The Need for Speed
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/The Need for Speed
Someone tracked down and bought a copy of this game for me (which I had owned and traded-in 3 times before). I'm talking about the very original Road & Track Presents The Need for Speed ... originally on the 3DO console. I had it on 3DO and then Playstation after that ... it was also eventually made for the PC but wasn't as good.
I spent some time with this game tonight and in 10 years (more than that since the 3DO version) games really haven't come all that far. The graphics are long in the tooth but for the most part they still look pretty decent ... then the physics are honestly still the best I've seen in a racing game I swear. You can drop the clutch and the car gets all floaty as the rear tires spool up ... I even checked the 0-60 times in the game and they were spot on. The crashes are also still the best and most realistic. Burnout is pretty great in that regard ... but it's very arcadey.
Back in the day I never gave this original Need for Speed enough credit. Looking back now ... it was awesome and I just couldn't appreciate it as well 10 years ago. I just wish now I could find a nice looking complete box ... as I only have the CD :(
Anyway, the biggest point ... I've said it numerous times but since games went 3D ... not much has really changed. Any game you could make now ... pretty much could have been made back then. I suppose we might never see such a leap again as when gaming went 3D from being predominantly 2D. I felt a bit of a leap like this when games became more networked on the PC and then with Xbox Live ... but well ... it still wasn't quite the same as the jump to 3D.
Anyway, yeah I'm happy I finally got another copy of this classic ;) Now if only I could have just one of the cars showcased in it!
The entire NFS series is excelent although I think the last two/three should have been stamped with "the fast and the furious"- NFS Most wanted? the game's basically the film.
Porsche Unleashed, now that was/is awesome :)
I never cared for the NFS games myself. They never felt very convincing for me and I grew tired of them quite quickly.
Oddly, the racing games that stick in my mind the most are old Amiga ones by Jeff Crammond, the very first test drive game, and the first two lotus turbo challenge games.
The NFS series as a whole ... well I don't like every title. I specifically like the first one for being essentially an interactive magazine test drive of these early to mid-90's cars with cool music videos to go with each car. Of course I like the way the cars handle and crash.
Then I liked Need for Speed III Hot Pursuit for the Playstation. I also have it for the PC ... but the original Playstation 1 version ruled. Of course I like that game for an entirely different reason than the first game. I liked it because of it's amazing powerslidey physics. No game to this day pulls off the amazing god like feel that game gave me. It was unrealistic (although I've pulled off some similar slides in my old Trans Am) but very satisfying ;)
The rest of the series ... whatever ... I guess High Stakes was so so ... gave me a bit of a Ronin sort of feel when you could play cop chase with two players both driving BMW's (one being a cop car). The last few games I haven't payed too much attention to.
The original though ... yeah love it ;) It might have more to do with the fact that my friends and I all got our licenses around that time and we all raced cars in real life ... as we did in the game. One night I had two tv's going and a room full of guys all playing Need for Speed. It started getting late though and everyone needed to leave. 15 minutes later my friend and I were both given tickets for 104 MPH!!!
Heh, reminds me of back home in england when we first started driving. Used to drive down to the nearest rival town in a mini clubman looking for trouble, usualy hard lads to race and hopefully not get caught and have to fight.
One time it was really crazy, driving through narrow streets about 11.30pm when the pubs and nightclub had just closed, wrong way around mini roundabouts avoiding pedestrians doing about 60mph in narrow streets some cobbled. On this occasion, being chased by 3 guys in a v6 capri armed with baseball bats. 2.3 liter capri v's 1.275L clubman, at least we had modded cams, twin webber carbs, stage 3 head, racing manifold and modified suspension. Still, the Capri caught us easily on the straight and actually threatened to ram us when they pulled alongside.
Slammed on the brakes and chucked the car into a built up housing estate. Barely enough room for 2 cars to scrape by. Hand brake turns aroudn corners doing 50 - 60 mph the capri had its back out and was sqealing like crazy barely missing the cars on the side of the road. Once we got into the housing estate, we got away thanks to superior handling. When they were out of site we took a wrong turn into a dead end culdiesack and they weren't far behind.
Ended up turning out the lights and flying into someones open garage. Waited about 10 minutes watching in the rear view mirror. Did see the guys in the capri go past the turning for our road.
Don't know if the owners of the house knew we were in their garage, the Mini was pretty loud with all those mods. But anyway that was one of several amazing real life car chase moments I had as a 17-19 year old in and around Surrey, West Sussex and Hampshire :D
Can't wait to get an old mini again here in CA :), quite a novelty here and cost almost $10k for on in decent condition.
You know, it's funny. No one plays baseball in England, but there were still quite a few bats around, mostly used for fighting.
15 minutes later my friend and I were both given tickets for 104 MPH!!!
Hahaha :P That is all.
[edit]
Evak, Is this one of those times you turn around and say:
"No, wait, that was in GTA3."
Excelent story there, Hard to believe that sort of thing happens in surrey.
What time is it over there...???? :P
Cool pic, Me and a Mini just don't go!
Read above, you posted while i was editing :)
Hehe, that's a nice shot! It's really a pretty mean looking car from some angles.
Oh, and that story never gets old!
It's 5:40 AM where I am ... and must be 2:40 AM where Ad is. Yes, I'm a night owl and haven't been to bed yet. I just got done lifting ... after working on some coding.
heh, lol. Nah I had some pretty exciting times as a kid. Kind of envy my old reckless stupidity, but looking back I wouldn't change a thing. Might have been a different story if someone had gotten hurt though.
Its 2.41am and the other half is still reading.
There's something in the blood of coders/artists at the moment isn't there? i'm having to force myself to go to bed otherwise I stay up till 3/4am!
Game developers are naturally nocturnal. The still of the night causes a storm in the mind.
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), I have to switch on and off since I normally (although sometimes I do) can't do flooring work at night.
>Porsche Unleashed, now that was/is awesome :)
Yeah!
>Oddly, the racing games that stick in my mind the most are
>old Amiga ones by Jeff Crammond, the very first test drive
>game, and the first two lotus turbo challenge games.
Lotus turbo challenge, Super Cars, Grand Prix were really hot in the day, just as F/A 18 Interceptor had no equal.
Andy
Jeremy : I too have my original copy of NFS (on CD when I had my 486) but I can't install it under Win2000 or WinXP - how did you get it to install?
I can run the install program but nothing happens.
I've tried DOSBox also, but that doesn't work either.
I found the original demo - on one of the race tracks, so no traffic :( - and that will install and work just fine, so the game itself will work, just being messed around by the install program.
I wanted to try the network mode with the rocket car again....ah, such memories!
I got the PS version.
Oh, I thought you had the PC version working :( Never mind, I'm sure it would not be as good as I remember, rose tints and all that.