I really love the level design of Need For Speed II. It’s at the same time intentionally unrealistic, but still feels “realistic” at the same same - as opposed to the cartoony feeling of the likes of Mario Kart.
So, what more modern games reach that atmosphere? Burnout Paradise to some extent, but even that loses by far to the track scenery design of NFS II. I’ve seen all tracks on NFS II SE so many times that something more would be good to find!
I haven’t played NFS - ai have one of the new ones though.
However, I find myself playing PS2 Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3 as a true street racing sim in Tokyo.” if that interests you.
The new ones are extremely different in level design. They are just cities where you drive around.
What I like is when a racing game is built in a way that the scenery around is placed so that it conveys a specific atmosphere, even if the resulting composition doesn’t really make much sense. You cannot do that if you also want to give a sandbox atmosphere of “drive freely wherever you will”. As the races force you to drive along specific ways all the same, I feel that the player loses more than gains in that kind of “freedom”. A “roam freely in the city” kind of game has more realism, but less fun.