The one where very 90s supercars and concepts racing around the world. Alternatively, the one with the most memorable menu music.
Need for Speed II is a racing game released in 1997. It is the second installment of the Need for Speed series, released three years after the first one.
Released for PlayStation and Microsoft Windows, II expanded on the car selection of the original with several contemporary concept cars, like the Ford Indigo and Ford GT90. The McLaren F1, then the world's fastest production car and still the fastest naturally-aspirated car, made its first franchise appearance in this game. The game abandoned open road courses for arcade circuits themed on countries from North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. II also had a special edition release for the PC, which added seven new cars, a new track, a "wild" driving style, and 3Dfx Glide support.
The PC version was also the first Need for Speed game developed by then-second series developer EA Seattle, which started a trend of EA Canada developing the PS1 versions and EA Seattle doing the PC versions.
Need for Speed II features examples of:
- Amusement Park: The game's secret track, Monolithic Studios, is a mix of this and Hollywood California seemingly inspired by Universal Studios Hollywood, with the race starting at the entrance gate and then going through film sets based on The Wild West, Star Wars, Blade Runner, and Jurassic Park (complete with a life-sized T. rex prop in the middle of the track) while the trams from the Studio Tour serve as the traffic.
- Call-Back: A track featured in the Special Edition is titled Last Resort. This is a reference to how the Coastal track of the original The Need for Speed had an area named "The Last Resort". It even has a color scheme similar to Coastal's map.
- Cool Car: The intro sequence of the game shows a bunch of exotic cars racing along at fast speeds... except for the McLaren F1, which slowly strolls by a road past the screen, a bunch of fallen leaves flying in its wake. In the words of a YouTube commenter, the F1 is so alpha it doesn't even need to go fast to show off how awesome it is.
- Denser and Wackier: In comparison to the original The Need for Speed. It starts with an intro video of two cars racing which then turns to light, and in the game itself, the music is more upbeat, most of the cars are Super Prototypes, and the tracks are more varied in design, from the racetrack Proving Grounds, the futuristic Outback, to the cross-country Mystic Peaks, to the point that one reviewer calls it like "driving on magic mushrooms".
- Epileptic Flashing Lights: There is a tunnel section in the Proving Grounds track where the lights flash and flicker.
- Evil Laugh: Steve!Gor's iconic laugh can be heard in the track "Gore" for Monolithic Studios, U.S.A. in the Special Edition.
- Improbably Cool Car: While in later games it would become commonplace to feature supercars whose production numbers were single-digit, Need for Speed II was perhaps even worse, with Ford GT90s, Indigos, Mustang Mach IIIs, Isdera Commendatores, Italdesign (BMW) Nazca C2's and (Lamborghini) Calas, all of which, for those who are confused, never went into production.
- Joke Character: Cheat codes allow you to drive civilian cars, including a limousine and a school bus which can punt opponents around like a cat playing with its toy.
- Land Down Under: The game features Australian tracks that run from Sydney to the outback and back again.
- Level in Reverse: The Special Edition offers tracks in reverse, and even mirrored variants.
- Marathon Level: Tournaments in the Special Edition of the game have you race on all of the tracks in the respective games (excluding the unlockable Monolith Studios) with four laps per race, meaning on some of the later advanced tracks such as Mystic Peaks, this can take upwards of over ten minutes.
- Mayincatec: The Special Edition includes Last Resort, a Mexican course that takes you through a rural village and inside an ancient Mayan temple.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The print ads for Need for Speed II had vistas of empty desert roads on them, suggesting the game would keep the point-to-point races of the original but expanded to a Wide-Open Sandbox. In reality, II only featured circuit tracks and no open roads anything like the images. (That feature would begun in Porsche Unleashed, Hot Pursuit 2 and the Underground games.)
- Noob Cave: Proving Grounds is, rather fittingly, the first track in the game and is a bean-shaped oval with heavily banked corners set in a top-secret testing facility in Norway.
- One Game for the Price of Two: This game unusually inverts this. It sports three different race behaviour modes, from the extremely arcade Wild (but only in the Special Edition), the downplayed-but-still-arcade Arcade, and Simulation. It's basically three games for the price of one. No other game in the series does that.
- Palmtree Panic: Mediterraneo, which is set along the Greek seaside. In a break of the Sorting Algorithm of Threatening Geography, it is the penultimate track in the game discounting Monolithic Studios.
- Product Placement: Brought to you by the official time keeper, Omega.
- Purposely Overpowered: The FZR 2000 is a bonus car that is unlocked upon finishing first in Tournament Mode in the Special Edition, and is by far the fastest car in the game; it has a higher top speed and has better acceleration than the F1 and better handling than the Lotus Elise GT1, but since it's a bonus car it can only be used in Single Race mode.
- Put on a Bus: Police chases, which would be the franchise's staple are absent in this game and would be later re-introduced in III: Hot Pursuit. To top it off, II is the only game in the Classic Era to ever omit cops.
- Scare Chord: Sort of. Crashing your car would cause a short riff to play over whatever song was playing, depending on track and location.
- Sequel Goes Foreign: Need for Speed II went on for a World Tour aesthetic, contrasting with the first game.
- Shifting Sand Land: Need for Speed II had the Outback as the second track.
- Silliness Switch: The game had cheat codes that would turn your car from civilian cars to any in-game prop, from a monorail, a box, an outhouse, and a T-Rex statue.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Mystic Peaks, the most difficult track in the game, takes place on the peak of a snow-capped mountain in Nepal with numerous tight corners and decreased grip on the roads.
- Super-Scream: Enter "roadrage", and you will be able to send cars flying by honking your car's horn.
- Super Prototype: At least half of the (normally) playable cars, such as Ford GT90, Ford Indigo, Italdesign Cala, and Isdera Commendatore.
- The Theme Park Version: Need for Speed II has tracks taking place in exotic locales such as The Outback (depicted as a rocky desert cutting through Sydney), The Himalayas (snowy mountains and a small village), and Northern Europe (which contains the Autobahn, a Germanic village, and castles within the same driving distance. The soundtracks are also appropriately themed, with polka being heard in the Northern Europe rock track, guitar plunks in the techno track for Greece, Ominous Indian Chanting (or throat singing) on Mystic Peaks and random quotes from old movies heard in either song for Monolith Studios set in Hollywood.
- Updated Re-release: Much like its predecessor, Need for Speed II had a "Special Edition" released roughly six months to a year after the originals, including one new track ("Last Resort"), six new cars (the Ferrari 355 F1, Ford Mustang Mach III and Italdesign (BMW) Nazca C2, as well as the bonus cars Bomber, Tombstone and FZR 2000; it additionally makes the Ford Indigo available from the start), the "Wild" mode, Reversed and Mirrored tracks, and support for 3D graphics cards.
- World Tour: The biggest theme of the game, which had tracks set in eight different countries: Norway, Australia, Canada, Germany, Greece, Nepal, United States, and Mexico, though the latter only appears in the Special Edition.
