Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit

discussed in 129 posts, 1997-2003 · overall tone positive

Posts per month

Timeline

1998-09-21 EA released Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit for PC in the US. post post

Key threads

Randy Magruder's Gran Turismo review sparks PC vs console debate 1998-05-11 · 93 posts
Randy Magruder posted his Digital Sportspage review of the US Gran Turismo, saying PC racing collections had become 'second rate'. The long cross-posted thread debated the lack of damage, whether replays should count toward the graphics score versus Need for Speed III, and whether GT was a sim or arcade game. It later degenerated into insults between Playstation and PC fans over gamepads and controllers.
Need for Speed III review and the circuit-versus-open-road debate 1998-03-30 · 88 posts
Randy Magruder posted a review of the PlayStation Need for Speed III. Joe McGinn and others argued the series should return to the open-road point-to-point tracks of the first game, while Magruder preferred closed circuits with the new police pursuit mode. The debate ran for weeks.
Need for Speed III demo impressions 1998-07-31 · 43 posts
Players reacted to the Need for Speed III demo, with fans praising the cops, graphics and audio and critics calling the driving model floaty and the collision physics poor. A side debate on dashboards and cockpit views followed, and the thread drifted to warez copies and Daikatana.
Need for Speed III dashboards and video memory 1998-09-24 · 36 posts
Players complained that NFS3 only showed dashboards on 12MB 3D cards. Reports varied: Canopus Pure3D and some AGP cards showed them, 8MB Voodoo2s reportedly could in Direct3D mode, and a Rendition worked at low resolution. Others traded fixes for crashes on startup.
Need for Speed III's poor collision physics 1998-09-30 · 34 posts
Joe McGinn criticised NFS3's collision physics, citing instant stops and canned spins after slight taps. Some replied that it is an arcade game where realistic crashes would be annoying, while others preferred the original NFS and recommended Sierra's Viper Racing demo for its physics. Side discussion covered force feedback and analog controls.
Need for Speed III's fake car reflections 1998-09-17 · 20 posts
A poster noted that NFS3's praised car reflections were just a rotating environment map rather than real reflections. Others explained the technique, said Screamer 2 and Sega Rally 2 used similar tricks, and discussed alternatives such as rendering dynamic environment maps.
GameSpot names NFS3 best driving game of 1998 1999-01-24 · 20 posts
Posters reacted to GameSpot's 1998 awards naming Need for Speed III best driving game over F1RS and GPL, arguing that sims and arcade games should be separate categories. The thread drifted into other awards such as Starcraft and Battlezone.
Need for Speed 3 brings back police chases 1998-01-09 · 20 posts
A Next Generation preview reported that Need for Speed 3 would restore police with roadblocks and spikes and add weather and shortcuts. Posters debated whether the NFS2 Special Edition's 3Dfx support justified buying it and advised waiting for any SE version. Joe McGinn lamented features lost since the first game.
Need for Speed III track texture swap trick 1998-12-25 · 20 posts
A poster shared a trick for swapping .qfs files between Need for Speed III track folders to create odd-looking tracks. Most of the thread argued about his cross-posting rather than the tip itself.