Starting bonus
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press Left(2), Right, Square(2), Right, L1, R1 to start career mode with an extra $1,000 and get the Mazda RX-8 and Nissan Skyline in quick race mode. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound. Note: This code has no effect if you have already started a career.
Extra money
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press Up(3), Left, R1(3), Down. You will start career mode with an extra $200. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound. Note: This code has no effect if you have already started a career.
Level 1 Performance Parts
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press L1, R1, L1, R1, Left(2), Right, Up to unlock the Level 1 Performance Parts. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound.
Level 1 Visual Parts
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press R1(2), Up, Down, L1(2), Up, Down to unlock the Level 1 Visual Parts. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound.
Level 2 Performance Parts
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press R1(2), L1, R1, Left, Right, Up, Down to unlock the Level 2 Performance Parts. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound.
Level 2 Visual Parts
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press L1, R1, Up, Down, L1, Up(2), Down to unlock the Level 2 Visual Parts. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound.
All circuit tracks
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press Down, R1(3), R2(3), Square to unlock all circuit tracks. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound.
Hummer H2 Capone
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press Up, Left, Up(2), Down, Left, Down, Left to unlock the Hummer H2 Capone. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound.
Nissan Skyline
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press Down(2), L1, L2, L1, L2, L1, Down to unlock the Nissan Skyline. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound.
Best Buy vinyl
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press Up, Down, Up, Down(2), Up, Right, Left to unlock the Best Buy vinyl. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound. Go to "Quick Race" and press L1 or R1 until "Sponsor Cars" appears in the top right corner of the car selection screen.
Burger King vinyl
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press Up(4), Down, Up(2), Left to unlock the Burger King vinyl. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound. Go to "Quick Race" and press L1 or R1 until "Sponsor Cars" appears in the top right corner of the car selection screen.
Wining an outrun
Once you have found an opponent to outrun with, get in front of the opponent and get in the lead. Get as far as possible until the distance meter has reached its limit. If the distance meter starts to drop, it indicates that the opponent is catching up. When this happens, do a handbrake skid and turn the car around. Go back the way that you came from. The opponent will follow you as you are the one in lead, but he will take time to catch up, giving you an advantage to win the outrun.
If you are in front of an opponent but cannot seem to lose him, head toward the center of the city (the area that has the five fountains). Once there, weave through the fountains. Your opponent will most likely crash into one of the fountains, giving you an easy win. Note: Practice going through the fountains first before you attempt an outrun so you do not lose your money. It is easier to do this in an SUV because it will not reach a high speed before you reach the fountains.
Find an outrun opponent then get right behind him. Draft him or her so that you can get a full tank of NOS, if desired. Then, start to spin out your opponent. You can do this by getting directly next to the car and turning into its back corner. While it is sideways or backwards, you can hit press Up to start the outrun. You will have a large head start because your opponent needs to turn around. You can win in under 15 seconds by doing this.
This trick requires that most of the city is unlocked. Get your car and get on the highway that leads around in a oval-like way. Challenge people on the highway for a much better chance of winning, since top speeds are better and there are less turns than the normal roads (so you do not slow down as much).
Easier turns in URL races
Notice that before the sharp turns during the URL races, there are a set of numbers that countdown to 1. Follow those numbers to perfect your sharp turn into a groove to speed through faster. Keep accelerating until you reach "1", then slam on the brakes and turn. Once perfected, this can help you get through the turns with more speed. Additionally, in URL races, the CPU will try to spin you a lot. Whenever your car slides to an 30 to 60 degree angle, use your NOS and turn.
Some turns in URL races do not require brakes. Notice that the angles of some of the turns are kind of rounded. If you have the speed, you could go right into the wall and make the turn. As long as you are going about 130 mph and hit these certain corners, you will only go down to 100 mph or so. You have to experiment with the turns. Sometimes you will go too fast and flip, and other times you will fly through the turns going 100 mph while the CPU cars slow down, giving you some cushion time. Remember, you must get up against the wall for this trick to work.
In the first few laps, you will most likely be behind someone. When you are going on a turn, they will probably slow down. This is where you can turn the tables on the entire race. Do not slow down. Instead, keep going and use him as a wall to get the inside of the turn without applying the brake. As a bonus you may also get him to stop in an attempt to shake you, but this will only result in getting you a good lead. Note: You must make sure he does not ram you into the wall.
Finding hidden shops
Look at road signs around the city. They often have colored shapes (yellow triangles, etc.) to guide the way to the shops. Also, look for street-lights casting a colored glow. This indicates that there is a shop very close.
Refill NOS
To fill your NOS gauge when you have hydraulics, flip any car or SUV and hold X for about two seconds. Then, press any button to activate the hydraulics. Immediately, the word "Hydro" will appear on the right hand side of the screen with a number underneath. The number should continue to rise and not stop. To stop doing this, release X and press Select to flip the car back over, starting with a NOS gauge filled to the overflow gauge.
Easy NOS recovery
To get lots of NOS easily, when you are standing still, hold the hand brake (R1). Next, hold the gas, then hold Left or Right. You should spin around and create smoke. This should give you 300 points instantly to recover turbo boost.
When you are on the ground, activate hydros and keep flicking the Left Analog-stick Left repeatedly to get lots of points for filling your NOS bar. You can also do about three donuts, then wait and do another three donuts.
Get on the highway and drive in reverse. After a few seconds you should begin racking up points on the right side of your screen. These points will give you extra NOS. Note: Crashing into traffic at high speeds will reduce your NOS.
Easy money
In the career mode menu, go to the world map. Select any race that has not been completed in any stage. Once the race has started, pause game play and restart. After you have won the race, a screen will appear showing you how many reputation points and how much bank you have won. You will then go to the menu that asks if you want to return to explore mode, restart, etc. When this appears choose "Return To Main Menu". You do not have to save the game. Then, just go back into the career menu and select the "World Map" option again. Choose another race that has not been completed and start it. If done correctly, all of the races in the world map will be against three Toyota Corollas or a mixture of Hummers, Escalades and Navigators. If you restart these races, you will always get money if you win.
Collecting the little information logos around the city gives you money. You will receive $25 for each one. Additionally, listen to the other racers that periodically talk to you. They will say a general in the city where you can find hidden races not shown on the map that are worth $850 instead of the usual $300.
As soon as you start the game, ignore Rachel's request to go to the car lot. Instead, try to collect as many information icons as possible. This will give you that little extra money to start modding your car, and will save time as you do not have to look for them in your initially slow car. Also, enter the two races shown on your GPS (circuit and sprint races). Going in these two races will give you at least 500 points in the bank. You should receive a message to get to the car lot now. Do so, and continue playing the game.
Easy style points
Driving in reverse will give you style points. The longer you drive in reverse, the more points you will receive.
Easy wins
When racing for magazine covers, unique performance or visual parts, it helps if you have both NOS bottles filled. This can help you beat that tenth of a second that you have always missed. It also helps, especially in the more difficult and longer stages, with small time limits, to immediately activate the GPS as soon as you have accepted the challenge. Additionally, to get the best drag times, hold NOS even through shifts. Tapping it does not work. Also, to get best times you must have a perfect launch. Use the Right Analog-stick to hold it in green. Once you tear out, if you need to get your tach up, tap NOS, but once in 2 to 5, hold NOS until you cross the finish line.
Easy drag race wins
Instead of using nitrous by holding it down and wasting it all at once, just keep tapping NOS as fast as you can. You will gain 1 to 3 mph with every tap, which is actually increases your speed faster than if you were to hold it down. Also, you will run out of it about one third as fast. Try this on the hardest difficulty setting.
Get bank for races
There are five stages, and as you complete each of them you can go back and repeat the races again. You may even find that there are some races you missed. These are the ones that you want to race. When you go to these, you are not supposed to get anything for them but you can change that. To access these races, go to your garage, then your world map, and select a race. When the race begins, pause game play and restart the race. Notice that there is an option to return to world map, however after you restart it will not be there. You can now race and get bank for it.
Drift mode
In drift mode, set your car up using the following this basic structure. Tune the ECU to have as much torque as you can get in the early gears. Make all of the suspension settings as hard as possible to eliminate shock travel. This will help get the back end out. Turn the tire grip to weak. Also, make the cars acceleration as quick as possible. For the toe settings, lower it all the way. Make the aero settings as weak as possible. Set the brake bias towards rear. By doing this, you will greatly increase your score, especially on the downhill. On the straight-aways you can do Choku-Doris (go from side to side) to rack up big points. You can then link them to power over-steer drifts, which is when you will use the torque and acceleration to lose traction in the back tires, then use carefully timed throttle control to get around the corner as sideways as possible. This will help your drifts scores get as high as possible. Throttle control is very important -- do not get discouraged if you spin out a lot. Note: This has not been attempted on FF or AWD cars. FF and AWD cars will most likely have a softer suspension setting but everything else would probably remain the same. FF and AWD cars also need the hand brake to initiate drifts more than a FR car would.
Easy drift points
Some of the downhill drift races have houses with looping drive ways that you can drive in. Drifting in these driveways gets a lot more points than on the street because you are so far off the road and are not hitting a wall.
Go into Quick Race mode and select the Subaru Impreza with all extreme or level 3 performance parts. You may style the visual as desired, Then, choose Drift Track 6 and 10 laps with easy opponents. Drive through the middle of the track. When you are just before a corner, press the handbrake. Release it after you have slightly slid. Your car will soon almost spin and will drift through easily. Continue through the rest of the track by swerving on the straights and using the handbrake properly on the corners. You can get about 50,000 to 500,000 drift points at the end of the race.
Final race
The final race is against Caleb (the man that tells Nikki to win, then she loses and joins your team) on a 4.5 mile track and 5 laps. However, he only gets up to about 130 mph.
Hydraulics
After you buy level 1, 2, or 3 hydraulics, come to a complete stop and hold R1. Use the Left-Analog stick to move up, down, left, or right. The longer you move back and forth, the more points you will get. To activate your hydraulics, hold the gas, the brake, and the hand brake. While holding those down, move the Analog-stick in the direction which you want the car to move.
Jumping
Install hydraulics level 2. Kiss the wall, then use your hydraulics (move the Analog-stick Up and Down quickly). Sooner or later, the car will jump, even making flips and 360s.
Rear wheel drive wheelie
This trick requires a real wheel drive car with level 3 hydraulics. Start with your car in neutral. Double tap then hold the R1 to engage the hydraulics. Hold Left Analog-stick Up to begin bouncing the front end of the car. In mid-bounce, release R1, but keep holding the Left Analog-stick Up. The car will keep bouncing. Press the Right Analog-stick Forward to rev up the engine, then shift into first gear, while still holding Forward on both of the Analog-sticks. Your next hydraulic bounce will be delayed in the air while the car does a rolling burnout, causing your car to do a wheelie. This is great for showing off for the cover shoots of magazines.
Lift tire off ground
****wishwish****
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press Left(2), Right, Square(2), Right, L1, R1 to start career mode with an extra $1,000 and get the Mazda RX-8 and Nissan Skyline in quick race mode. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound. Note: This code has no effect if you have already started a career.
Extra money
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press Up(3), Left, R1(3), Down. You will start career mode with an extra $200. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound. Note: This code has no effect if you have already started a career.
Level 1 Performance Parts
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press L1, R1, L1, R1, Left(2), Right, Up to unlock the Level 1 Performance Parts. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound.
Level 1 Visual Parts
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press R1(2), Up, Down, L1(2), Up, Down to unlock the Level 1 Visual Parts. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound.
Level 2 Performance Parts
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press R1(2), L1, R1, Left, Right, Up, Down to unlock the Level 2 Performance Parts. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound.
Level 2 Visual Parts
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press L1, R1, Up, Down, L1, Up(2), Down to unlock the Level 2 Visual Parts. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound.
All circuit tracks
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press Down, R1(3), R2(3), Square to unlock all circuit tracks. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound.
Hummer H2 Capone
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press Up, Left, Up(2), Down, Left, Down, Left to unlock the Hummer H2 Capone. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound.
Nissan Skyline
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press Down(2), L1, L2, L1, L2, L1, Down to unlock the Nissan Skyline. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound.
Best Buy vinyl
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press Up, Down, Up, Down(2), Up, Right, Left to unlock the Best Buy vinyl. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound. Go to "Quick Race" and press L1 or R1 until "Sponsor Cars" appears in the top right corner of the car selection screen.
Burger King vinyl
When "Press Start" appears at the title screen, press Up(4), Down, Up(2), Left to unlock the Burger King vinyl. If you entered the code correctly, you will hear a sound. Go to "Quick Race" and press L1 or R1 until "Sponsor Cars" appears in the top right corner of the car selection screen.
Wining an outrun
Once you have found an opponent to outrun with, get in front of the opponent and get in the lead. Get as far as possible until the distance meter has reached its limit. If the distance meter starts to drop, it indicates that the opponent is catching up. When this happens, do a handbrake skid and turn the car around. Go back the way that you came from. The opponent will follow you as you are the one in lead, but he will take time to catch up, giving you an advantage to win the outrun.
If you are in front of an opponent but cannot seem to lose him, head toward the center of the city (the area that has the five fountains). Once there, weave through the fountains. Your opponent will most likely crash into one of the fountains, giving you an easy win. Note: Practice going through the fountains first before you attempt an outrun so you do not lose your money. It is easier to do this in an SUV because it will not reach a high speed before you reach the fountains.
Find an outrun opponent then get right behind him. Draft him or her so that you can get a full tank of NOS, if desired. Then, start to spin out your opponent. You can do this by getting directly next to the car and turning into its back corner. While it is sideways or backwards, you can hit press Up to start the outrun. You will have a large head start because your opponent needs to turn around. You can win in under 15 seconds by doing this.
This trick requires that most of the city is unlocked. Get your car and get on the highway that leads around in a oval-like way. Challenge people on the highway for a much better chance of winning, since top speeds are better and there are less turns than the normal roads (so you do not slow down as much).
Easier turns in URL races
Notice that before the sharp turns during the URL races, there are a set of numbers that countdown to 1. Follow those numbers to perfect your sharp turn into a groove to speed through faster. Keep accelerating until you reach "1", then slam on the brakes and turn. Once perfected, this can help you get through the turns with more speed. Additionally, in URL races, the CPU will try to spin you a lot. Whenever your car slides to an 30 to 60 degree angle, use your NOS and turn.
Some turns in URL races do not require brakes. Notice that the angles of some of the turns are kind of rounded. If you have the speed, you could go right into the wall and make the turn. As long as you are going about 130 mph and hit these certain corners, you will only go down to 100 mph or so. You have to experiment with the turns. Sometimes you will go too fast and flip, and other times you will fly through the turns going 100 mph while the CPU cars slow down, giving you some cushion time. Remember, you must get up against the wall for this trick to work.
In the first few laps, you will most likely be behind someone. When you are going on a turn, they will probably slow down. This is where you can turn the tables on the entire race. Do not slow down. Instead, keep going and use him as a wall to get the inside of the turn without applying the brake. As a bonus you may also get him to stop in an attempt to shake you, but this will only result in getting you a good lead. Note: You must make sure he does not ram you into the wall.
Finding hidden shops
Look at road signs around the city. They often have colored shapes (yellow triangles, etc.) to guide the way to the shops. Also, look for street-lights casting a colored glow. This indicates that there is a shop very close.
Refill NOS
To fill your NOS gauge when you have hydraulics, flip any car or SUV and hold X for about two seconds. Then, press any button to activate the hydraulics. Immediately, the word "Hydro" will appear on the right hand side of the screen with a number underneath. The number should continue to rise and not stop. To stop doing this, release X and press Select to flip the car back over, starting with a NOS gauge filled to the overflow gauge.
Easy NOS recovery
To get lots of NOS easily, when you are standing still, hold the hand brake (R1). Next, hold the gas, then hold Left or Right. You should spin around and create smoke. This should give you 300 points instantly to recover turbo boost.
When you are on the ground, activate hydros and keep flicking the Left Analog-stick Left repeatedly to get lots of points for filling your NOS bar. You can also do about three donuts, then wait and do another three donuts.
Get on the highway and drive in reverse. After a few seconds you should begin racking up points on the right side of your screen. These points will give you extra NOS. Note: Crashing into traffic at high speeds will reduce your NOS.
Easy money
In the career mode menu, go to the world map. Select any race that has not been completed in any stage. Once the race has started, pause game play and restart. After you have won the race, a screen will appear showing you how many reputation points and how much bank you have won. You will then go to the menu that asks if you want to return to explore mode, restart, etc. When this appears choose "Return To Main Menu". You do not have to save the game. Then, just go back into the career menu and select the "World Map" option again. Choose another race that has not been completed and start it. If done correctly, all of the races in the world map will be against three Toyota Corollas or a mixture of Hummers, Escalades and Navigators. If you restart these races, you will always get money if you win.
Collecting the little information logos around the city gives you money. You will receive $25 for each one. Additionally, listen to the other racers that periodically talk to you. They will say a general in the city where you can find hidden races not shown on the map that are worth $850 instead of the usual $300.
As soon as you start the game, ignore Rachel's request to go to the car lot. Instead, try to collect as many information icons as possible. This will give you that little extra money to start modding your car, and will save time as you do not have to look for them in your initially slow car. Also, enter the two races shown on your GPS (circuit and sprint races). Going in these two races will give you at least 500 points in the bank. You should receive a message to get to the car lot now. Do so, and continue playing the game.
Easy style points
Driving in reverse will give you style points. The longer you drive in reverse, the more points you will receive.
Easy wins
When racing for magazine covers, unique performance or visual parts, it helps if you have both NOS bottles filled. This can help you beat that tenth of a second that you have always missed. It also helps, especially in the more difficult and longer stages, with small time limits, to immediately activate the GPS as soon as you have accepted the challenge. Additionally, to get the best drag times, hold NOS even through shifts. Tapping it does not work. Also, to get best times you must have a perfect launch. Use the Right Analog-stick to hold it in green. Once you tear out, if you need to get your tach up, tap NOS, but once in 2 to 5, hold NOS until you cross the finish line.
Easy drag race wins
Instead of using nitrous by holding it down and wasting it all at once, just keep tapping NOS as fast as you can. You will gain 1 to 3 mph with every tap, which is actually increases your speed faster than if you were to hold it down. Also, you will run out of it about one third as fast. Try this on the hardest difficulty setting.
Get bank for races
There are five stages, and as you complete each of them you can go back and repeat the races again. You may even find that there are some races you missed. These are the ones that you want to race. When you go to these, you are not supposed to get anything for them but you can change that. To access these races, go to your garage, then your world map, and select a race. When the race begins, pause game play and restart the race. Notice that there is an option to return to world map, however after you restart it will not be there. You can now race and get bank for it.
Drift mode
In drift mode, set your car up using the following this basic structure. Tune the ECU to have as much torque as you can get in the early gears. Make all of the suspension settings as hard as possible to eliminate shock travel. This will help get the back end out. Turn the tire grip to weak. Also, make the cars acceleration as quick as possible. For the toe settings, lower it all the way. Make the aero settings as weak as possible. Set the brake bias towards rear. By doing this, you will greatly increase your score, especially on the downhill. On the straight-aways you can do Choku-Doris (go from side to side) to rack up big points. You can then link them to power over-steer drifts, which is when you will use the torque and acceleration to lose traction in the back tires, then use carefully timed throttle control to get around the corner as sideways as possible. This will help your drifts scores get as high as possible. Throttle control is very important -- do not get discouraged if you spin out a lot. Note: This has not been attempted on FF or AWD cars. FF and AWD cars will most likely have a softer suspension setting but everything else would probably remain the same. FF and AWD cars also need the hand brake to initiate drifts more than a FR car would.
Easy drift points
Some of the downhill drift races have houses with looping drive ways that you can drive in. Drifting in these driveways gets a lot more points than on the street because you are so far off the road and are not hitting a wall.
Go into Quick Race mode and select the Subaru Impreza with all extreme or level 3 performance parts. You may style the visual as desired, Then, choose Drift Track 6 and 10 laps with easy opponents. Drive through the middle of the track. When you are just before a corner, press the handbrake. Release it after you have slightly slid. Your car will soon almost spin and will drift through easily. Continue through the rest of the track by swerving on the straights and using the handbrake properly on the corners. You can get about 50,000 to 500,000 drift points at the end of the race.
Final race
The final race is against Caleb (the man that tells Nikki to win, then she loses and joins your team) on a 4.5 mile track and 5 laps. However, he only gets up to about 130 mph.
Hydraulics
After you buy level 1, 2, or 3 hydraulics, come to a complete stop and hold R1. Use the Left-Analog stick to move up, down, left, or right. The longer you move back and forth, the more points you will get. To activate your hydraulics, hold the gas, the brake, and the hand brake. While holding those down, move the Analog-stick in the direction which you want the car to move.
Jumping
Install hydraulics level 2. Kiss the wall, then use your hydraulics (move the Analog-stick Up and Down quickly). Sooner or later, the car will jump, even making flips and 360s.
Rear wheel drive wheelie
This trick requires a real wheel drive car with level 3 hydraulics. Start with your car in neutral. Double tap then hold the R1 to engage the hydraulics. Hold Left Analog-stick Up to begin bouncing the front end of the car. In mid-bounce, release R1, but keep holding the Left Analog-stick Up. The car will keep bouncing. Press the Right Analog-stick Forward to rev up the engine, then shift into first gear, while still holding Forward on both of the Analog-sticks. Your next hydraulic bounce will be delayed in the air while the car does a rolling burnout, causing your car to do a wheelie. This is great for showing off for the cover shoots of magazines.
Lift tire off ground
****wishwish****