Tetsuo_Shima
In Cryo Sleep
Right, so the demo (~1Gb in size) went up on live a week or two ago, and I finally got round to downloading it last night (one of the great things about the 360: you can watch a DVD and have your demos etc. downloading whilst you watch. Not much of a novelty really - PCs have been doing it since time began - but its a really great experience on a console).
I'm sure most, if not all, of you know about the Need For Speed series. Starting on the PS1, NFS was all about the thrill of exotic sports car driving - not many games let you take a Lamborghini for a spin through the alps, all in glorious pixelated blocky 3d
. After several more incarnations on the PS1, and NFS HotPursuit 2 on the PS2 (great game, why dont you have it? Go out and buy it now! Yes, you!), the series evolved into the Need For Speed: Underground spin off; rather than blasting exotics on the open roads with the throttle wide open, this series focused on the import-tuning market, following the storm kicked up by The Fast and the Furious.
The new series was welcomed with open arms by the public, the tuning and modding really gave a sense of personality to your vehicles, and the sequel followed soon after. NFSU2 was more of the same, but it all started to become a bit mouldy when you bought the Nissan Skyline, and thought is this it? Why am I racing in a cheap alternative when I should be blasting around in a Porsche? Well, Need For Speed: Most Wanted deftly saw to that, allowing you to customise all your favourite tuning cars, but also introducing the exotic cars that formed the foundation for the series, and it just worked. It was a great feeling, starting out in your humble Golf GTI (I use the term 'humble' quite loosely, here) and working your way up to a flip-paint clad, supercharged Viper with a lethal aero kit.
However, that was then; this is now. The successor to MW is here in the form of NFS: Carbon. Taking the same tuning-exotic concept, adding a pinch of muscle car and stirring it up with some all-new features. All the old bits that made the predecessors great are back in style - motion blur, nitro, slow-mo - but now we have some new features to play around with, in the form of crew-assistance, a car-class feature, and the amazing real-time aesthetic sculpturing kit.
Underneath, the races are pretty similar to all the rest. You've got your basic point-to-point and circuit races, as well as drift and elimination. The whole system is different, with some kind of 'track capture' nonsense that I didn't pay much attention to in the demo. I'm sure its all very good, but no, it was the cars that had my full attention. In the demo you can choose from 3 cars, one each from the muscle, exotic and tuner classes. The muscle, I think, was a Chevy Camaro SS; the exotic, a black and yellow Lambo Gallardo; and the tuner (the one that I chose), a deadly Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX.
Now the good bit begins. While you can't buy new parts for the demo car, you ARE allowed to sample the new custom sculpturing feature. I think its a great idea. Basically, while not being so customisable as being able to make your own parts for the car, you CAN adjust the various bits and bobs that you clack onto your car to make it that much more unique and personal. For example, if you buy a good-looking front air dam, but decide the intake is too large and aggresive - reduce it! Just move that slider there, and bingo! It looks great, but now it's all subtle and nice like 8) Is the spoiler too tame? Raise it up! There we go, pedestrians will be fleeing at the mere sight of it.
You can customize all parts of the car, the spoiler, rims, air scoops, bonnets, front bumper, rear bumper and even the size of the muffler tip. All this coupled with the super paint jobs and decals should make for, I reckon, an excellent customization aspect in the game. Although, hopefully they have improved the puke-inducing Ford GT bodykits this time round.
I’m not sure if the bodykit system will follow the NFSU route of customizing the side skirts, bumpers and muffler tips individually, or if it will retain the Most Wanted system of buying set ‘bodykits’ with the skirts, bumpers and muffler tips already layed out. I’m not too bothered – I loved both systems.
Now, onto the racing itself. The handling is much improved over Most Wanted. The analog triggers give the throttle a nice responsive feel, and there doesn’t appear to be any ‘torque-steer’ in this game (or at least, it isn’t so drastic). The graphics look quite amazing with beautiful motion blur and slo-mo, as well as highly reflective cars, all wrapped up in HD. The framerate sometimes suffers a little, but nothing drastic, and occasionally the cars have that juddery appearance when bumping up kerbs and the like, but all in all the downsides are quite negligible.
It’s hard to give an impression of the AI based on the demo, but mostly I’d say they’re about the same as Most Wanted. You know, they are fairly easy to pass when you want to, but they tend to have that unfortunate habit of staying right on your tail even if you drive a perfect race. I’m sure it’s just to make it more competitive, but I liked it in GT4 when you could leave your opponents in the dust when your driving excelled. Related to AI, a new feature that has been incorporated is the crew-assisstance, in which you can give orders to your mates driving in the race to challenge opponents, or provide some slipstream for your car. I never really tried this out much, but I don’t see why you should get the luxury of ordering other racers around when they probably want the win just as much as you do. Anyhow, will be interesting to see in the final game.
I reckon I’ll wrap it up there. Looks to be another great addition to the NFS series, ill probably pick it up once I get paid in November. I'm not totally sure if they'll employ that money-making 'vanilla edition-special edition' thing again this time round, Ill be sure to keep you posted.
Incidentally, it'll be released on November the 3rd.
I'm sure most, if not all, of you know about the Need For Speed series. Starting on the PS1, NFS was all about the thrill of exotic sports car driving - not many games let you take a Lamborghini for a spin through the alps, all in glorious pixelated blocky 3d
. After several more incarnations on the PS1, and NFS HotPursuit 2 on the PS2 (great game, why dont you have it? Go out and buy it now! Yes, you!), the series evolved into the Need For Speed: Underground spin off; rather than blasting exotics on the open roads with the throttle wide open, this series focused on the import-tuning market, following the storm kicked up by The Fast and the Furious.The new series was welcomed with open arms by the public, the tuning and modding really gave a sense of personality to your vehicles, and the sequel followed soon after. NFSU2 was more of the same, but it all started to become a bit mouldy when you bought the Nissan Skyline, and thought is this it? Why am I racing in a cheap alternative when I should be blasting around in a Porsche? Well, Need For Speed: Most Wanted deftly saw to that, allowing you to customise all your favourite tuning cars, but also introducing the exotic cars that formed the foundation for the series, and it just worked. It was a great feeling, starting out in your humble Golf GTI (I use the term 'humble' quite loosely, here) and working your way up to a flip-paint clad, supercharged Viper with a lethal aero kit.
However, that was then; this is now. The successor to MW is here in the form of NFS: Carbon. Taking the same tuning-exotic concept, adding a pinch of muscle car and stirring it up with some all-new features. All the old bits that made the predecessors great are back in style - motion blur, nitro, slow-mo - but now we have some new features to play around with, in the form of crew-assistance, a car-class feature, and the amazing real-time aesthetic sculpturing kit.
Underneath, the races are pretty similar to all the rest. You've got your basic point-to-point and circuit races, as well as drift and elimination. The whole system is different, with some kind of 'track capture' nonsense that I didn't pay much attention to in the demo. I'm sure its all very good, but no, it was the cars that had my full attention. In the demo you can choose from 3 cars, one each from the muscle, exotic and tuner classes. The muscle, I think, was a Chevy Camaro SS; the exotic, a black and yellow Lambo Gallardo; and the tuner (the one that I chose), a deadly Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX.
Now the good bit begins. While you can't buy new parts for the demo car, you ARE allowed to sample the new custom sculpturing feature. I think its a great idea. Basically, while not being so customisable as being able to make your own parts for the car, you CAN adjust the various bits and bobs that you clack onto your car to make it that much more unique and personal. For example, if you buy a good-looking front air dam, but decide the intake is too large and aggresive - reduce it! Just move that slider there, and bingo! It looks great, but now it's all subtle and nice like 8) Is the spoiler too tame? Raise it up! There we go, pedestrians will be fleeing at the mere sight of it.
You can customize all parts of the car, the spoiler, rims, air scoops, bonnets, front bumper, rear bumper and even the size of the muffler tip. All this coupled with the super paint jobs and decals should make for, I reckon, an excellent customization aspect in the game. Although, hopefully they have improved the puke-inducing Ford GT bodykits this time round
. I’m not sure if the bodykit system will follow the NFSU route of customizing the side skirts, bumpers and muffler tips individually, or if it will retain the Most Wanted system of buying set ‘bodykits’ with the skirts, bumpers and muffler tips already layed out. I’m not too bothered – I loved both systems.
Now, onto the racing itself. The handling is much improved over Most Wanted. The analog triggers give the throttle a nice responsive feel, and there doesn’t appear to be any ‘torque-steer’ in this game (or at least, it isn’t so drastic). The graphics look quite amazing with beautiful motion blur and slo-mo, as well as highly reflective cars, all wrapped up in HD. The framerate sometimes suffers a little, but nothing drastic, and occasionally the cars have that juddery appearance when bumping up kerbs and the like, but all in all the downsides are quite negligible.
It’s hard to give an impression of the AI based on the demo, but mostly I’d say they’re about the same as Most Wanted. You know, they are fairly easy to pass when you want to, but they tend to have that unfortunate habit of staying right on your tail even if you drive a perfect race. I’m sure it’s just to make it more competitive, but I liked it in GT4 when you could leave your opponents in the dust when your driving excelled. Related to AI, a new feature that has been incorporated is the crew-assisstance, in which you can give orders to your mates driving in the race to challenge opponents, or provide some slipstream for your car. I never really tried this out much, but I don’t see why you should get the luxury of ordering other racers around when they probably want the win just as much as you do. Anyhow, will be interesting to see in the final game.
I reckon I’ll wrap it up there. Looks to be another great addition to the NFS series, ill probably pick it up once I get paid in November. I'm not totally sure if they'll employ that money-making 'vanilla edition-special edition' thing again this time round, Ill be sure to keep you posted.
Incidentally, it'll be released on November the 3rd.