"There is a moment at seven thousand revolutions, when everything disappears, the car becomes weightless, just disappears and only the body remains in space and time remains." – Carroll Shelby. Ford v Ferrari.
Sounds like a quote to a toreto? Well, it looks very much for me. And I didn’t just choose something similar to a quote from the fast and the Furious, because it was this film that very influenced the NFS series. I think there is no one for America for no one.
But let’s start from the beginning. Namely, from the fact that EA acquired the DistINhet Software studio and renamed it in EA Canada (now it seems to be called EA Vancouver), at the same time instructing it to develop a racing game (in coopeous with EA Seattle. 1994. The exit of the game. Not bad grades from the player and pleasant sales almost forced EA to start making racing arcades as not in itself.
And so the story of one of the most famous games of games in history all the time began. At the moment, 21 games of the series have been released for stationary platforms (we miss Remaster Hot Pursuit And World). For the convenience of the narrative, we divide all the games into phases. On 4 phases (just like in Marvel)
The Need for Speed
Need for Speed II
Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit
Need for Speed: High Stakes
Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2
Need for Speed: Underground
Need for Speed: Underground 2
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Need for Speed: Carbon
Need for Speed: Prostreet
Need for Speed: Undercover
Need for Speed: Shift
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed
Need for Speed: The Run
Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2012
Need for Speed Rivals
Need for Speed 2015
Need for Speed: Payback
Need for Speed: Heat
Now you can start. But with my permission, I shamelessly discard the entire first phase, because I did not play quite a lot of it so that something adequate to say about it.
Let’s start immediately with the second phase.
Phase 2
2001. The output of the first part of the frying. A year ago, part of Porsche released to the 70th anniversary of the company. The game relatively well met by critics was sold figovinko. The development of the sequel Hot Pursuit It went in full swing. But EA, seeing the fact that with each part of the game they are sold worse and worse forces the Black Box studio parallel to make another part of the racing arcade, but now about street races.
2002. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 receives not bad grades, but sales are still selling to fall. Not long before the game, the Black Box Studio becomes daughter EA.
And now November 2003. The game comes out Need for Speed: Underground about street races, gets high grades from the press, and is sold better than any other part of NFS. People remember and love this game
EAGL (EA Graphics Labrary) gave out a decent graphics for that time (for the sake of truth and now the graphics does not look bad). The physics of cars was also pleasant, although the behavior was far from real life, and the damage was completely absent, but it was nice to drive the machine. An interesting tuning system almost forced the player to hang in the garage, changing his car.
Oh and even music. Already a legend, https://charlescasino.uk/withdrawal/ although I like the second undergrand more. In 2006 he came out as a separate album, though there were only 10 compositions in it, which was not enough by modern standards.
The race was only 5: a sprint, ring, crash racing, drift and drag.
It seems that there are also not many, but it is interesting to play all of them, and the variations of drift and the drag are made almost better than in all other races in the entire history in principle.
Less than a year later (358 days) comes out Underground 2 Everything from the same studio EA Black Box. This is essentially the first part on the stroids.
All the same engine, with the same graphics and control. But then an open world appeared. There are more modes. Add: Street X, prof. League, jeeps (but there are only 3 of them) and races against bots in the open world. But, for the sake of truth, the racing for the extinction was removed (ha ha).
The second part has become more diverse and generally more fatal, which I like more.
No matter how I love the second underground, but it sold much worse than the first part. And now a year later (365 days. No real. If measured in the USA and Canada) comes out Most Wanted, becoming the console exclusive Xbox 360 (for the 7th generation)
This time, the development of the development was not EA Black Box, but the founders of the EA Canada series. And they again blew up the market, creating the most sold game in the series, and the most legendary too.
The engine is the same familiar eagl, so the physics of cars is still pleasant, and the graphics does not cause questions. Although this time the action takes place during the day (and it is more difficult to create a daytime atmosphere than night), but the yellow sand filter successfully creates the atmosphere of daytime heat, and bluirs when using nitro and a slight blur at high speed does not poorly conveys the feeling of the very speed.
The game has become much less diverse in tuning, and the variety of machines.
The variety in races is not that much less (sprint, ring, outbreak, racing for a while, drag and Istriber), but for the most part I try to avoid the ring and rackets, they are very boring, even compared to Underground. But the cops really add diversity to the movement around the city (they didn’t really bother me in the races) (oh yes, they can essentially be considered a separate mode of races, TF +1 to racing options).
Plot, everyone praises NFS MW 2005 for the plot, but I will not. It looks like both undergradu, only much more significant and structured (which is good), and then it will be repeated in Karbon.
Ah da os. He is, but he is far from close as memorable as in undergrounds. Except the track from Prodigi, I remember him.
EA Canada created a legend without obvious weaknesses, which allowed them to go down in history, with one of the most memorable games in history (although this is possible a massive duckling syndrome).
Again less than a year later, in 2006 came out Carbon
She was met cool. The same eagl remained the engine. The action took place at night, because of which the picture became a little more pleasant (in my opinion), the cars feel less. From the modes they removed such any drag, but returned the drift (and here I like it) and added cool races in the canyon. Added auto -worshiped, which is like there is and that’s it, oh yes, the partner gives access to it. Briefly about them. There are locks who are absolutely useless, there are accelerators who are useful in races, where there are many straight lines, but in other cases they interfere more, and there are slugs, they are probably more useful for all, stupidly because they can come before you and all the others.
The plot is similar to MW, but this time the bosses are not easy in the list (except the raiser is natural), they are personified, which adds immersion. This is a huge plus compared to the previous part.
But the Russian voice acting is simply disgusting, the translators did not even try to lips, which is not important at all in ordering, but critical when dubbing.
In general, Karbon is a good game, but short and not impressive, it was at the basis of its already 4 similar race. And therefore it was sold badly (3.2kc copies against 16kk at the bridge of Vundeda)
It was impossible to reduce the pace of release of NFS, so again, a year later, EA spits the next game of the series, but this time it is a spin-off about legal races. NFS Pro Street
And I actually like her, but she is not trouble -free. Although the graphics were good (and smoke was generally shocked), but 3 months later, Burnout Paradise was released, which in my opinion was painted. AI was weak. He could not do anything against the average player in any of the modes. It looks especially funny when in the mode of high -speed races you finish the race with two rivals or even alone
Autoskulp is more discovered here than in the carbon, because it affects the characteristics that cool. Not cool that a separate machine is needed for a separate type of race. This is not cool. I have the same complaint to the paybek.
But! There are interesting tracks, good damage physics (not ultrasimulator, but this is NFS). Interesting visual. In general, the game leaves pleasant impressions. But EA made her to plug a hole if the carbon fells, and the street was sold worse than carbon (2.4kc copies)
And the last game for today, NFS Undercover. The first game of a series that no one really loves.
But in general it is clear why. The first thing that catches your eye is a vomitic filter, too many bluer and texture of traffic cars are frankly bad.
Here EA Black Box was used for the first and last time Heroic Driving Engine, which in theory was to allow you to make a big open world and more smart bots. And with the latter there were huge problems. The bots were too dumb. This is not norms when 240SX, which is given at the very beginning, in the first race you can safely win without straining with a margin of 20 seconds! Despite the fact that the circle is small.
And this problem with excessive simplicity, on which a bunch of Bluera was superimposed, completely blocked all the pluses of the game in the form of a good presentation of the plot and not a bad open world.
There were still problems with textures and loading, but I have not met this, I can’t say anything (not on any system I played).
NFS Undercover has become a final nail in the direction of street races. NFS stopped going out in the form in which the game was released for 5 years (in fact, not so many). And after the lifting of EA decided to change the vector of development series. And now I will talk about the new vector of development already in the second part (or rather from the beginning about throwing, and then about the new vector).