Need For Speed

oddment

The last NFS game I owned was Hot Pursuit 2 for the PS2, and I thoroughly enjoyed that game. However, I traded it in (stupid, I know), and though I still have a PS2 to enjoy games such as Ico, Shadow Of The Collosus and the Shin Megami Tensei games, I mostly play my 360. Therefore, I wanted to know how good the two NFS games are on that platform.

I've played demo's of both... though I wasn't sure what to make of Carbon. Most Wanted seemed cool, and kind of like HP2. What do you guys think of these games? Which is the best? Does MW just have tuner cars like the Underground series, or does it have some super cars like HP2 did?

Also, MW is quite cheap now... can be found new for £16 for the 360, while Carbon is still abour £40. Would MW be worth the £16, and is Carbon worth full price?

Also, just use this topic as a general discussion area for the NFS games in general! Did anyone like the PS2 version of HP2 as much as I did?

LewieP

£11.70 delivered

apply code "MAD2007" for 10% off.

Lucky Cynic

Ya' know, I was jsut about to make a thread asking about Carbon. The last one I played was NFS Underground on the PS2. I was actually thinking on getting it for the PC and playing it with a 360 controller, (since my brother decided to take the 360, ps3, and wii when he moved out, no biggie though) but how is the game? And would it be worth getting for the computer?

Icemopper

Hot Pursuit was fantastic because it gave you extremely fast cars and extremely awesome tracks. I played that game way past death. It was just too good.

Pojaco

NFS Underground 2 was a fantastic game, NFS Carbon was a pooplicious game. Couldn't even bring myself to play past the 30 minute mark on Carbon.

oddment

LewieP wrote:

£11.70 delivered

apply code "MAD2007" for 10% off.

Awesome! Thanks for that. But even so... is it worth £12? Hehe.

oddment

Damn... I thought I may as well give it a go, but the code for Choices has expired. Still... £12.99 is not bad. But again... is it really worth it? Will I get a good amount of play out of it? Does it have awesome cars like HP2 did? And also... is there any form of Live play?

LewieP

oddment wrote:

Damn... I thought I may as well give it a go, but the code for Choices has expired. Still... £12.99 is not bad. But again... is it really worth it? Will I get a good amount of play out of it? Does it have awesome cars like HP2 did? And also... is there any form of Live play?

sorry bout that, try this one

TECH0107

oddment

Okay, so I played pusuit mode in the demo, and it sold me, lol. I should have the game next week, thanks LewieP!

LewieP

oddment wrote:

Okay, so I played pusuit mode in the demo, and it sold me, lol. I should have the game next week, thanks LewieP!

No worries m8. Enjoy!

lucidique

Most Wanted is much more like Hot Pursuit 2 than carbon.

For one, Most Wanted is very fast paced, cops go after you, and it gets intense. After getting busted a few times you loose your current car, wich makes the whole thing even more tense.

Most Wanted plays like "Bounty Hunting" in the fact that you must clear your rivals out of the water by meeting certain conditions, and then racing them.

Carbon is more of the same, except it's much slower. You still have all the crazy pursuit stuff, but , the tracks are shorter, and usually revolves around big or sharp turns.

Carbon works like a game of Risk. Each race won gives you control over a territory. Those teritories give you access to shops, garages,etc etc. When you own a complete "Continent" or part of the city, in other words, you race a boss.


I say go with most wanted. It's honestly the most fun Need for speed can get.

Lothars

Pojaco wrote:

NFS Underground 2 was a fantastic game, NFS Carbon was a pooplicious game. Couldn't even bring myself to play past the 30 minute mark on Carbon.

Crazy, I really liked Carbon, it is a great game especially the Canyon battles, but all in all I enjoyed Carbon, it was easily as good as Underground 1 and 2.

stigweard

Pojaco wrote:

NFS Underground 2 was a fantastic game, NFS Carbon was a pooplicious game. Couldn't even bring myself to play past the 30 minute mark on Carbon.

You mean you stopped at the last race?

It was short, embarrassingly short. U2 was the best of the last three, but it was missing police chases. The style of street racing was the best by far, find a car, flash your lights and the rest was dynamic. MW everything was in set races and only the police chases could be dynamic, and even they had forced levels which were kind of fun but otherwise a nuisance as far as completing the game. Carbon kept the formula of MW (it is a sequel after all) and brought back the side races, but they botched them completely. You have to pick a spot on the map and race there and it didn't have a good flow to it at all.

If you happen to have a G25 racing wheel, Carbon supports the H shifter and 900 degree steering, but the engine was truly designed for a gamepad so drifting and other techniques end up just being too hard with the wheel.

Lucky Cynic

Okay, if I were to get one game for the PC, counting in awesome graphics, stability of the game (meaning it doesn't jsut crash), cost, replayability factor, and maybe even on-line play, which one should I get?

NFS Underground
NFS Underground 2
NFS Most Wanted
NFS Carbon

Eight Rooks

Most Wanted is easily the best out of those. You could safely skip Carbon altogether - it's far, far, far too easy, shoddily put together and drops too much of what was great about MW. There's no challenge to any of it other than the final boss race (which I still can't do <_< ), the look is back to nighttime bling-bling, the customisation isn't really worth it (the autosculpt system doesn't make things that individual), the soundtrack is all screwed up (if you stick to the story you'll almost never hear the songs) and the police are almost entirely gone (again, unless you specifically go looking for them).

Lucky Cynic

Eight Rooks wrote:

Most Wanted is easily the best out of those. You could safely skip Carbon altogether - it's far, far, far too easy, shoddily put together and drops too much of what was great about MW. There's no challenge to any of it other than the final boss race (which I still can't do <_< ), the look is back to nighttime bling-bling, the customisation isn't really worth it (the autosculpt system doesn't make things that individual), the soundtrack is all screwed up (if you stick to the story you'll almost never hear the songs) and the police are almost entirely gone (again, unless you specifically go looking for them).

Your talking about Carbon, right?

I should also ask how these games play with a mouse and keyboard? Would the 360 controller pretty much be necesary?

Eight Rooks

Darkest_3|i+3 wrote:

Eight Rooks wrote:

Most Wanted is easily the best out of those. You could safely skip Carbon altogether - it's far, far, far too easy, shoddily put together and drops too much of what was great about MW. There's no challenge to any of it other than the final boss race (which I still can't do <_< ), the look is back to nighttime bling-bling, the customisation isn't really worth it (the autosculpt system doesn't make things that individual), the soundtrack is all screwed up (if you stick to the story you'll almost never hear the songs) and the police are almost entirely gone (again, unless you specifically go looking for them).

Your talking about Carbon, right?

I should also ask how these games play with a mouse and keyboard? Would the 360 controller pretty much be necesary?

I am talking about Carbon, yes. Most Wanted isn't the hardest game in the world - I did give up on it, but only because I got annoyed with the time it took to drive up bounty levels, do the required challenges etc. I should really go back to it some time... still, it's a lot more challenging than Carbon. The only genuinely good gameplay feature about Carbon is the canyon racing, which is the closest I've seen a Western developer come to the spirit of Initial D. They're a blatant Tokyo Highway Battle ripoff, but a pretty good one, and if they'd built a game around that I'd still be playing it right now.

EDIT: Can't comment on K&M, sorry. I've only got them on PS2. I did have Underground 1 & 2 on PC, but I used a PS2 -> USB connector... I think a gamepad would be pretty much essential.

stigweard

You would have a much easier time with the 360 controller compared to the keyboard, provided yours isn't like mine and is over sensitive and doesn't reset to 0,0 when you let go of the analogues.

HyperAquaBlast

Most Wanted is probably the best of the Need for Speed games. Awesome gameplay and art style plus cool little FMVs. Plus it has the hottest of all the NFS girls.

citizen059

Most Wanted was fun, but for me the main series of games peaked with NFS: Porsche Unleashed. None of the other games since have been quite as much fun.

HP2 had its good moments, especially online.

NFSU was tolerable single player, multiplayer was full of "teh haX0rz" and the lobby system was a joke.

NFSU2 had a better single player mode, NFS:MW I thought improved on it. I didn't even bother with multiplayer for either, as the NFS online community took a major nosedive in NFSU, in my opinion of course.

Haven't played Carbon yet. I borrowed a copy from a friend and have it installed, just haven't tried it.

I'm honestly not too big on the NFS series anymore. I've played it from the very first game, so with the initial focus being on exotic supercars, seeing it turn to the lame "import tuner" crowd is just a disappointment that's hard for me to get past.

For my money, Motor City Online was probably the best NFS game of them all, even though it wasn't titled as one. It was originally titled NFS: Motor City, and I think scheduled to be a regular NFS game...but late in development they decided to make it an MMO and drop the NFS name.

Lots of bugs in the game, but so many fond memories from the time I spent playing it.

Toast

Pah.


Need for Speed 2 was awesome... And one of the few racing games where you genuinely feel like you're going too fast. Got the same vibe from NFS3, particularly the downhill tunnel on the mountain track - just not quite enough grip for the speeds you end up doing.

SanderJK

Friend bought Carbon on the PS2, it was fun enough to finish it once between the two of us, though with the following notes:
1) The first part of the game is way too easy, the second part (especially the last quart) you at least have to concentrate to win (The last race was very hard though, since we made bad choices carwise).
2) The story is stupid and annoying beyond belief. Skip it or risk braindamage.
3) It froze on us at times (PS2), losing progress a few times.
4) The game is long. The story mode alone consists of a 100 or so races, and then there are about 3x15 challenges to unlock further stuff, the gold of which are very hard.
5) Cops are not an issue at all, when they appear (not often).

Still had fun playing it though.

citizen059

Toast wrote:

Pah.


Need for Speed 2 was awesome... And one of the few racing games where you genuinely feel like you're going too fast. Got the same vibe from NFS3, particularly the downhill tunnel on the mountain track - just not quite enough grip for the speeds you end up doing.

I still have NFS2:SE. On my last PC I used qemu and my old copy of Win98 to run some of my old games, this one included.

My brother and I had a lot of fun with that game. It was one of the few games we could play together, our choices in genre were so different.

oddment

One thing I've noticed whilst playing NFS:MW demo is how HEAVY the cars are! Its a bit of a challenge to steer properly, but I'm sure thats something I'll get used to. Do the more beefed up/faster cars handle any better? Also, the sense of speed didn't seem too great, or was that just because I was limited to slow cars in the demo?

devolve

When playing most wanted, the sole reason to beat the boss drivers was to get to the next levels of pursuit heat. I enjoyed the police pursuits more than anything else, and would spend countless hours just in chases.


When I heard that carbon had LESS police chasing, I didn't even bother giving it a first glance.

Hardtarget

I playtested both for many many months at EA

without a dought Most Wanted > Carbon if you are only going to get one.

oddment

Its late and my minds not working right (the downstairs neighbours r playing loud music still and its like 3am! Am I just getting old?), but is that MW is better than Carbon? lol