Hi,
4 days on and I've begun to be a little more critical with NFS. My
biggest gripe would have to be the appalling damage model, or lack
thereof. There are some mega cartwheels by the CC cars, the likes of
which we have not seen in any landbound sim. (GP2 flies, but not quite
to this level of exaggeration). Rather spectacular to watch. You drive
by the tumbling Mclaren F1, stealing a smug grin, only to have that
`wreck' overtake you for the lead in the next corner, all systems
normal. This is after a mere 720 degree cartwheel from 300 kph. How
those cartwheels even develop is a little mystery at times (especially
on wide open roads). The visual spectacle is unparalled in car sims thus
far, but surely the cars should get a least a token dent or two, with
bent suspension or something. Actually, we really should have flying
body panels, wheels etc. ala every top driving sim released in the past
2 years. That may allow us to suspend our belief in observing major
shunts.
The player car should also be afforded a certain level of damage. The
designers did some fantastic things in implementing objects that you can
actually. There are crates which fly into the air after you hit
them,road signs and trees that you can level (and stay levelled for that
race), but through all this, the car is intact. And those damned
`sticky' walls from NFS remain. Approach within a mm or 2 of the walls
and you find the car, having made contact with the `force field', will
slow. You can't really drive on the limit if you have to tell yourself
to never get near THAT wall. This game has two modes : sim and arcade. I
wish that EA could expoit the sim mode by providing a full damage level
or at least a selectable one. I recognise that this game is targetted at
the arcade crowd and hence the aforementioned concessions are
acceptable, but hyping the cars as exact modelling of cars is a little
far-fetched is you can drive headlong into a wall at 300+kph, shift down
to 1st and get going again. This seriously compromises the longevity of
play, at least in my book.
And while we're on the issue of sim mode, while you're in a sim mode,
there really shouldn't be a `auto catch-up mode'. A must-have for the
low-time and arcade fan, but anathema to the real enthusiast.
Other minor gripes I have are with the Lotus GT1 going inverted way too
easily. Especially on the Himalayan circuit, there are corners with
rather severe elevation changes, the car just goes inverted after
crashing to the ground. Sure, I really shouldn't go that quick, but the
other (faster) cars do it OK.
There may be problem in this game not supporting an hardware accleration
(other than Mega-CPU and Lotsa-RAM technology). It would seem that to
enjoy this game in all its visual splendour (and it is splendid) with
fast frame rates, you will need a P200+ system with 32MB RAM. Some form
of 3D accleration really should have been incorporated, especially since
it has been released at a time when most stuff supports Direct-3D at the
very least. And this is a Win95 game at that... ( I noticed I had to
switch back to more conservative memory timings in my BIOS to prevent
crashing - only for NFS2)
For all the bugs, I will still stand by my earlier statements of
beautiful graphics and an excellent sense of speed (system permitting).
The sound is also wonderous. Even on my plain vanilla SB16, I would
resonant echoes when driving through caves and tunnels. Even the horn
echoes. Not so hot is that sound of the player's car. I was pretty
e***d by the opening sequence, expecting to hear authentic V12 noises.
So when I tried the F50, I was quite peeved that it sounded like the old
NFS' F348. Actually, they all sound like ICR2 to me. Which is
disappointed when games like GP2 and NASCAR2 sound so convincing. I
miss the throaty roar of that old Viper (which may be competitive in
this game since you can tweak gear ratios).
The cars look fabulous. When following a Mclaren or XJ220, you can see
the `active' spoiler popping up and down as the speed changes. The cars
also have functioning brake lights and seem more obstructive than before
(the new `revised' AI...). I remember that I associated Vipers in the
old NFS with blocking. In this game, it that to do with those UGLY Ford
GT90s (what kindergarten have they recruited their designers from in the
past 2 years???).
Wheelspin effects are quite represented, although the braking feel is
rather poor (which may be due to ABS?). The sound effects on the cobbled
roads are very good. I can imagine with force-feedback, you'll be
getting a real workout!
I hope nobody will draw any `NFS2 sucks' or `NFS2 rules!' conlusions
from these observations. I am beginning to grow a little weary of the
single-player mode, mainly because it doesn't really e*** anymore. I
really would like to give it a go in multi-player mode though. If
there's anyone from Singapore who would like a modem game of NFS2 (or
any other driving sim), please do drop me a line.
Cheers,
Stanley Chan