increase or decrease fog to make visibility harder and to test your knowledge for real, as well as the wind! The wind will throw you off, can you handle riding in a gale? You can set the number of laps, drones (CPU players) and whether you want to race backward and/or mirrored or neither. Also you can chance your car's durability, tire type (control) and color/stripe and engine (engine just makes different sound I believe) and you even have a horn!!!

Replay Value-9
You got many settings to keep the fun rolling! Do stunts,either on the track or the premade stunt course! Make your car about 20 different colors with 8 different stripe types and 20 different stripe colors, 20+ sets of hubcaps and about 7-10 types of horns, so you can satisfy anyone when they make their custom car. You can drive an automatic or a manual, race on 8 different tracks, the possibilities are endless!

Saving
You need a controller pack if you want to save your player name/times/course totals and key totals (keys give you extra cars) so you need it for everything, and anything good.

Buy? Rent? Borrow? Burn?
Might wanna rent it first, but it is definitely a good buy!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/11/01, Updated 07/11/01