Do you want to feel really old for once? No problem: The first part of the legendary Need for Speed series was released 30 years ago. Launched in 1994 on Panasonic’s unsuccessful 3DO console as Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed, the racing game series from Electronic Arts would not storm into the game charts until 1995 with the PC version and 1996 with the PlayStation version.
Since then, Need for Speed has become an integral part of the gaming market, even though it has lost its track of success more than once over the decades and had to be put on hold.
A small note on our own behalf: Due to the sheer volume of Need for Speed games, we are concentrating on the major PC and console versions in this article. There are of course handheld ports like Underground Rivals for the PSP, but we are leaving these out for reasons of space.
Quelle: Moby Games
The Need for Speed
The beginnings: The Need for Speed to Porsche
The Need for Speed was the epitome of “car porn” at the time. On powerful PCs, Electronic Arts Racer delivered sleek SVGA graphics with 640 x 480 pixels, a high feeling of speed, crisp FMV sequences and eight sports cars such as the Lamborghini Diablo VT. PC Games editor Christian Bigge was also impressed by the power of the images in the test and even used the term “photo-real”.
The police chases and the duel mode, which enabled two-player races via null modem, were particularly praised. Bigge gave it an overall rating of 85 points and wrote: “Sure, the graphics are the best we’ve seen in this genre so far. (…) But for an absolute top hit, the controls should have been a little more direct and accessible.”
The criticism of the controls is hardly surprising. The Need for Speed was not a pure arcade racer, but rather borrowed from simulations. Need for Speed 2, released in 1997, on the other hand, moved away noticeably from this. The pace was drastically increased, which made the second part feel more like its competitor Bleifuss (1995) and less like Need for Speed.
Despite the usual strong presentation, the successor failed in many places. In some cases, the ratings even fell below the then magical 70 mark.
However, with Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit, which was released just one year later, Electronic Arts hit the jackpot. The chases were cleverly enhanced and the role of the virtual police officers was thus increased. They were now able to stop the speeders with spike strips or roadblocks.
Source: Moby Games Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit This gave the races more intensity. For the first time, we could also slip into the role of the law enforcement officers ourselves and hunt down our friends in PC multiplayer. The third part combined the gameplay and presentation of its predecessors and became the best part of the series so far.
Need for Speed: High Stakes, released just one year later, was originally planned as a special edition of the third part, but was inflated into a full-price game.
The main innovation, in addition to a damage model and new options for the cops, was a career mode. Need for Speed: Burning Asphalt achieved a whopping 84 percent in the PC Games test, narrowly missing out on being a hit.
While the third and fourth parts were heavily focused on action and presentation, Need for Speed: Porsche (or Porsche Unleashed), released in 2000, was intended to make simulation fans happy. With the traditional license in the trunk, Porsche became a crowd favorite – despite the reduced damage model.
Co-developed by Eden Games, the makers of V-Rally, Porsche showed that the Need for Speed brand can also operate on multiple tracks. For the first time, the series cracked the 90s hurdle in the PC Games test. Quote from editor Florian Stangl: “The Porsche racer easily beats its competitors with its perfect design and impresses with the different driving experience, which depends heavily on the car being driven.”
The Black Box Era: Underground, Most Wanted and Co.
If anyone is wondering why Need for Speed didn’t come out in 2001, there was the online racer Motor City Online back then. Originally intended as a spin-off of Need for Speed, EA released the game as a new license. However, the title flopped, so the servers were shut down in August 2003.
With the release of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (2002), Electronic Arts left the simulation path. Development was taken over by the EA Black Box studio, founded in 1998, which would oversee the series in the years to come. They returned to the tried and tested formula of chases and exotic cars.
At least EA Black Box gave Hot Pursuit 2 two campaigns and a new graphics engine. However, this left a mixed impression: on the one hand, it provided nice weather effects, but on the other hand, it also provided some less attractive environmental details. A cockpit perspective and night races were also missing.
The latter was to be found in abundance in Need for Speed: Underground (2003). EA Black Box was riding the wave of success of the hit film The Fast and the Furious (2001): illegal street racing, tuning and style. Underground was modern and scored points in terms of gameplay with variety and diversity. Pimping up and rebuilding your own car was extremely motivating. New types of games such as drag and drift racing were fresh and different.
Tester Christian Müller said: “I’ve never been so glued to the speedometer needle as I was in Underground. The feeling of speed is fantastic, the night races are damn cool, the car parts are insane.” The result: 9 out of 10 points. Underground clearly stood out, but that’s exactly what made it reach the mainstream.
