By Jean Cyprien

Electronic Arts today announced that [i]Need For Speed Underground 2[/i] has gone gold. This time around, gamers will once again be submerged in the “Fast and Furious-esque tuner culture” and dangerous underground sport of street racing as they attempt to win races and money with style.

The biggest change in [i]NFSU2[/i] is the Grand Theft Auto esque city where it is set. The free-roaming (but non-violent) metropolis consists of five interconnected neighborhoods, each with their own look and feel. As one would expect, with a custom-car game, car performance can be tweaked to suit each driver’s preference, from gear ratio to suspension.

Coupled with the several hundreds of visual options, players can expect to run into all sorts of unique cars when they play in the game’s online mode. Riding shotgun will be former Wild On hostess Brooke Burke who stars as a race organizer showing racers the ropes in the single-player campaign. Blasting from the radio will be music from Snoop Dogg, Chingy, Capone and others.

For those of you who can’t wait to get behind the wheel, Spike TV will be airing the NFSU2 World Launch Party November 11 at 11pm.

Need for Speed Underground 2 is rated “E” for Everyone and carries a MSRP of $49.99. The game is expected to ship to retail stores on November 15 for the Playstation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, PC, and Game Boy Advance.