As the title suggest, this is a thread for a very long-running racing game series known as Need For Speed. You may discuss, share news or thoughts, or just sit back and enjoy the ride while you’re not playing as our beloved bald assassin.
Anyway, I was planning to start this discussion whenever EA will reveal the next NFS title. But there are some news I’d like to share. So you may expect this thread to be revived after this year’s E3. Stay tuned on that one!
First up is Hot Pursuit Remastered will finally receive a major add-on that the original doesn’t feature: Wrap Editor, while the next-gen consoles get their performance boosted to 4k/60fps.
I suppose that owners of the next-gen consoles will be happy to hear this. Livery editor is good, especially that it will be implemented just like how Heat did. It’s a little shame that the sharing function is not included though. Because I’d love to put cute anime girls on the hood of my car, yet I lack the illustrating skill to make them.
The second news is a little older and not so NFS-related, but EA just bought Codemasters last week.
Originally Take-Two was involved with this too, guess we won’t get a GTA/Grid hybrid game. Well anyway, Codemasters is a well known racing game developer and publisher. They own IPs like Dirt, F1, Grid, etc. We will see if this has some impacts on NFS.
But what’s funny to me is that Slightly Mad Studios (the creator of NFS: Shift & Project Cars) previously quit EA and later joined Codemasters to freely develop PCARs series. It looks like a giant loop for them to be under EA’s umbrella again.
I really hope that this doesnt affect Codemaster’s other franchises, especially the F1 games. Considering that they’re sports games with yearly releases that also had a team creator mode introduced, it wouldn’t surprise me if EA added some sort of pay to win element to that.
Reminds me of Bethesda and Obsidian with Microsoft.
Well to be fair, Take-Two (or 2K games, in this case) isn’t very likeable with what they’ve done to their yearly sports games, either. I suppose any favorite series will fall into similar fate whenever a takeover happens. We can only wish.
That will depend on what kind of experience you’re looking for. There’s plenty to choose from, and many of them differ a lot from each other, that’s why.
If you’re looking for intense police chase, Most Wanted 2005 is always on top of the list. Although it may be hard to obtain a copy these days. Hot Pursuit Remastered can be fun too if you like to play cops and rubbers with online friends as well.
If you like extensive car customizations, Underground 2 is always viewed as the ultimate ricer simulator. I am joking, it really has excellent and deep customizations. Recent titles like Heat can satisfy you quite well too with its sound tuning and livery editor.
If you want a well crafted career path, something like starting with a slow car and going towards becoming a racing legend, I’d recommend Prostreet for its progressions. Or Shift or Shift 2: Unleashed if you prefer more professional sports. These are more towards the legal racing aspect of NFS, instead of its staple illegal street racing aspect.
In any case, I do hope you will enjoy what this series has offered over a quarter of a century.
I know this may sound like a weird question, but what’s the best PS4 NFS game for just driving around? Of course, I’d like some fun races and the like, but I also want a game where I can just drive around with no specific destination. Good customization is optional, but much appreciated.
Damn. That blog post doesn’t mention the Switch at all. I gotta check to see if they’ve rolled out the update to it. Would be an awesome addition to make the cars look more lively. (And see how creative the community gets. I didn’t play much of NFS2015, but I played around with the community wraps a lot… let’s just say some creations are a lot steamier than you’d expect to be allowed.)
Codemasters churns out a pretty good racing simulator for F1. The story mode is pretty lacklustre though. I wonder if this means we will get a couple road cars for the publicity races in the F1 game and a couple F1 cars that can be unlocked in NFS?
The games are totally different games (one is more simulator and the other is more arcade) but it would be awesome to see an F1 car in NFS even if it handled like a Mario Kart
Well, you get 5 choices currently if you decide to play on PS4. There are Rivals, NFS 2015, Payback, Heat, and Hot Pursuit Remastered. Good news is all of them have free-roam mode you ask for. Although I WON’T recommend Rivals and 2015 for the following reasons:
Rivals is a ‘busy’ game, at least that’s from how I view it. The game automatically connects you to a multiplayer session. You will have to leave the session later in order to start your personal session. That’s not very peaceful. Plus, if you play as a racer, you will always be chased as soon as an AI cop sees you, even if you’re not moving at all. So in the end, you probably won’t have too much time to appreciate the game’s sceneries.
2015 is an online-only game, which means it suffers from what Rivals did too, except it won’t even allow you to play offline. The game’s physic and handling can be somehow whacky, your car can become very unstable when getting into high speed. The game also only sets in an always nighttime urban environment, so don’t expect to see sunrise and go for a Sunday drive.
The remaining 3 games, Payback, Heat, and HP Remastered should suit your need well when it comes to freely explore the world. Although HP Remastered doesn’t quite tick the optional customization requirement you list. It only allows you to change color and edit wrap. The other two should provide you sufficient amount of custom options.
Well that’s all, thank you for reading this. I hope you find this post informative.
Ah well, I did manage to download a wrap for my R34 Skyline in Heat. I wouldn’t bother to drive it in a multiplayer session since I no doubt would be reported.
Well I’d like to see it as a variety. People should be able to share their creations freely as long as they don’t cross the line. You can find racecar replicas, movie car replicas, police car replicas, itashas (you know, those with anime characters) in pretty much every racing title that allowing wrap sharing. It really shows that racing game players have many different preferences and their own sub-communities, I think.
Agreed 100%. It’s just a little annoying, in the case of Horizon, where a lot of the populary/ easy to find liverys are anime, which I have little interest in. Although I’ve been seeing a lot less of them ever since I’ve started playing more closed circuit/sim games.
I haven’t spent much time in it, but I quite liked the livery editor in Heat. It’s nice being able to design stuff on your phone if you’re away from your console/pc. I might try making some stuff on it incase I ever reinstall Heat.
That’s a pretty good deal! Heat has a wide variety of cars to choose and plenty of customization options for most of them. Performance upgrades are unlocked via progression, and it has a pretty unique progression system where you must earn money at day and reputation at night. It’s the best from Ghost Games, so I think you won’t be disappointed.
Don’t forget to put or create some waifu wraps on your JDM cars! At least that’s what I like to do.
On other news, it was the end of August, marking the 27th birthday of Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed, released originally on 3DO! It really is a long-living franchise for racing video game, isn’t it?
And another not so great news, which marks the end of an era. Several older NFS titles’ online function are no longer supported since Aug 31st. They were also delisted from online digital stores like Origin in May. But anyway, you won’t get to play the following games’ multiplayer mode from now on:
Carbon
Prostreet
Undercover
Shift & Shift 2: Unleashed
The Run
These were games developed by Black Box and Slightly Mad Studios. Even though all of them weren’t really multiplayer oriented games, I am sure many are still disappointed. Well rip.
I’m super sad that the shift games in particular delisted these because I really wanted to try them out. They look like a more sim-cadey version of Project Cars, which I quite liked. At least Most Wanted 2012 is still there, so I can keep playing that via Gamepass.
That’s the beauty of NFS series, I believe! It has so many entries across different sub-genres of racing game. You know, come to think of it, it’s like a beautiful accident. If it wasn’t EA forcing Black Box to release the half-baked Undercover, we wouldn’t have the period of SMS and Criterion helping to develop non-Black Box NFS games.
I have to admit, though, I am as much unfamiliar with both Shift games as classic NFS games prior to Underground. Bought Shift when it was discounted on Origin (but never once played it), and giving up Unleashed when stuck with the first 240SX drift event. I guess that was the point when I decided to stick with games focusing on street racing and police chase.
I do like MW 2012, it has a great variety of cars (with unusual presents of SUVs and track toys), great visuals, on-spot car sounds, and crazy police chases, etc. It even has performance upgrades that can be equipped during race and pursuit! Though I get the idea of it resembling Burnout: Paradise too much, and its little sense of progression in singleplayer, I still enjoy the game very much!
Well anyway, Codemasters is a well known racing game developer and publisher. They own IPs like Dirt, F1, Grid, etc. We will see if this has some impacts on NFS.
It really is a long-living franchise for racing video game, isn’t it?
