[Review] Need for Speed

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Need for Speed (NFS) is a racing video game franchise published by Electronic Arts and currently developed by Ghost Games. The series focuses on illegal street racing and, in general, gives players the role of completing various types of races, violating local law in police chases on more than one occasion. The series released its first title, The Need for Speed in 1994. The title comes from a famous quote from the 1986 film Top Gun. From Need for Speed: High Stakes, the series has also integrated the customization of vehicles in the game.

Need for Speed has been praised for its exciting police chases and is the world's most successful racing video game series. It is also one of the most successful video game franchises of all time, selling more than 150 million copies of games in the series to date. Due to its sales, the franchise itself has also expanded to other forms of media, including a film adaptation1 made by DreamWorks and licensed toys of Hot Wheels ™ .2

The series itself has been supervised and had games developed by several notable teams over the years, including EA Black Box and Criterion Games, the creators of the Burnout franchise.3 However, in August 2013, following the reduction of Criterion Games, it was announced that Swedish developer Ghost Games would gain full control of the Need for Speed franchise and oversee all future development of the main series.4 At that time, 80% of Ghost Games members were employees of Criterion Games

Playability

Almost all NFS series games use the same similar fundamental and mechanical rules: the player controls a race car in a variety of races, with the aim of winning the race. In tournament / race mode, the player must win a series of races to unlock vehicles and tracks. Before each race, the player chooses a vehicle, and has the option of selecting whether the transmission is automatic or manual. All games in the series have some form of multiplayer mode that allows players to compete with each other through a split screen, a LAN or Internet .. Although the games share the same name, their tone and focus can vary significantly.

For example, in some games cars can suffer mechanical and visual damage, while in other games cars cannot be damaged at all; In some games the software simulates the behavior of the real car (physics), while in others there is more lenient physics. With the launch of Need for Speed: Underground, the series went from competing in a sports car on scenic tracks from one end to the other, to an import / modification subculture, and street racing in an urban environment. To date, this theme has remained frequent in most of the following games.

Need for Speed: Shift and its sequel (Shift 2: Unleashed) took a racing simulator approach, with closed-circuit races on real tracks like Nürburgring and Laguna Seca, and fictional street circuits in cities like London and Chicago. The car lists include a combination of exotic, sports and imported cars, in addition to special racing cars. Most franchise games include police activities in some form or another. In some of the games with the police chase, the player can play as the criminal or the police. 5 The concepts of skidding and dragging were introduced in Need for Speed: Underground. These new mechanics are included in the tournament / race mode, apart from regular street races. In skid races, the player must defeat other runners for the total of most points, winning by the length and duration of the skid made by the player's vehicle. In drag races, the player must finish first to win the race, although if the player collides with an obstacle, the race ends. The concept of tuning cars evolved with each new game, from focusing primarily on car mechanics to including how the car looks.

Each game has car customization mechanics that can set options such as ABS, traction control, or downward thrust force, or to upgrade parts such as the engine or gearbox. The visual tuning of the player's car becomes important in the tournament / race mode after the launch of Need for Speed: Underground 2, when the appearance is rated from zero to ten points. When a car reaches a high enough visual rating, the vehicle is eligible to be on the cover of a fiction magazine.

Like all racing games, the Need for Speed series features a list of cars, modeled and named after real cars. Cars in the franchise are divided into four categories: exotic cars, muscle cars, imported and special vehicles. Exotic cars offer exclusive high-performance cars, such as the Lamborghini Murciélago, the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, the Chevrolet Corvette and the Ford GT; Muscle cars refers to American cars such as the Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger and the Chevrolet Camaro; While Japanese imported cars are like the Nissan Skyline and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. Special vehicles are civil and police vehicles that are available for use in some games, such as the Ford Crown Victoria in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and garbage trucks, fire trucks and taxis in Need for Speed: Carbon. Originally the series took place on international stages, such as race tracks in Australia, Europe and Africa. Since Underground, the series has taken place in fictitious metropolitan cities. The first game offered traffic in "head-to-head" mode, while subsequent game traffic can be turned on and off, and in Underground, traffic is a fixed obstacle. Most recent Need for Speed games are set in fictional places in our world, in different periods of time. These include, but are not limited to, Olimpic City, Bayview, Rockport, Palmont, Seacrest County, the city of Fairhaven and Ventura Bay.