SmurfWorks's Blogs

Need For Speed

Published: Fri 21 Nov, 2008 | 22 Comments
Tags: Need For Speed

So I was trying to remember all of the Need for Speed Titles and see the consistencies between stories and gameplay features. The more and more titles I remembered, the more and more I realized the features I loved had been removed. Here's a basic break down of the series, to try and help those all lost in the fifteen title series.

 

 

The Need For Speed (1994)

The game that started it all. Back before Distinctive studios became EA Canada, the company had designed a game to put the user into the current racing scene of 70 ‘s & 80's classics. Today, in the age of iPods and Touchscreen computers, it's still amazing, the attention put into the details of this game. Working along side Road and Track magazine, they took each car, and gave it characteristics of it's own, dependant on the weight, engine and structure of the car, something only found in the best of titles today. Despite Need For Speed: Most Wanted's introduction to police, from the very beginning, police have been pursuing us. The Need For Speed was a truly massive title for it's time, as today, it has had at least 10 successors, all of which lack certain elements of this one, such as both closed circuit and street racing.

 

Need For Speed 2 (1997)

This game gathered much attention from the gaming world as it contained some of the first real examples of interactive music, some of the code structures are used even in the latest in the series. Things such as driving slowly and crashing determine exactly what you are listening to. Apart from more tracks, rarer cars and the all new tuning feature, this game was nothing new to it's predecessor and even lacked certain features, such as the police pursuits and point to point races.

 

Need For Speed 3: Hot Pursuit (1998)

Between the second and third NFS titles, a game you may have heard of named V-Rally had come on to the scene. EA Canada had managed to purchase this game and used the previously built hype of NFS3 to boost North American sales, by adding Need For Speed: V-Rally to the franchise. Generally, the NFS community do not refer to this game as a NFS title.

 

V-Rally sold really well by people thinking it was actually the sequel to NFS2, but when NFS3 came out; people were asking themselves what had happened. NFS3, still selling really well and breaking, what were at the time, records, it seemed that bringing back the pursuits was possibly the smartest thing EA has ever done. The street races were still no where in site. V-Rally 2 also followed this game, but the NFS community was not fooled twice.

 

 

High Stakes / Porsche Challenge (1999, 2000)

Taking the realism to a new level in some ways with the damage, the games slowly started to become more and more arcade based. And the career mode even felt that way. Porsche Challenge was a whole new element, where you started racing in cars from the 50 ‘s all the way to modern racing. This game had removed the damage feature however.

 

Need For Speed 3: Hot Pursuit 2 (2002)

This game was considered to be the last of the franchise that really played out on the Need For Speed feel. It was just an extreme upgrade of the original Hot Pursuit, and was nothing we hadn't seen before. The arcade feel had also set in, as we had just lost the in seat view, including the steering wheel view. Sadface.

 

Need For Speed: Underground / Underground 2 + Rivals (2003, 2004)

Street racing was the primary focus of these games. Whilst the police were gone again, and the closed circuit racing was too, these games were definitely a huge milestone in the series today. Underground introduced the first stages of car visual customization, and Underground 2 took it too far and made the engine based around the visuals of your car. What is the point of choosing how big the left speaker in the boot of your Fiat? Underground 2 did introduce the first free roam ability into the series. The underground games were set at night time, to get the feel I guess. Rivals was a PSP spin off based on multiplayer. The game featured minimal single player, but when the multiplayer took off, it was a hit, using the PSP wireless capabilities to the max, you could slowly build your ride and race random people within 100 feet of you for cash. Just like real life, only cheaper and lazier!

 

 

Most Wanted / Carbon (2005, 2006)

 

These two game definitely worked well off of each other, one set at day time, the other at night; One with both contemporary Rock and Techno Music, the other with low quality, unrecognizable jRock. However these games were both the most memorable for myself, as Most wanted hypnotized me with incredible feels of going 360kph to get away from police Corvettes (<3) and a helicopter that liked to sit on top of me. The police in Most Wanted were definitely the best I've encountered so far. Carbon brought back some of the classic cars almost finding that perfect mix, but lacking the visuals of Most Wanted.

Prostreet / Undercover (2007, 2008)
In the most recent of the series, Prostreet I feel was a test of the next gen, as the PS2 release was just crap. It took the beauty of the tuners and put them in to a very pretty, closed circuit game.

 

I'm only hoping that with Undercover they can take all of the features and make them into one game. It's about time, rather than adding and dropping the same old consistently, they finally make a Need For Speed game that lives up to the potential it should have developed by now. I understand just how hard it is to make a game that suits everyone, but the features that would clash have been put together already in the previous releases. Only thing stopping them from releasing a Need For Speed title that would be living up to the inginuity of the first, is their own creative boundaries.

Read all of SmurfWorks's blogs »» Return to Top