To get through the massive real estate of Bayview and to fulfill your destiny as an import tuning master, you'll need to do several things, the first of which is racing: Win races and you'll progress. But it's not just racing, it's the way you progress. The game encourages you to explore its many nuances, to become a part of the "lifestyle," and in many ways it rewards you for doing so. There are strategically placed stacks of cash waiting to be collected, a few shortcuts here and there -- though not nearly enough -- and glowing rings of color representing racing opportunities, garages, and more.

Street X and Drag races provide tough but worthwhile trial and error challenges.
But if you get bored, and you will because there isn't enough hidden stuff to keep your interest high, you can drop out of the Career Mode's Explore mode and enter World Map. The difference is that Explore mode enables you to drive freely about the city looking for races, getting lost in Out Run races here, and being distracted by shops and garages there. The World Map presents the distilled version of Explore Mode, giving you a menu, a list of races to beat, stats and Quit.

I found this version of the Career mode interesting. It's a mode of great efficiency, skipping the audio chat and the random encounters, which, to be honest, become tedious. It's this way because, unlike GTA, where there are dozens of distractions, there are almost none in NFSU2. There are no civilians, there aren't that many secrets, and the shortcuts are lacking. It makes me think that EA had a hunch people might simply just want to race -- skipping the whole exploring business altogether. I know that once I found this mode, I stopped exploring almost entirely. In that sense, the huge city of Bayview is actually a big letdown.

The manner in which you must beat NFSU2 is really interesting. It's based on winning races, earning cash, earning a reputation, and by modding the hell out of your ride. You earn money by winning races; lose money by losing races. You earn a reputation by winning races with a large margin between you and the second place opponent. The more better reputation you earn, the greater the breadth of sponsors you'll have, which means more free cars and more money. The more cash you have, the more you can drop on your vehicle, which you shouldn't get too attached to because you'll eventually have to, or may want to, trade it in. You can only fit five cars in your garage simultaneously.