Need for Speed (2015)
Discussion
smithyithy said:
They'll probably add more with DLC. I'm quite happy with that initial lineup though.
This can be confirmed, it was stated that they plan on releasing some free DLC in a Q&A, no plans for paid stuff either. Interesting read if you haven't seen it already: http://www.needforspeed.com/en_GB/news/nfs-faqJust to add, can't wait! Bit of a let down the PC version will be delayed but what can you do eh
So, since there's interest in this and I was lucky enough to play the Beta, I'll try and give as full a review as I can - it's long so I'll leave it under the spoiler tag so it doesn't take up the entirety of the page, but hopefully this'll answer some of the questions.
So lets' get the horrible out the way. EA won't let you play unless you've got a connection to the internet, you couldn't take pictures in the game using the PS4's screenshot device, which was a shame because there were some hilarious typos in the loading screen, you can't change the controls at all which meant I was using Nitrous when I wanted to handbrake. Not as bad for me is the fact the game is entirely in Automatic transmission - it kind of works for me, NFS isn't the sort of game I want to play in AT but I know that'll bother some of you.
Right, onto the main thing. You're introduced in the loosely termed 'story' mode to four Fast and Furious wannabes that I'm going to call Blue, Yellow, Green and Purple to make things much, much easier mostly because I can't remember all their names. They give you your first car, which is a choice between a 2000 Honda Civic, an old Ford Mustang Foxbody and a Subaru BR-Z with the Rocket Bunny bodykit on already and get you to do a bunch of races to warm up. During this time, I found that the controls are a little sticky, almost like switches - you're turning on full lock or not at all. Your throttle is on or off. Brakes are on or off. That's just how I felt, I had the BR-Z and I was growing to despise it.
After two races or so you get an invite to Purple's garage where she introduces the first part of the five-way story arc, being a fan of Akira Nakai and building cars rather than actually racing them. This is where the customisation opens up and holy s
t, this blows anything NFS has done before out of the water.
Some parts are unlocked through levelling up, mostly body kits and fenders, and some of the higher end bumpers and spoilers. But straight off the bat you have some parts to play with, and while there's not the Autosculpt from Carbon, all the parts are from genuine manufacturers and have their own tailgates on the parts like you're actually reading an eBay advert for them. Some cars have more parts than others obviously, but there's something you can do to all of them. The suspension tweaking can make it look as 'Stanced' as you like, with camber, rake, ride height and track width to suit your tastes, though it will have a slight effect on handling. The vinyls and paint jobs though are the stars. The fact you can colour in the windows, and put stickers on feels really genuinely like the sort of thing you'd find these people doing to their cars rather than just have a single sponsor over the front window.
The negative points here are nitpicks to be honest. I'd like to be able to have a 'match body colour' for the vinyls so that you can colour it in the same as your body panels without having to match it up exactly using the sliders. Some of the logos are so huge that putting them down to any sort of 'normal' size ruins the look of them. And while this is really nitpicky, they seriously have no custom fenders for a Silvia S15? You know, one of the most popular cars for modding in the world?
On the positive side, again, you could spend hours just tuning your car to be just right. When it comes to the oily bits of your car, you have plenty of options too, and they're not cripplingly expensive, almost a sensible amount to drop in an air filter or the like. Some parts are only unlocked through levelling up though, and some parts don't make sense at all. (Camshafts for an RX-7? Errr....) You also get simple sliders to determine how your brake bias is, your brake strength, spoiler angle and diff lock. I'm a big fan of slidy cars in my games so I locked the diff, threw the brake bias to the front, pumped the front tyres out to bursting and went out to do some drifting.
You get a few more 'story' missions mostly from Purple and Green until Yellow and Blue start giving you missions. These are essentially some of the many races around the city where the story mode characters are part of it too. Green is not a fan of drifting, he likes straight up street racing and he's the one who won't shut up about Magnus Walker. Yellow is a drifter and a fan of Ken Block, and Blue likes 'team' racing and idolises the Risky Devil performance squad.
The way you rank up in all of these is fairly familiar since it's been there since Shift 1 I think. Perfect sectors, laps, clean overtakes and the like get you points in Green (Racing), jumps, drifts and doughnuts get you points in Yellow (Style), speed matching (keeping your speed at the same as the other racers or your crew in free-roam) and synchronised drifting gets you points in Blue (Crew) and being able to do very quick 0-60s, and perfect nitrous boosts get you points for Purple (Build). You can choose to ignore all the others and focus on just one to level you up, which I think is very cool. I don't know if you have to do certain missions to advance the story, but you can keep earning XP in other categories.
The odd one out here is the Red (Outlaw). Now for those who weren't fans of Most Wanted and Carbon's police chasing mechanic, there is a way out of it. If in free roam, the cops find you, then you just hit the brakes, pull over, and pay the fine, usually around $50. For resisting arrest and trying to drive away, you get at least a $1,000 fine so it only makes sense to bet if you're sure you can outrun them. And honestly, for the most part, you can't. The police have fantastic AI and will check alleyways you might have hidden until they've pinned you. Rather than the 'Busted' meter you got in old games in the bottom of the screen, this time the camera will begin to float above to directly above the car if you're close to getting caught but you still have full control of your vehicle, which is actually cool for spotting weak points in the roadblock you've smashed into.
The icon for this sort of thing is Morohoshi-san, the member of the Japanese Yakuza who has a collection of neon-covered Lamborghinis. When you meet Green, Yellow, Blue and Purple in the diner, most of them say they'd rather pull over and pay fines rather than go for a full on denying the police, which feels... real in a way. These guys are just normal drivers and they don't want to risk their cars getting impounded and are happy to just take a slap on the wrist. Instead to get ranked up in this, you get calls telling you to try and do certain things, like hold a pursuit for 2 minutes or get a bounty of $2,500. Not as easy as they sound, trust me.
So for those of you who liked Underground 2, you're definitely in luck. This has a very similar feel to the city, right down to the night cycle that goes all the way to dawn but never quite hits day. There are heavy and dirty industrial areas, bits in the hills around the observatory, and more residential areas to make a mix of driving styles needed. The atmosphere is similar to the grunge of Underground 2 but much, much more polished. It's not to the level of Driveclub, but it looks fantastic, and really fits the vibe of the city.
The other one it feels a lot like is Carbon, though rather than everyone trying to be a massive arse and better than you, it feels more like everyone's just celebrating car culture. There's no bullst about trying to leave you out for the cops, the characters all actually feel fairly good. Purple has anxiety issues and doesn't like Yellow being a sexist pig, Yellow is always in trouble with the cops and gets frustrated when not allowed to go out, Green is some trust fund kid and is trying to big up his gangster style to hide the fact that he's just living off his father. Doesn't sound particularly cool, but throw it all together and it's not that intrusive, it feels... realistic in a strange way.
So it scores well for me on looks. What about the feel? Well, again, this is me preferring car games with a lot of slide to them. I was a big fan of Hot Pursuit 3 (the one for the PS3) because it felt almost like an old Outrun game. I like Driveclub because of the slipperiness of the cars. So I managed to tweak everything to make the cars drift friendly and they're still not quite spot on. Using the handbrake to drift is a struggle and you need specialist parts to really make it work like a custom handbrake and a welded diff. Getting lift-off oversteer is a matter of chance and so is using the brake to initiate drifts. But at the same time, when you do hit the sweet spot of all the modding, it feels so much better, and you whoop as you hold a big long crazy slide for miles down the mountain.
I can't speak for the grip side of things as that's not really my thing, but I suspect it'll be the same. I did a lot of pursuit evasion (Red) and I needed not to just spin out every time I went near the throttle, so I had to tune it down to be good at the corners of a street. Much like one of those above, I found the Challenger was great for that and made the game come alive for me.
I think the best thing about the game is that it really gives you Choice. You can choose to play the game your way, and it won't penalise you for it. Most of the higher end cars already have some of the crazy mods that you can buy so there's no absolute advantage to buying a Ferrari 458 over just throwing infinite number of mods into the back of a Volvo 240. So it's not a case of 'can you afford the best car' but to make the car you want, which is really important to me at the very least.
I think I will be picking this up. It's not a perfect game by any means, but for those that liked the 'Golden Age' of Need for Speed, from Underground 1 to Carbon, I think this will be exactly what the doctor ordered.
So lets' get the horrible out the way. EA won't let you play unless you've got a connection to the internet, you couldn't take pictures in the game using the PS4's screenshot device, which was a shame because there were some hilarious typos in the loading screen, you can't change the controls at all which meant I was using Nitrous when I wanted to handbrake. Not as bad for me is the fact the game is entirely in Automatic transmission - it kind of works for me, NFS isn't the sort of game I want to play in AT but I know that'll bother some of you.
Right, onto the main thing. You're introduced in the loosely termed 'story' mode to four Fast and Furious wannabes that I'm going to call Blue, Yellow, Green and Purple to make things much, much easier mostly because I can't remember all their names. They give you your first car, which is a choice between a 2000 Honda Civic, an old Ford Mustang Foxbody and a Subaru BR-Z with the Rocket Bunny bodykit on already and get you to do a bunch of races to warm up. During this time, I found that the controls are a little sticky, almost like switches - you're turning on full lock or not at all. Your throttle is on or off. Brakes are on or off. That's just how I felt, I had the BR-Z and I was growing to despise it.
After two races or so you get an invite to Purple's garage where she introduces the first part of the five-way story arc, being a fan of Akira Nakai and building cars rather than actually racing them. This is where the customisation opens up and holy s
t, this blows anything NFS has done before out of the water. Some parts are unlocked through levelling up, mostly body kits and fenders, and some of the higher end bumpers and spoilers. But straight off the bat you have some parts to play with, and while there's not the Autosculpt from Carbon, all the parts are from genuine manufacturers and have their own tailgates on the parts like you're actually reading an eBay advert for them. Some cars have more parts than others obviously, but there's something you can do to all of them. The suspension tweaking can make it look as 'Stanced' as you like, with camber, rake, ride height and track width to suit your tastes, though it will have a slight effect on handling. The vinyls and paint jobs though are the stars. The fact you can colour in the windows, and put stickers on feels really genuinely like the sort of thing you'd find these people doing to their cars rather than just have a single sponsor over the front window.
The negative points here are nitpicks to be honest. I'd like to be able to have a 'match body colour' for the vinyls so that you can colour it in the same as your body panels without having to match it up exactly using the sliders. Some of the logos are so huge that putting them down to any sort of 'normal' size ruins the look of them. And while this is really nitpicky, they seriously have no custom fenders for a Silvia S15? You know, one of the most popular cars for modding in the world?
On the positive side, again, you could spend hours just tuning your car to be just right. When it comes to the oily bits of your car, you have plenty of options too, and they're not cripplingly expensive, almost a sensible amount to drop in an air filter or the like. Some parts are only unlocked through levelling up though, and some parts don't make sense at all. (Camshafts for an RX-7? Errr....) You also get simple sliders to determine how your brake bias is, your brake strength, spoiler angle and diff lock. I'm a big fan of slidy cars in my games so I locked the diff, threw the brake bias to the front, pumped the front tyres out to bursting and went out to do some drifting.
You get a few more 'story' missions mostly from Purple and Green until Yellow and Blue start giving you missions. These are essentially some of the many races around the city where the story mode characters are part of it too. Green is not a fan of drifting, he likes straight up street racing and he's the one who won't shut up about Magnus Walker. Yellow is a drifter and a fan of Ken Block, and Blue likes 'team' racing and idolises the Risky Devil performance squad.
The way you rank up in all of these is fairly familiar since it's been there since Shift 1 I think. Perfect sectors, laps, clean overtakes and the like get you points in Green (Racing), jumps, drifts and doughnuts get you points in Yellow (Style), speed matching (keeping your speed at the same as the other racers or your crew in free-roam) and synchronised drifting gets you points in Blue (Crew) and being able to do very quick 0-60s, and perfect nitrous boosts get you points for Purple (Build). You can choose to ignore all the others and focus on just one to level you up, which I think is very cool. I don't know if you have to do certain missions to advance the story, but you can keep earning XP in other categories.
The odd one out here is the Red (Outlaw). Now for those who weren't fans of Most Wanted and Carbon's police chasing mechanic, there is a way out of it. If in free roam, the cops find you, then you just hit the brakes, pull over, and pay the fine, usually around $50. For resisting arrest and trying to drive away, you get at least a $1,000 fine so it only makes sense to bet if you're sure you can outrun them. And honestly, for the most part, you can't. The police have fantastic AI and will check alleyways you might have hidden until they've pinned you. Rather than the 'Busted' meter you got in old games in the bottom of the screen, this time the camera will begin to float above to directly above the car if you're close to getting caught but you still have full control of your vehicle, which is actually cool for spotting weak points in the roadblock you've smashed into.
The icon for this sort of thing is Morohoshi-san, the member of the Japanese Yakuza who has a collection of neon-covered Lamborghinis. When you meet Green, Yellow, Blue and Purple in the diner, most of them say they'd rather pull over and pay fines rather than go for a full on denying the police, which feels... real in a way. These guys are just normal drivers and they don't want to risk their cars getting impounded and are happy to just take a slap on the wrist. Instead to get ranked up in this, you get calls telling you to try and do certain things, like hold a pursuit for 2 minutes or get a bounty of $2,500. Not as easy as they sound, trust me.
So for those of you who liked Underground 2, you're definitely in luck. This has a very similar feel to the city, right down to the night cycle that goes all the way to dawn but never quite hits day. There are heavy and dirty industrial areas, bits in the hills around the observatory, and more residential areas to make a mix of driving styles needed. The atmosphere is similar to the grunge of Underground 2 but much, much more polished. It's not to the level of Driveclub, but it looks fantastic, and really fits the vibe of the city.
The other one it feels a lot like is Carbon, though rather than everyone trying to be a massive arse and better than you, it feels more like everyone's just celebrating car culture. There's no bulls
t about trying to leave you out for the cops, the characters all actually feel fairly good. Purple has anxiety issues and doesn't like Yellow being a sexist pig, Yellow is always in trouble with the cops and gets frustrated when not allowed to go out, Green is some trust fund kid and is trying to big up his gangster style to hide the fact that he's just living off his father. Doesn't sound particularly cool, but throw it all together and it's not that intrusive, it feels... realistic in a strange way. So it scores well for me on looks. What about the feel? Well, again, this is me preferring car games with a lot of slide to them. I was a big fan of Hot Pursuit 3 (the one for the PS3) because it felt almost like an old Outrun game. I like Driveclub because of the slipperiness of the cars. So I managed to tweak everything to make the cars drift friendly and they're still not quite spot on. Using the handbrake to drift is a struggle and you need specialist parts to really make it work like a custom handbrake and a welded diff. Getting lift-off oversteer is a matter of chance and so is using the brake to initiate drifts. But at the same time, when you do hit the sweet spot of all the modding, it feels so much better, and you whoop as you hold a big long crazy slide for miles down the mountain.
I can't speak for the grip side of things as that's not really my thing, but I suspect it'll be the same. I did a lot of pursuit evasion (Red) and I needed not to just spin out every time I went near the throttle, so I had to tune it down to be good at the corners of a street. Much like one of those above, I found the Challenger was great for that and made the game come alive for me.
I think the best thing about the game is that it really gives you Choice. You can choose to play the game your way, and it won't penalise you for it. Most of the higher end cars already have some of the crazy mods that you can buy so there's no absolute advantage to buying a Ferrari 458 over just throwing infinite number of mods into the back of a Volvo 240. So it's not a case of 'can you afford the best car' but to make the car you want, which is really important to me at the very least.
I think I will be picking this up. It's not a perfect game by any means, but for those that liked the 'Golden Age' of Need for Speed, from Underground 1 to Carbon, I think this will be exactly what the doctor ordered.
Sounds promising, cheers 
Obviously this is still under development (I'd hope) but a few (very minor) questions
How does the handling feel? Is it more simulator/arcade? Would you know how it compares to NFSU2?
Engine noises - are they realistic with varying tone/resonance throughout the rev range? Or does it sound like the usual angry bee noise just speeded up and down accordingly?
Obviously this is still under development (I'd hope) but a few (very minor) questionsHow does the handling feel? Is it more simulator/arcade? Would you know how it compares to NFSU2?
Engine noises - are they realistic with varying tone/resonance throughout the rev range? Or does it sound like the usual angry bee noise just speeded up and down accordingly?
challenger001 said:
I think the best thing about the game is that it really gives you Choice. ~snip~ So it's not a case of 'can you afford the best car' but to make the car you want, which is really important to me at the very least.
I think I will be picking this up. It's not a perfect game by any means, but for those that liked the 'Golden Age' of Need for Speed, from Underground 1 to Carbon, I think this will be exactly what the doctor ordered.
Wow thank you for that, hopefully they might do something with the handling before release. I'm really excited for the bit I've bolded, I always wanted to take my Civic (U1) or 240SX (U2) all the way in the old games but you were forced into the higher tier of cars if you didn't want a total struggle. I think I will be picking this up. It's not a perfect game by any means, but for those that liked the 'Golden Age' of Need for Speed, from Underground 1 to Carbon, I think this will be exactly what the doctor ordered.
Get Low by Lil Jon & the Eastside Boyz was Underground 1... TommoAE86 said:
challenger001 said:
I think the best thing about the game is that it really gives you Choice. ~snip~ So it's not a case of 'can you afford the best car' but to make the car you want, which is really important to me at the very least.
I think I will be picking this up. It's not a perfect game by any means, but for those that liked the 'Golden Age' of Need for Speed, from Underground 1 to Carbon, I think this will be exactly what the doctor ordered.
Wow thank you for that, hopefully they might do something with the handling before release. I'm really excited for the bit I've bolded, I always wanted to take my Civic (U1) or 240SX (U2) all the way in the old games but you were forced into the higher tier of cars if you didn't want a total struggle. I think I will be picking this up. It's not a perfect game by any means, but for those that liked the 'Golden Age' of Need for Speed, from Underground 1 to Carbon, I think this will be exactly what the doctor ordered.
smithyithy said:
I'm just listening through the soundtrack on Youtube now. Not NFSU2-tier (GET LOWWW), but decent enough.
NFS2 was more this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VAF-4Er7_AIf you give this man a ride...
MarkRSi said:
TommoAE86 said:
challenger001 said:
I think the best thing about the game is that it really gives you Choice. ~snip~ So it's not a case of 'can you afford the best car' but to make the car you want, which is really important to me at the very least.
I think I will be picking this up. It's not a perfect game by any means, but for those that liked the 'Golden Age' of Need for Speed, from Underground 1 to Carbon, I think this will be exactly what the doctor ordered.
Wow thank you for that, hopefully they might do something with the handling before release. I'm really excited for the bit I've bolded, I always wanted to take my Civic (U1) or 240SX (U2) all the way in the old games but you were forced into the higher tier of cars if you didn't want a total struggle. I think I will be picking this up. It's not a perfect game by any means, but for those that liked the 'Golden Age' of Need for Speed, from Underground 1 to Carbon, I think this will be exactly what the doctor ordered.
To some other questions - no, Magnus Walker is not the 'outlaw' boss, it's the yakuza guy. I can't remember exactly for the soundtracks, but I think it leans towards the bee buzzing rather than actual engine notes. Handling wise I think it is more similar to U2 than Most Wanted or Carbon, a bit more planted than loose, unless you make it so.
MyVTECGoesBwaaah said:
Ah man, that brings back memories 
Lean back, lean back..
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