Early-Mid 2000's Need For Speed Games - (Underground, Most Wanted 2005, Carbon, etc.) - When NFS was still Really Good.

[Shibaru]

Discuss about this Era in the NFS Franchise, Personally My Favorite is Most Wanted & Carbon Mostly for the Connected Story and because EA Actually Tried to make a good Story line with these games.

I'll Start: While I Currently Own a Copy of Underground 1 for the PS2, I Do have MW 2005, Underground and Carbon on my Dolphin Emulator.

 

[JSGOTI]

Underground is the only one that matters.
I didn't need a good story to enjoy a driving/racing game.

 

[Billy_Sama]

I remember enjoying Underground 2 but cringed even back then with the try hard urban slang and product placement.

 

[sasazuka]

I like Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2, one of only a handful of Playstation 2 racing games that let you race Ferraris against non-Ferraris.

If I'm not mistaken, Hot Pursuit 2 marked the last appearance of Ferrari in a Need for Speed game until the XBox 360-exclusive DLC for Need for Speed: Shift seven years later and the last appearance of Ferrari in a Need for Speed game at retail until Need for Speed Rivals released some 11 years after Hot Pursuit 2.

 

[Snake of Diamond]

the first one I ever played was this demo of Need For Speed Porsche Unleashed. The first full game I owed was Need For Speed 3 Hot Pursuit for Windows.

 

[sasazuka]

the first one I ever played was this demo of Need For Speed Porsche Unleashed.

I was going to talk about Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed but then I changed my mind because I haven't played the PC version, generally regarded as the superior Porsche Unleashed experience.

Spoiler: Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed on PC

I have the Playstation version of Porsche Unleashed, but it's basically an entirely different game.

Spoiler: Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed on Sony Playstation

 

[Army Burger]

I was going to talk about Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed but then I changed my mind because I haven't played the PC version, generally regarded as the superior Porsche Unleashed experience.

Spoiler: Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed on PC

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LBSEH9GzUBI

I have the Playstation version of Porsche Unleashed, but it's basically an entirely different game.

Spoiler: Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed on Sony Playstation

https://youtube.com/watch?v=SDJazT54p84

I had the GBA version when i was younger.

 

[sasazuka]

I had the GBA version when i was younger.

Yeah, I almost hate to admit that I have that one too. I bought it because I was curious to see what kind of 3D graphics that clever programmers could pull off on Gameboy Advance and, graphically-speaking, it's one of the more impressive 3D games on the GBA (though not quite as impressive as a couple of rally games) but that's not saying much.

Unfortunately, the cars handle poorly even when compared to other GBA racing games.

 

[Snake of Diamond]

I was going to talk about Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed but then I changed my mind because I haven't played the PC version, generally regarded as the superior Porsche Unleashed experience.

Spoiler: Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed on PC

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LBSEH9GzUBI

I have the Playstation version of Porsche Unleashed, but it's basically an entirely different game.

Spoiler: Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed on Sony Playstation

https://youtube.com/watch?v=SDJazT54p84

Yeah it's generally like that with Consoles releases....I didn't know much about that back then as I only owned a single console at a time and we had a single family computer that was usually a cheap one my father would bring in. Went from a 95, 98 to win 2000 and the first one that was my personal one was an XP.

My brother got an Xbox 360 and that's when I got back into Need For Speed with Need For Speed Carbon

 

[Watcher]

There's a group making a tool that will allow making new environments for mid era NFS games. From Underground 2 to I think Undercover. They've posted videos of Most Wanted, Carbon and World

This will theoretically one day allow for a world map that encompasses UG1/2, MW, and Carbon in the same worldspace.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

Just dropped in to say Carbon was the best one of this era: best soundtrack, best car selection, best graphics, and full culmination of all of the mechanics from the previous games, from drift racing, to police chases, while adding a bevy of new concepts on its own.

 

[Billy_Sama]

I like Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2, one of only a handful of Playstation 2 racing games that let you race Ferraris against non-Ferraris.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=gAXg3NDEOCc
If I'm not mistaken, Hot Pursuit 2 marked the last appearance of Ferrari in a Need for Speed game until the XBox 360-exclusive DLC for Need for Speed: Shift seven years later and the last appearance of Ferrari in a Need for Speed game at retail until Need for Speed Rivals released some 11 years after Hot Pursuit 2.

That was my first NFS game I played. Not as flashy as the later ones but makes it feel timeless.

 

[Autistsforuganda2]

Underground 2 kinda made me cringe and made me stay away from it, because all the "cool kids" who tried to be ghetto and urban played this game, which pretty much describes half of my high school class at that time

 

[Ginger Piglet]

Underground 2 was excellent bar the soundtrack, and the utterly horrific advisor voiceover who, in the tuning screen, started every sentence with "yo." That was cringeworthy, but knock off the music and stick on some awesome heavy metal and you don't have to listen to him telling you that "nitrous oxide is goin' B I G big, yo." It also had the most obnoxious product placement ever.

Most Wanted was the best Need for Speed game of all time. OF ALL TIME. The original one from 2005, not that misbegotten Burnout clone that appeared in 2012. The cutscenes were hilarious and cheesy with chewing the scenery, the racing and chasing felt weighty and good, it felt like an interactive road movie. No plot? No problem! We've got 30 super cool cars for you to give eye-watering paintjobs to, plenty of hard as nails challenge races (some of which featured things like escaping the cops in a dump truck, or racing from Burger King to Burger King against the clock), and similar. Hate to say it, but a stopped clock is right twice a day and even EA can come up with a genuinely excellent game every now and then. The only flaw was that the AI would rubberband horribly at later levels. You could be hitting a perfect racing line and leaving the opponents in the dust but then all of a sudden as soon as they're out of sight they teleport to right behind you.

Carbon was not as good but still playable. Had the biggest selection of cars and the canyon races were cool but they tried to insert a plot. Fuck that noise. We just want to race and chase. However, they did have classic muscle cars, the best customisation, and I quite liked how the achievements could be grouped to unlock bonus content. That was cool. I didn't like, though, that the cars were separated by tier to the extent to which every tier 3 car was better than every tier 2 car which was better than every tier 1 car, regardless of customisation level. Rather it should have been that you could make a tier 1 car competitive with a tier 3 car but it will be an uphill struggle and require you to get all the bonus parts and so forth.

...Fuck it I'm ready for a reinstall. I've not played MW in almost a decade. Just need to find my disk and the manual with the secret code on the back, and a 4K mod, and I'm gonna go for it.

 

[sasazuka]

Most Wanted was the best Need for Speed game of all time. OF ALL TIME. The original one from 2005, not that misbegotten Burnout clone that appeared in 2012. The cutscenes were hilarious and cheesy with chewing the scenery, the racing and chasing felt weighty and good, it felt like an interactive road movie. No plot? No problem! We've got 30 super cool cars for you to give eye-watering paintjobs to, plenty of hard as nails challenge races (some of which featured things like escaping the cops in a dump truck, or racing from Burger King to Burger King against the clock), and similar. Hate to say it, but a stopped clock is right twice a day and even EA can come up with a genuinely excellent game every now and then.

Were there two different Burger Kings in Most Wanted? I only remember one although I'm only thinking of what was along the main highway loop; there may have been another one in the downtown area or the amusement park area that I'm forgetting.

I generally prefer seeing real logos on stores, billboards, and racing liveries in racing games for overall realism as long as the product placement isn't too "in your face".

As for Electronic Arts in general, I think they generally made great games up to and including the early 2010s and I still enjoyed 2013's Need For Speed: Rivals, the final one before they "rebooted" it for modern consoles with the terrible "always online" requirement, even for single player.

 

[Haramburger]

The PS2/Xbox360 car game genre was dank.

I generally prefer seeing real logos on stores, billboards, and racing liveries in racing games for overall realism as long as the product placement isn't too "in your face".

I'd like to see it just because it would also time capsule certain logo redesigns or brands that get phased out/go out of business.

 

[sasazuka]

I'd like to see it just because it would also time capsule certain logo redesigns or brands that get phased out/go out of business.

Crazy Taxi on the Dreamcast (and also the PS2 version and, I presume, the Gamecube version though I've never played that one) is an excellent example of that with Tower Records (which is still open in Japan) plus the older Pizza Hut and KFC logos. I don't think FILA and the Levi's Store have changed their logos since 1999, though. Crazy Taxi 2 had Burger King though it was the "modern" logo which was still relatively new at the time.