Need for Speed Racing Games

So we'll start off with a post of pictures. I'll post my previously posted articles later when I have time.

hi,

you can post your NFS SHIFT vinyls works here:

http://forum.needforspeed.com/eaforum/posts/list/333060.page

i am looking forward to seeing your cars there too.

visit my garage:

http://forum.needforspeed.com/eaforum/posts/list/331343.page

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 11/22/2009 14:10:51

Mazda RX-7 Works

Reprint of previous thread.

I promised a review and here it is. If you don't like it, then tough noogies. Just don't tell the rest of us about how you think I suck eggs or whatever. Also... The opinions of the author are those of the author and only of the author. They do not coincide with the opinions of the host company, moderators, operators, or any scary yeti that happen to be around.

In The Valley of Reviews

So I had come up with a 1,000 word prologue that told everyone how great I thought the latest Need For Speed was. How brilliant and great it was. So much so that it surpassed both its’ previous iterations and games released by other production houses. How its’ backgrounds and handling trumped both Gran Turismo and Forza. How even the latest Star Trek, which barely shows it’s genius to anyone who is halfway a fan of science fiction in one of those strange deep ways, could not begin to describe Shift in a symbolic, flowery imagery, kind of way.

I was bowled over, utterly and completely. When I played GT5P I gave it a seven out of ten on my own personal scale. When I played Undercover I offered up a four in the long run. And ProStreet got a lovely six. So when Torque, whose real name still remains a mystery, asked me what I’d give this game on a scale of ten, he was sufficiently bowled over with a fifteen. Admittedly I’d been rather deprived of speed since earlier in the decade and was suffering from severe jet lag but it was an honest evaluation.

And Here Is Why…

Your selection in cars isn’t the greatest. But then you inevitably have to ask yourself. Are you seriously planning on driving all one hundred cars that you’re being offered on a regular basis? Are you honestly even interested in twenty of them? I can most assuredly say no. Even with a curiosity towards exploration I’m only likely to run twenty-five or so cars in a game. So we have to ask ourselves about the quality of said car, having the quantity lose an insurmountable battle to economics.

The cars capable of drift are easily noted so that a person doesn’t feel like they bought a car and were misrepresented. Not all cars are capable of NOS either. And those that are only have access to a single tank that offers use in multiples of ten seconds. The tank doesn’t regenerate and in fact I couldn’t find a gauge that told you how many shots you had. So it’s probably good that NOS isn’t required to win any give race. And speaking of icons that represent what your choice in cars, can and cannot do. The final icon is the ‘works’. This allows for one final upgrade when all other upgrades have been purchased. It essentially rips out the speaker wires, drills holes into parts that aren’t structurally relevant, and reflashes the ECU so that the engine is only expected to last a few hundred kilometres at best.

But that doesn’t all quite represent the cars in this game. For instance, only lower tier cars can use the works. Which give those cars a better chance of survival later on in the game. Also tier four cars can’t obtain all the upgrades and tier five cars can’t receive any at all. Which allows for more balanced line-ups in multi-player races and eliminates those age old tiresome dominator cars. The best part is that it allows you to pit your Golf against 911s and Gallardos and have a fighting chance. How does it do this? Well, the cars are being scaled on a separate list from tiers. This list, or scale (if you want to call it that) allows any given car to be valued on its performance more accurately.

It’s Not the Number of Colors…

I was prepared to be disappointed in the colors and visuals of Shift while bombing about the tracks. Sure the far backgrounds are wonderful but the mid-range is just washed out. But I can’t say this. There was neither the washed out world of Undercover’s magic hour or Gran Turismo’s lack of activity (otherwise known as conservative motion) beyond the borders of the track. And I was really disappointed. Not only did Shift offer up places where you could catch airplanes and helicopters recording your every move. Or people throwing tailgate parties. You could catch people flashing their bulbs at you just before you ‘accidentally’ drive yourself into a wall. I blame the camera happy punters for my crash. Other’s blamed me for paying attention to something other than the road. But I still blame the paparazzi. I loved the background, it held me, and comforted me, and made me feel beloved.

Another thing I noticed in this area of backgrounds and foregrounds was that those parts of a track that you might try to play soccer with remain around. Tire and cones hang about waiting for another car to shove them farther down the road on the next lap. And those next laps will come later than their counterparts in ProStreet. I could give some uppity reason as to why this is, but I’d just be blowing it out of my own rear and we don’t need me doing that anymore than necessary.

I did have a big complaint about paints. Well, it was about Undercover and paints but it was still a complaint. The colors in Undercover were never really well represented. Orange was red and yellow was brown. But alas, no longer can we make that claim. Orange is orange, red is red, yellow is yellow, and brown is brown. And because we retain the color wheel of Undercover we actually have a lot of shades to choose from. And the pearl paint offers up as many tints as the standard paint job offers up…tints. And if that’s not good enough for you then windows can be painted as well. So you’re allowed just as many different tints for your windows.

Is It Tuning or Customization?

A lot of people confuse these two things. Tuning is for mechanical parts or things that replace mechanical parts. And it’s really good here. No longer is it based on percentiles, it has actual numbers that allow for you to understand the differences between cars. Eventually. There is a lack of engine tuning, which I sorely missed, but let’s face it. With everyone thinking that ProStreet’s engine tuning being completely useless it’s not surprising that anyone thought to repeat the experiment. But you can bring your tuning to extremes that I’ve never seen before in a game. You can harden the suspension of a car so much so that you can recreate Uber’s gangbanging low riding thumper mobile Vantage. Which started to bounce every time you tried to move, no matter how fast you accelerated or on what type of land you started out on. You can also bottom out a Ford GT to the point that every time you brake you scratch your diffuser and the occasional bump will cause you to pull a 180. Many people will be happy about the easier tuning abilities. I know I was.

And then we have customization, which comes in one part really, vinyls. Vinyls are a limited selection that doesn’t allow for overflow into different graphical/geographical sectors, like rear quarter panel vinyls overflowing into the rear bumper panel area. The selection appeared somewhat small to me but there certainly is the ability to add a lot of them on to a car, approximately one hundred per section of car. This is the one section that is going to upset the Underground fans the most and I, frankly, couldn’t care less.

What we probably should remember is that even now the tuning and customization sections of Shift are ahead of the grade in comparison to Gran Turismo’s latest offering and GRID. And that says quite a bit for a simulation based game.

I’ve Got a Sticker That Adds 20 Horses! Horses, I Say!

Upgrading in the game is a little different than before. Not only do you have the standard three tier upgrade packages like you did before. You also have chassis and aerodynamic upgrades available. This is where you’ll find your body kits. Which include hoods and spoilers, so you can’t pick out those any more. It is also where you can find weight reductions, racing exhausts, and shorter final drive ratios. The best thing here though, is that once you’ve purchased all the upgrades, you have the chance to force your car through the ‘works’. Which, of course, you’ll have been informed of when you first purchased your car.

The only recommendation I can give is to explore this section as it is more detailed that it has been in the past, even if it doesn’t cough up the Underground beloved dyno chart.

Racing Leagues…Start Your Engines

We inevitably have to get into actual game play. It’s unavoidable but not undesirable. The game’s physics engine allows for one to tweak the engine from a brilliant arcade engine to a hardcore simulation engine. And even at its most arcade aspect the game blows Undercover and Most Wanted away. Its arcade but it’s completely enjoyable. I don’t have to work, but I get virtually no errors from the computer taking over for me. I understand why GTR and its ilk are so highly regarded now. I also recognize that the lawsuit between SMS and SimBin is going to end in some very sad woes for SimBin. These people really were involved in SimBin’s physics engines.

And the AI? Pure comedic horror. They treat each other as harshly as they treat you. Don’t be surprised that as you trundle down a straight away trying to push your car to the penultimate position you notice a three car pile up that has nothing to do with players on the sidelines.

Of course, learning the tracks is important to. And the tracks are divided into race types. You have your international league tracks where you don’t get to choose your car. One on one race's where classic battles occur. Like Camaro versus Challenger. And time trials and drifting. Just to name a few.

And if you thought that getting experience in races was the only thing needed to progress, then you were wrong. In order to open up certain races and cars in career you have to obtain stars. And each career race has a set number of stars you can gain. If you fail to grab all the stars from a race you can always go back and try again

There’s Reasons We Want You to Invite Your Friends

The biggest change to online play is probably how it feeds back into your career. Much like career has always allowed for specific cars and tracks to be played online. Now online gains you money and experience that you can use in career. Also returned is the private room.

No longer are you stuck allowing anyone into your race. You can create a private room, invite your friends and play amongst yourselves. Or open up the room after to the public so that the track gets fleshed out. And to restrict which users you end up with you have a variety of options. You can select the time of day, track, number of laps (short, medium, and long), and how powerful the cars are allowed to be. This flows into the entire discussion we had earlier about how cars are not based on tiers when compared to each other.

And if you’re only playing quick race you can also determine things like what type of race you’re playing and how many AI cars are allowed on to the track. To be honest I encountered the first time in my life when I saw a point to quick racing ever since the split screen aspect had been removed. Which remains removed since apparently it was found that not enough people were actually using it when it was reinstated in ProStreet.

And the final challenge in Shift is Duel. A king of the hill, battle royale, scenario where each player is matched against another player of the same rank who is currently playing online. The winner of the race, a three chance race, gets to move up a slot in rankings until they are the top of the hill. The loser falls all the way to the bottom to restart their climb to the top. And you’re still rewarded with experience and money.

The Podium Is Where You Get…Wet

And for the sign off there’s a few little things I’d like to note. The trigger buttons actually act as analog buttons and begin to make sense. The game was designed and intended to be a native 64bit system which was programmed to receive updates along the lines of new cars and tracks. And finally, there is no one dominator car. We no longer have to look at CCX’s at the top of the leader board and lament how our favorite car will never be there, at least your favorite car. My favorites seem to have repeatedly ended up at the bottom of every race I ran, which was the exact opposite of where my opinion ended up.

I was blown away. By the shear, brutal honesty of what this game was. EA may claim that it’s all about the ‘Driver’s Experience’. It may say that it’s all about fun and revamping the series. But to me, this is the greatest simulator created. It doesn’t have the cars and tracks that Gran Turismo or Forza has. But then a simulator isn’t about the number of cars. It’s about how realistic the game appears to be. Note the ‘appears’. And this game has regained the visceral, urgent desire for speed. It makes you slide into the sand trap without giving you a feel that you’ll never catch up and you might as well start over. It makes you want to be number one. But also makes you understand that being number one is well nigh impossible.

And finally, it proved that yes. I do need to crush the throttle pedal when driving my Ford GT. Lest I end up scratching my paint job on the barriers. And so the question isn’t should you by this game. The question is why you bought that other one instead of Shift.

Shift's Soundtrack ... And Why MTV Killed It

So here I am again writing my weekly little blurb that has something to do with Shift. I've promised my self four weeks of these crazy things until I either decide to give it up or go back to reporting news. Come to think of it? Has anyone heard the latest news about the Camaro? *starts laughing incessantly and falls over*

Ahem.

So I'm going to talk about the music.

Now I read in an article about a month or so ago about the guy who handles the EA trax and how he goes about it. He sounds like a great catch on paper. Worked for MTV when it was still popular. Gets lots of submissions that generally are good enough to offer one or two songs per game that people are likely to enjoy. Unless they like country of course. But the great aspects of this guy, whose name I can't recall, are the same reasons that EA shouldn't have hired him.

First, he's ancient! And in the music scene that's important. Being a dirty old man is great and all. But do we really want him choosing music from new bands for video games? Is he really going to continue understanding the insanity that is teenage-hood? Where most good music is initially scripted? No! Because he's a dirty old man! He's a rocker who remembers what Iggy Pop was like and why David Bowie will always be remembered as Freddy Mercury's best friend. Although I'm not really sure about whether that last one was ever true.

And this is why MTV failed. It was run by a bunch of record execs that understood what music was but not what music currently is. MuchMusic overtook them because it made it habit to switch out it's VJs, as they were called, and had the VJs choosing the new bands.

And we're seeing this happen again.

With Underground 2 we had some really good songs. Killing Joke's Death & Resurrection Show, Spiderbait's Black Betty. and others. Most Wanted had good one hit wonders from bands that we promptly forgot. Carbon was pretty much the same. But as time progressed and we got more games the number of songs that we were able to swallow got smaller. Sure, some of us, hell most of us thought the songs were great. But MTV had a horrible time holding my attention and I'm giving my opinion, not yours.

So with eager anticipation I awaited Shift and got a fistful of eager sounds that make me flop about on the floor like a fish gasping for it's last drink of water. There's one song that I like. And it's not something that I'd listen to in the car while daydreaming that I'm in a Bubblegum race. Ghosts n Stuff is the only redeemable song in the bunch and frankly a large chunk of that redemption is at the end when the artist is carrying on about what a real electronica disc jockey is all about. It's pretty funny. But the rest?

It's all MTV. A dead, dying, sterile breed of excrement that just doesn't encapsulate the quality that the public deserves or the emotion that our youth are so capable of crooning about. And to top it off. There's no music when we're racing. I checked! And it ain't there! Sure, this is good for those people who want a completely authentic racing experience. But those are the same people who think that creating illusions in a simulation is tantamount to murdering little kittens. It's shameful!

Fast paced music drives me. It increases my heart rate and screams at my adrenaline glands to start increasing production. There's some clients out there and they want excitement! And what does this guy give us? A bunch of music that we can barely hear in the menus that is left strictly to the menus.

Now I think Shift's a great game. But if they were only going to put music into the menus then why in the world did they even bother to spend the time and resources to pick these songs out? What did they pay this guy and how does it calculate per game? 'Cause I want that money back. Not only did we get half of a moody soundtrack but we got it from a guy who apparently learned what makes popular music at the feet of the MTV bad taste masters, and who gave us a horrible selection simply to prove it.

Before we get a game from Criterion I ask, I'd say humbly but let's face it when have I been humble? Can we please have a worthwhile soundtrack? One full of angst, anger, and excitement. One that pounds the drums in multi-facet tones, crackling like a Ferrari engine. That allows us to hear the bass warble in it's deep, large bore V8 way. That makes guitars scream in distinguished, inline cries. We want real songs. Written by real people and not some favored DJ. Songs like Death & Resurrection Show and Black Betty. We want an entire twenty-one gun salute! Because for those about to rock, we salute you!

Is Shift A Simulator?

I view it thus...

First off, Shift is a fun game for PC. But as a cold, hard simulator it loses against iRacing. The only games that really come close to it are for console. So let's examine that.

Shift is as much a simulator as Forza or Gran Turismo. But it approaches it from a different angle. Forza and Gran Turismo attack simulation by physics alone. They then load on alot of cars and tracks.
Shift dumps the large number of cars and has 50% of the tracks of Gran Turismo 5 but attempts to emulate what a person experiences when racing. And I think they pulled it off rather well.

After all, I don't just hear an engine I feel it through the body and my chair. My ability to see movement and clarity is much better than a console can describe. The forces acting on my body when driving a 600 HP car that weighs a ton and a half will never be reproducible in a simulation game. But there are some things you can exaggerate to overcome the loss of other things.

The blurring on the edges of the screen over exaggerate our focusing on things distant. But that over exaggeration is intended to increase our reaction as if we were being pushed into our chairs. The screen goes black when we get into an accident and the fact is that when you crash in real life you do the same thing. Not because you closed your eyes, although you might. But because the body just seems to do such a thing. It's like blinking when you fire a gun. We all say we wouldn't but none the less 99% of the people here would. I know I would. And did anyone stop to notice that this greyscale vision increases as the race goes on? An attempt to emulate a flagging constitution is quite obvious. And I think the game does it well.

Now I know alot of people have said that they know what it's like to be in a fast car. To go at a ridiculous speed of 120mph or 150mph. Of how they've raced in real life and done track days. (And if they're in Britain they probably have.) But the fact is that those track days and that high speed involved pushing a 3,500 lbs. hunk of metal with 400 HP. The result isn't nearly as spectacular as pushing a 600 lbs. rocket that has twice that in power. Primarily because the latter has more than twenty times the effect. Even with a Zonda R, Bugatti Veyron 16.4, or an Aston Martin One-77 you'll not get the same effects. It's one of those strange things about our world that things just don't tend to happen in a linear fashion.

Which really is just a good segway into alot of people complaining about the cars sliding all over the place when you try to turn. Let's get serious. The first thing an ECU reflash does is reprogram the fuel. And that gives you alot more low end power. And low end power makes your tires spin. And we all know what happens when your tires spin. First you get lots of squeal. And then you get lots of oversteer. It's all very exciting the first time you go through it. A good example of this is the latest Viper. Every article you read from someone who doesn't deal with Vipers on a daily basis will tell you that the tires spin until you hit that very tall third gear. And that's 600 horses in a car that weighs 3,000 lbs. The fact is that most cars now a days have more power than they really need. If it wasn't for your beloved traction control you'd be spinning your tires all the time. You don't notice it but that's because your tires pump at more than 10 hz. Or ten pumps a second. ABS doesn't work at that speed but traction control does. Not to mention that traction control drains alot of the horses out of your wagon.

So the result we experience when we decide that we can handle a car set to Normal with light (if any) ABS, no traction control, and no stability control is a horrid mess. Because frankly, our previously noted 400 HP, 3,500 lbs. behemoth has strong stability control, traction control, and ABS.

But none of us really care about all this do we? We want to know why the vinyls suck. And there's a really good reason for it. Because EA only has so much money. It turns out that the video game industry isn't doing to well. Not because of the recession but because of how games are built. We're asking for way too much from these companies. And Shift is one of these examples.

We got a game that simulates what it's like to drive a one ton, 500HP beast. We got the Driver's Experience. And that took time and money. After all, EA hit a wall last year and needed to take a chance. It needed to redefine itself. Like it did with Underground. And it did. Did we lose the great vinyl control and selection? Yes. But we got a level of immersion that's unrivaled. That has never been experienced in anything than the real world.

So is Shift a simulator? Yes. But not because it competes directly with Forza or Gran Turismo. And why would it? Attacking a sub-genre dominated by two games that are incapable of competing against each other and each of which have monopolies would be purely stupid. It does it by making us believe. It's the horror film among the documentaries. Where some git that none of us have ever heard of tell us about the Black Dahlia in a cold and analytical voice. Shift shocks us, surprises us, and attempts to talk to our inner child like Sam Rami when he gave us Evil Dead II. And if I have to give up what's come before. Take a chance and wade through a bunch of fixes that might come a month or quarter from now to experience the Evil Dead II. Then I will. Because I just can't relate to that documentary after wards as well.

Torques real name is Brian if i remember correctly. Well written review...

Poul

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 11/22/2009 23:52:44

Top Ten Things I Wish I Had Brought With Me When Fleeing Icarus In Stargate : Universe.

1. How To Win Friends and Influence People (let's face it, this one was obvious)
2. The rewind function of Forza 3. (in case we accidentally blow up the ship, we can just rewind to a point where everything was okay)
3. Dr. Strangelove (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb) (Mein Fuhrer! I can walk!)
4. Nicotrol Inhaler (because the only thing worse than quitting smoking is quitting Nicotrol)
5. Disposable Ensign (okay, I'm not Captain Kirk, but you'll wish you'd have brought one too when that guy who used to be in the Marines decides to go crazy and kill everyone)
6. Dennis Todd (the only thing better than a disposable ensign is your own personal force of darkness, plus the entire "Be my victim" thing never gets old)
7. A stick of gum (I heard somewhere that a stick of gum can open doors, and I'm betting there'll be alot of doors)
8. Revolving door of loose moral women (because loose moral women have needs to)
9. Quik-E Mart, complete with Indian stereotype (what??? like you haven't figured out by now that this list is far from realistic!)
10. Kitchen Sink (you'll laugh really hard when you figure this one out)

New photos of my Aston Martin DB9.

And photos of my Lexus LF-A.

Need for Speed Racing Games

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