Need For Speed: Most Wanted

[The Question]

The Ups:

--Very nice graphics -- I'm not sure whether the effects that appear to be "new" in MW, though, were or weren't in Underground 2, since Underground 2 took place entirely at night, and the new things I'm noticing are primarily dynamic-lighting related effects. Framerate overall is very good, with only a few stops and starts per minute -- not often enough to impair gameplay, but often enough to be noticed. This suggests that the game was written with an SLI and/or dual-GPU setup in mind.

--Sound is good -- the radio chatter from police units when you're being chased, for example, is very well written and performed, and the effects are rich and deep.

--Control is very nicely set up for force feedback sticks. For example, my Logitech Force3D Pro was instantly recognized and configured without me having to do a thing. In fact, I was a little surprised that it was, since the first time I tried to play the demo with a keyboard, the stick started doing the rumble-and-shake without me even having thought about enabling it for the game.

--Storyline appears to be a bit more linear for this installment of the NFS series, and that's actually a nice change from Underground 2, which could have one feeling somewhat aimless in spots.

The Downs:

--AI. It's not that the AI is stupid, it's just that it NEVER makes mistakes. Never a wrong turn, never a misstep -- UNLESS you're talking about the civilian traffic. I don't think I can count how many times I've been racing (or being chased by the cops) and had a car on an open stretch of road pull out of his own lane and into mine. The racers and cops, on the other hand, seem to be able to take 90 degree hairpins at 120+ mph flawlessly, every time. This tends to get a little old.

--EA Trax. I'm sorry, but can we get something into the game besides hip-hop? Someday? Please? Hello? EA? We're not all black...

--Physics. The physics in these are great -- most of the time. On the other hand, it gets a little tiresome when you have .0000000001 degrees of trajectory that doesn't send you into one guardrail or the other, and hitting a guardrail should either mean destroying the guardrail or disabling your car, not gluing your nose to that guardrail until your forward momentum is completely nullified. (Either that, or stopping, then reversing, which is the same difference.)

Overall, it's either the most frustrating kickass game ever, or the most badass blood-pressure elevator ever. I like it, though.

 

[Big Dick McGee]

I bought NFS: Hot Pursuit awhile back. Mostly because it was 20 bucks and I wanted a good racing game. The graphics, sounds, gameplay are all stellar.

My biggest pet peeve is similar to yours. I got through fully 95% of the game very easily. Too easily. It was nowhere near as difficult as any of the Gran Turismo games.

However, the last 5% of the game is so hard it's nigh-impossible. The AI makes no mistakes. The cops target you exclusively, even though a McClaren just blew by at 150+. And don't get me started on the stupid fucking civilian drivers. Why anyone would pull INTO your lane of traffic is beyond me. It seems designed just to fuck you up.

It seriously reminded me of the old Madden games, where no lead was safe when you played anything higher than rookie mode. You could be up 45-0 going into the second half, and suddenly your guy would constantly fumble, and every single pass, every pass would be intercepted.

I don't mind a game that gets progressively harder, it makes it more satisfying when you beat it. But to jump from "relatively easy" to "insanely difficult" is ridiculous.

Oh, and to top things off, some of the later races take like an hour to complete. You fucking race your ass off for 59 minutes only to have a fucking moron in a minivan pull into your lane and you end up in last place. Ugh.

 

[The Question]

I actually find that the game gets easier for me at higher speeds. Just for fun, I downloaded a savegame with the career mode completed, just to fuck around with all the unlocked supercars. Unless you're an absolute expert when it comes to handling oversteer, burnouts and powerslides, though, you're better off with kicking an FWD car into the highest performance settings. My fav so far in that respect: the Golf GTI. You can take a hairpin at 135 (highest speed I noted before and after the maneuver) with minimal loss of speed, IF you use the handbreak at just the right time and punch the NOS just as you get her aimed where you want her. Even doing that to absolute perfection will only buy you about 2 seconds worth of lead on the 5-0, but once you're back up to 160+, that's a pretty useful 2 seconds.

In the normal game, though, I just finished beating the shit out of the first Blacklist rival in an unmodified GTI.

 

[Dark Link]

The game is really good, I've been playing it for XBox for a few weeks now.

a few things do anger me with the game

as already said, the soundtrack sucks, I wish EA would do something like they did with GTA and allow for radio stations where you could listen to GOOD music.

The AI is almost impossible to beat the farther you get and the cops get more insane. I just beat the Number 5 blacklist rival and got his Corvette C6, which I must say is a car with serious nuts. But Driving around in it I swear every cop in the city must have a hard on for me, I cant go 2 feet without a got chasing me and seriously fucking up the car. The car doesn't even have heat on it yet.

Driving - while yes, I like the breakneck speeds and going nuts while driving, the phsyics engine sucks. Going over 200 MPH and I nail a concrete slab or guard rail should FUBAR the car, but EA like's to continue with their tradition of not doing that and I'll just scratch the paint. Also, while turning, I serious doubt any car would spin out as much as these cars do, even on the light turns. I had to stop using the Lamborgini because I would flip it on a constant basis.

 

[The Question]

I had to reinstall the whole thing after some "~e5.001.tmp" file started going nuts over the fact that I'm using a disc image with Daemon Tools instead of taking up valuable DVD-ROM real estate with a physical disc.

So I lost everything I had built up.

So I said, "Fuck it!"

So I got a savegame and a trainer. Now I have to beat Rival 5, BUT -- I have two cars which should be damn near unbeatable themselves: the RX-8 and the -- shock? -- Mustang GT. I'm actually very, VERY surprised that I've got the thing tuned to where I can whoop some serious ass in it, and it isn't even any faster than stock. Maybe it's the Force3D Pro that makes the difference, but when I played NFS: Underground 2 using just keyboard/mouse, I couldn't do shit with a rear-wheel drive. With a force feedback stick, though, countersteer feels perfectly natural -- actually MORE natural than it does in a front-wheel drive setup. So even though the Mustang is slower than the RX-8 (for now) it actually handles sweeter through the tight turns, and gets stuck on shit less -- except, of course, for when the game notices I'm doing 155 with a six-pack of cops on my ass and haven't gotten stuck on anything for more than 2 minutes, in which case it'll throw about two dozen pieces of either dead-still stopped or opposing traffic in front of me until it's dragged me back below 80 again...

 

[The Question]

Okay, so I decided to just start the career over without cheating. And I just had the BEST. PURSUIT. EV0R.

The Audi A3 3.2 Quattro rocks my cock'n'balls. :shock:

 

[Dark Link]

Damn, I'll have to get a screen of mine then. 20 minutes of nonstop fucking chase was my last one with the Vette C6. It was mostly because I had that damn cop Cross on my ass, he does NOT give up... untill he swerved in front of me and I blindsided him doing about 210.

My perfered controller for these games is actully one I bought from Walmart for $15 with a Lifetime warrenty on it. Gemini Game Elements. Just like a PS2 Controller. Best $15 I ever spent.

 

[The Question]

Oh man, I couldn't give up my Force3D Pro now. I've done 20 minute chases in the previous (R.I.P.) career I had going, using nothing but the ol' unmodded GTI.

Also, just discovered the joy of the TT. All Pro level mods with the exception of stock engine. Whereas the A3 Quattro feels fast and nimble, the TT actually feels slower and more grounded. But instead of being less maneuverable like you might expect, it actually carves the corkscrews and hairpins better than the A3. I've won 3 races with that thing that I couldn't even get close to in the A3, and I'm pretty sure that even my average speed was lower, not just top speed.