Back in the Driver’s Seat

Get ready to take life by the steering wheel and smash that gas pedal until the floor pan of your little Import flies off! Need for Speed is coming back, baby, and I am really looking forward to what this new game has to offer.

Will it be everything we wanted? Will it be everything Need for Speed 2015 was not? Will it do justice to Need for Speed: Underground, Underground 2, Carbon, and Most Wanted? Will the game allow you to drift in a front wheel drive car again? Will Vin Diesel make a cameo? So much we want to know and so little information we have; but lets do what we do best here at Let’s Talk Games: speculate the s*** out of it! So let’s talk games, shall we?

Life on the Fast Lane

The developers of Need for Speed took a break before releasing Need for Speed 2015, a sort of a soft reboot to the franchise. The yearly series was getting quite bland, and there really wasn’t much change to the gameplay until Need for Speed: The Run, but after that it was basically the same game year after year. Now, Ghost Games have given us a bit of info as to what the new NFS game will include. Specific details about the game are very much nonexistent, but we do have one or two tidbits about the new game.

“Rest assured that we’re committed to customization having a home within the Need for Speed series. It’s not going away and it will play as strong a role as ever as we move forward into the next game and beyond.”

Ok, so customization is still here (no s***). Hopefully it’s polished and working when the game releases, unlike Need for Speed 2015‘s customization system. They didn’t even include a mirroring effect to mirror one side of your car to the other! What the hell was that? At least they should have included a Copy and Paste system! A quick search on YouTube will reveal just how complex a car design in NFS 2015 can get. You can’t get the design on one side of the car symmetrically the same to other side just by eyeballing it! Just take at look at these videos to see how complex some designs get!

The developer also teased a wide range of settings for the location of the game. The game will have a “beautiful open-world with opportunities for off-roading in canyons.” I also really hope they have a mountain region for down hill drifting. NFS 2015 got this part right, and it made me feel like I was in the old Initial D manga or anime. A large city similar to Bayview in NFS: Underground 2 is also something that I hope they have.

Probably the best news for the new game is the removal of that annoying online mode. You will be able to play without having to login to a server. This is something I am very happy to hear, as the having to connect to a server was very annoying.

We don’t know when the game will be release, or even when the game will be officially revealed, but the image released has a very promising “June 2nd” in it. In the image we also see what appears to be a Nissan 350z with an aftermarket spoiler. (I prefer the 350z over the 370z). 

We can also expect something to come up during E3 this June, so we should keep an eye on that. Since we know next to nothing about this game, lets take a moment to list what we really want. (From a car guy’s perspective.)

The Makings of a Great Racing Game

Need for Speed was the arcade racing game I played as a kid. NFS: Underground 2 and Most Wanted are my favorite racing games ever. When Need for Speed 2015 was announced by Ghost Games, I was excited, and pre-ordered the Deluxe Addition as soon as pre-orders were available. In fact, it was the first game I ever pre-ordered. (I am religiously against pre-ordering anything, but I made an exception for this game.)

NFS 2105 was a bit of a let down. Sure it was breathtakingly beautiful, but it just wasn’t what I remembered from our  PS2 days. The game was fun to play, but it felt like a chore at some points. The AI was buggy, and customization wasn’t polished, the handling was all over the place (granted you could change the handling in the settings but it was still pretty bad). Drifting was actually very will done in this game, but it also had its flaws.

The inclusion of car legends such as Ken Block and his Hoonicorn, and Akira Nakai and his Porsche really made the game a lot better for me. Even Eddie and his Skyline made a comeback to the series. (I would have loved for Rachel, my childhood crush, and her 350z to make an appearance too, but oh well).

Even with these fan favors, the game was still not what I wanted, and a lot of gamers agreed. The customization was extensive, but it felt incomplete. The lack of a mirroring or some sort of copy-paste system made making designs difficult. The racing AI was ridiculous! If you were losing, the AI would slow down for you, and if you were winning, even a light tap of a lamp pole would total your car, allowing the AI to rocket past you; it was a very strange set up. Even the police chases were a joke.

So what can this new Need for Speed game do to be the game that fans really want? Well, we all have different preferences, but just to list a few of mine:

• Have a day/night cycle
• Have dynamic weather (even Underground 2 had dynamic weather)
• Have smarter racing AI
• Have smarter police AI
• Raise the difficulty and stakes of police pursuits
• If you get your car impounded after so many times, have the police crush your car (This will increase the stakes of police pursuits. If you suck in evading the cops, then after a certain amount of times getting caught, your car will be permanently destroyed. You won’t lose all your parts/customization [that would be f***** up] but you’ll have to buy the same car again. Kind of like the games way of saying “Git Gud” )
• Include an actual “Outlaw” story or side story (like in Most Wanted)
• Have manual transmission included upon release
• Allow us to customize Legendary cars like the Hoonicorn
• Have customization mirroring available upon release
• Allow for more car body customization (Nothing overly rice like Underground 1 or 2, but NFS 2015 didn’t even have options for headlights, fenders, or side mirrors for many of the cars in the game)
• Have progression in Speed, Style, Build ect. play a bigger role in story progression
• Have a better story
• Have better acting
• Have a way better soundtrack (Yall remember “Riders on the Storm?”)
• When you go right/left on your controller, have the wheels of the car actually turn right/left
• Bring back Rachel and her Nissan 350z from Underground 2
• Raise the stakes of mountain racing/drifting (like in NFS: Carbon)
• Include pink slip racing (like in Midnight Club)
• Include dyno tuning (like in Underground 2)
• Have the cars you race increase or decrease your chances of winning (Like in every game ever!)

This is just a small list of things that I feel should be included in the next Need for Speed game. Is there anything I missed? Or is there something that you think should not be in the game? Let me know in the comment section below.

If you would like to read more about video games click here, or if you want to see my thoughts on the the new Assassin’s Creed game, click here. I hope you enjoyed, and I hope you all have a great day. Happy Hooning.

-Gamer by Night