For a long time now I haven't really been a NFS fan. I've only ever played six NFS games in my life; Underground and Underground 2, Carbon, Shift and Shift 2, Most Wanted 2012 and Rivals. Below are my opinions on the six games I have played.
Underground: There was no open world at all in this game, and Olympic City is always set at nighttime. I also found the rubberbanding AI, drag racing and traffic frustrating.
Underground 2: A vast improvement over the original game, including an open world to explore, more customization and more cars; muscle cars and SUVs are included. I didn't have much of a problem with rubberbanding AI in this game but drag racing and the traffic were still a pain, special events and outrun mode were a newly added annoyance for me. Like Olympic City, the sun never rises in Bayview.
Carbon: I have heard of Most Wanted coming before Carbon, but I didn't know Carbon was the sequel. It was pretty boring to play and there was no daylight in this game either. I didn't really experience much of the career because I quit after I got busted for the first time and learned that I would have to start the game over if I ran out of cars and couldn't buy them back off the Palmont PD. I also had a strange problem where the game just disappeared after an hour of gameplay.
Shift: This was a good game, I liked the whole down and dirty racing aspect to Shift compared to Gran Turismo where you looked at shiny Ferraris while listening to lounge music. The graphics also kept the game exciting for periods of time. Speaking of Ferraris, the Ferrari pack only came as a DLC for Xbox 360 dammit!
Shift 2: As with Shift, Shift 2 was a good game although it seems as if this game didn't last long as only two DLC packs were released. I wished there was character customization, especially when I am trying to make a race car out of a Shelby Mustang and the game thinks I'm in the 20th century and makes me wear and old racing suit. And Xbox exclusive Ferraris just weren't enough for EA, they then decided, screw this and leave Ferraris out of Shift 2 completely, with only dedicated modders to later add them as a mod.
Most Wanted 2012: I understand Most Wanted is all about becoming a heavily wanted street racer for the craic, but more pressure from the cops just makes things more difficult for me. I tried to enjoy the exotics and drive around Fairhaven but I got chased around by SUVs and muscle cars and got arrested. After being busted three times, I got fed up with this game and uninstalled it.
Rivals: I don't find fighting with the law fun in any way, but what I did appreciate was the ability to return to hideout even if the entire police force was just outside the door, this allowed me to change tactics and make 2 million speedpoints in one session just by driving in circles near the repair shop below a highway and cash in at the hideout when I'm done. I wished the racer and cop factions used the same cars and the cops had more stuff to buy, since the police cars and the license plates are free and you can't customize your cop's look at all.
You are welcome to express your own views here if you want.
My views on the Need For Speed series
-
BUGATTIMAN253MPH
- MM2X Very Active User
- Posts: 1296
- Registered for: 13 years 1 month
- Location: Ireland
- Contact:
My views on the Need For Speed series
Best Midtown Madness 2 car converter of the year
Best Midtown Madness 2 car converter of the year
Author of the best Midtown Madness 2 car add-on of the year
Best active member Midtown Madness 1 screenshot-er
Best active member avatar
Best Midtown Madness 2 breakout of the year
Funniest active member
-
KingAndy
- MM2X Very Active User
- Posts: 1114
- Registered for: 10 years 8 months
- Location: Lisbon, Portugal
- Been thanked: 1 time
- Contact:
World: One of the games I played the most. A very promissing game where I had lots of fun on, but EA's lack of investment on new content and the inexistance of anti cheat/ ban measures against cheaters and script users made it loose a lot of popularity (even more since EA made a huge ban wave once against legit players that purchased multiple 2 cars that once became free after a patch, being devs fault. They then said people were abusing a glitch but people got pissed since they acted in no time but didn't do the same against the cheaters 
).
Most Wanted 2012: For me a very disapointing game. The mechanism of no money and the player not actually owning any car is quite intresting and innovative for a Need for Speed game, as the player needs to explore the map for new cars. There's the flip of the coin though, being very hard to compare stats and because there's no car customization at all besides some pseudo-performance improvements and the randomly chosen liveries that change every time the car goes trough a stop shop. There's no story (or at least something deserving such name, but since if there was, it would be the story of the young guy that thouht to be a great driver and came to a place he never went before and the local gang shows him he sucks and he has to race against them; so I think I'll forgive the inexistance of a story over the same crappy story), the AI feels irrealistic and changes over the performance of the player, the police chases are super boring and after a race that triggered it I simply let to be arrested - there's no penalty for doing such thing, after all - and, in the case of the PC, it feels like a cheap console port with badly addapted controls and 0% mouse compatibility.
Once again I'm just saying bad things about this game, so here's the good thing: for me, the graphics. The design team guys were the only ones making their job right on this game, it does look very good.
).Most Wanted 2012: For me a very disapointing game. The mechanism of no money and the player not actually owning any car is quite intresting and innovative for a Need for Speed game, as the player needs to explore the map for new cars. There's the flip of the coin though, being very hard to compare stats and because there's no car customization at all besides some pseudo-performance improvements and the randomly chosen liveries that change every time the car goes trough a stop shop. There's no story (or at least something deserving such name, but since if there was, it would be the story of the young guy that thouht to be a great driver and came to a place he never went before and the local gang shows him he sucks and he has to race against them; so I think I'll forgive the inexistance of a story over the same crappy story), the AI feels irrealistic and changes over the performance of the player, the police chases are super boring and after a race that triggered it I simply let to be arrested - there's no penalty for doing such thing, after all - and, in the case of the PC, it feels like a cheap console port with badly addapted controls and 0% mouse compatibility.
Once again I'm just saying bad things about this game, so here's the good thing: for me, the graphics. The design team guys were the only ones making their job right on this game, it does look very good.
Best active member avatar
Best active member MM1 screenshot-er
Friendliest active member
Most helpful active member
Best MM2 car converter of the year
Best MM2 innovation of the year
Author of the best MM2 mod of the year
Best active user's self amatory site
I like the first NFS1 most because it's less arcade-ish. EA noticed that simple, less realistic racing game would sell better so next ones were like that. I loved NFS2 as a kid but now I see that it wasn't greatest Next ones were fine for me, they were made in good quality etc. Maybe except Undercover which had strange difficulty level (you were getting a crappy Nissan as starter car but it was faster than many newer opponent cars) I havent played too much the NFS games released after 2010 so I cannot judge them.
Next ones were fine for me, they were made in good quality etc. Maybe except Undercover which had strange difficulty level (you were getting a crappy Nissan as starter car but it was faster than many newer opponent cars) I havent played too much the NFS games released after 2010 so I cannot judge them.