Need For Speed general thread.

Because we didn't have a thread for Need For Speed as a whole.

I'll start off: I loved the original Hot Pursuit, liked Porsche Unleashed, didn't really get into Underground, liked the new Hot Pursuit and I'm not looking forward to The Run.

Also, I want to ask a question: I wanted to put Character Tiers, a YMMV trope, back on the Main page with an [Invoked] tag, since the games technically use a pseudo-tiers system. Would that be okay?

Anyways, have at it, those of you who remember this series!

Makes sense.

My experience withg the series is limited to have played a ridiculously crappy burned copy of III when I was 10-yrs old. I remember it being kind of fun and that's it. I've also been meaning to check out the original if (when) I get a 3DO.

edited 17th Aug '11 4:54:37 AM by Glowsquid

Is it just me or is Shift 2 Unleashed really goddamn difficult?

Difficulty is pretty hard in general since Most Wanted, since the implementation of Rubber-Band A.I. . For me, my experience with the series was High Stakes (what a gem...) , both Underground games, Most Wanted and Carbon. The last NFS game I've ever got was Prostreet and it was total turd

^^Well, it is a simulator, so if you mostly grew up on classic NFS games, you're in for a shock.

Also, the newer Hot Pursuit isn't that bad about the Rubber-Band A.I., but it's definitely there.

edited 17th Aug '11 4:41:15 PM by RocketDude

And I often fantasize about a NFS game that's about 40+ GB large, called Need For Speed : Dark , but I don't have the mood to type out all the fluff to describe it. Basically, it takes everything since Underground and mashes it all in, taking place in what would be best described as 'The Last Racing Ground on Earth : Nocturna' . Averts tropes like Cliché Storm and Every Car Is Rear Wheel Drive , and plays Darker and Edgier straight along with a solid tone of Green Aesop

In other words, yes, it's what EA can't do, packed up inside my brain

My favorite NFS game is Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2. Why? Because Helicopters dropping bombs on cars and watching those cars spin out and flip over is AWESOMMMMMMME

^Hot Pursuit 2 actually seems to be pretty good.

Am I the only one who noticed all these years that NFS3 and NFS High Stakes were the only two games in the series where the factory colors of cars not manufactured in English-speaking countries aren't in English?

Yeah, pretty pointless trivia, but I used to play those games to death back in the late-1990s. I hadn't been into the series since ProStreet (or Shift for that matter; licensed races just isn't my thing). I just might try out Hot Pursuit 2 eventually though.

edited 18th Aug '11 7:46:27 PM by MalagasyParrot

^I remember the name of the Lamborghini Diablo SV's yellow color: Giallo.

The new Hot Pursuit actually uses real color names (such as "Detonator Yellow" for the Dodge Challenger SRT-8 and "Aranciata Grigio" or whatever it was called for that one Lamborghini).

As far as I know, the first NFS 3 has color names from foreign languages for some cars, mostly Lambroginis. and Ferraris.

Ah yes, Rosso Corsa looked good on the 355 F1 Spider. I preferred the silver color for the 550 Maranello, though.

Also, the Corvette looked good in Torch Red.

Also also, I miss how there were concept cars and joke cars. If it weren't for Need For Speed 3, I would have never heard of Italdesign for most of my life.

edited 18th Aug '11 8:23:31 PM by RocketDude

I thought the concept cars from NFS2 were a lot more memorable. The GT90's styling was years ahead of its time, and I didn't know until much later that the Cala was essentially a proto-Gallardo.

I feel old just talking about these early games.

edited 18th Aug '11 9:30:56 PM by MalagasyParrot

^I like how the Indigo and Nazca C2 looked myself.

Also, don't worry, these games are at least nearly a decade old.

I spent a good hour playing NFS2SE on XP after messing around with different things to get it working. One really has to wonder how we went from "awesome arcade-y driving action" to "free-roaming tuner culture sim" to "racing sim".

Speaking of which! For those who want to run NFS2 on XP, you'll need this ZIP archive I whipped up. It contains the (an?) official patch that fixes and adds a few things, as well as an SDB that will tell Windows to play nice with the game once installed. Instructions are included in the archive.

edited 21st Aug '11 1:24:54 AM by RocketScience

EA is kinda to blame for the ever-shifting focus of the series. Underground came about because EA was going through a phase of stupid around 2003 and decided that taking The Fast And The Furious and trying to make a game out of it would make big sales, along with the fact that Hot Pursuit 2 didn't do as well. Which might have turned out to be true, but it still kinda smells of money-grubbing.

Then Most Wanted came around, and that was apparently rather good, so they apparently tried to replicate that with Carbon and...that didn't really work out. Then they tried shifting direction with ProStreet and that didn't work out either. Then Undercover came and that apparently led to EA handing off the next title Slightly Mad Studios and then giving the one after that to Criterion and then the one after that to Slightly Mad Studios again and the upcoming one is being handed back to Black Box.

Basically, blame executives.

Whoops, killed the thread.

Anyways, there's a new trailer out for The Run, and, suffice to say, it's a bit silly:

First impression after watching: this is going to be Carbon with avalanches.

I've been wrong before, though.

You might be wrong, since it's probably going to be Carbon with Quick Time Events.

edited 24th Aug '11 5:06:38 PM by RocketDude

Bullshit. There's no relation to car appearance pimping and performance adjustment. It's everything Most Wanted / Carbon was NOT. And this is in spite that Most Wanted / Carbon was everything Underground twilogy was not. Sequelitis taken to new depths

>"ACTUAL GAME FOOTAGE"
>Clearly pre-rendered car chase

No thank you.

Also, what Need for Speed titles are available on Steam for Americans? All I'm seeing from this end is Shift, Shift 2, Hot Pursuit 2 and Undercover. It can't be all that EA are offering.

Origin doesn't sell anything past those either (except ProStreet). Odd.

edited 25th Aug '11 9:26:08 AM by Litis

But let's face it. Any sane person would've at lease expected Underground's slight Technology Porn to make a return by 2009 let alone now. Or, allowing street races and clean / bad identities to blur even further, instead of tossing crap after crap

^^Apprently, on Steam, you can only get games from Undercover onwards.

Also, the driving itself must be nothing worth writing home about if all they have is a cutscene.

edited 25th Aug '11 5:09:32 PM by RocketDude

Bump, but there's a Franchise Sale on Steam right now.

Among other things, The Run will apparently have the Chevy Camaro ZL-1 and the Porsche 911 Carrera S.

edited 10th Sep '11 5:05:40 PM by RocketDude

Meh. I'll rather play Forza. With no Porsches.

Thanks for that, EA.