Cygon’s Blog

I have played the Need for Speed Series since Need for Speed 2 came out. I was able to drive “El Nino” very close to the lap times the Mercedes CLK achieved in the hands of a good driver in Need for Speed 3. I could beat Empire City on highest difficulty and navigate through the dangerous shortcuts in Need for Speed 4. I finished the test driver challenges in Need for Speed 5. I could outrun the McLaren F1 using a Lamborghini Murcielago (I love this car!) in LAN play in Need for Speed 6.

I stopped playing Need for Speed Underground and never saw the ending movie. Instead of impersonating a rich guy challenging other supercar owners, I was meant to be some brainless teenager pushing his rolling prisma-colored junkyard over the finish line. Not my cup of tea. Plus it was frustrating. You often lost just because of bad luck when traffic appeared on your lane directly behind a corner.

I liked Need for Speed Underground 2 good enough again to play it through. There weren’t any supercars and you still had to play some teenage dumbass (supposedly the same jerk that somehow survived Underground 1, how, nobody knows), but at least you weren’t forced to plaster your car with ugly “vinyls” and other crap. The series still had this goddamn rap jabbering everywhere, but this time, I had discovered some mp3 converter which allowed my to put my metal collection in the game

Need for Speed Most Wanted was a turn to the better for me. Finally, daylight returned to the series and I could drive my beloved Lamborghini Murcielago again. Driving physics were arcade style but still allowed you to to some cool moves, the random traffic seemed more ‘fair’ (eg. less cars at higher speeds and I almost believe that special care was taken not to place traffic on my lane behind corners). In overall, a great game.

Now we’ve got Need for Speed Carbon. It feels like a console backport. If you ask me, the graphics have gotten worse since Most Wanted, but still it runs slower. This game is also permanently crashing me back to the desktop. I finished one third of the city on Windows Vista, then the game crashed in any race I chose just before I reached the finish line.

I deleted the game, sometime later did a fresh install of Windows XP, installed the game again, played through about one third of the city, and… it almost always crashes, no matter which race I choose, just before I can cross the finish line. So there we are, daylight has gone again, you’re supposed to team up with some ego-less jerks (at least in the beginning), rap gibberish follows your every step an everything looks less detailed.

If this opinion on the Need for Speed Series sounds rather negative, it’s only because I am so frustrated about the direction the developers took after they finished Need for Speed 6. Probably the next generation of players is happy with the changes. Time for me to go search another racing game series. Any recommendations?