NFS Underground 3 anyone ?

[natr0n]

https://www.facebook.com/needforspeed.na

Lots of hinting... may 21 is the reveal.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

If i remember correctly - Didnt EA wash their hands of the NFS franchise? I remember reading a few posts here on TPU and maybe somewhere else about how EA abandoned the series all together after they slowly ran it into the ground.

 

[natr0n]

If i remember correctly - Didnt EA wash their hands of the NFS franchise? I remember reading a few posts here on TPU and maybe somewhere else about how EA abandoned the series all together after they slowly ran it into the ground.

They had a few good then bad then good bad. Lets just hope whatever it is will be well optimized for pc. I have a wait and see attitude.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I still play NFS shift 2 unleashed every couple of days and Rivals once a week, i am still completing the Run which is a good fun game. I will be having a look at it.
If they can pull all the good bits of the franchise together i reckon it wll be good and i will enjoy it.

 

[rooivalk]

I think UG3 is not a feasible idea. People have changed, car culture has changed.

Look at FF movie franchise. It's pretty much mini-time-capsule for generic car culture around the world.
When was the last time you see a FF movie that actually similar to UG's atmosphere? It's probably Tokyo Drift and it's long time ago.
Nowadays people want to Hellcat out everything not riced out the Civic.

One of appeal of UG is because it's relevant to its player base. A collection of relatively affordable fast cars.
That kind of exciting cars is rare now. Lancer is going to extinct, new WRX doesn't excite people like before, GT-R has gone up market crossing 5 digits price, LFA is an unobtanium, and many has gone hatchbacks (somehow it doesn't look dreamy at all no matter how fast they are). Maybe toyobaru twins, dodge dart, 370z, veloster, and usual selection of Focus and Mustang and its competitors.

Personally I want GT driving game like the original NFS (also like The Run or MW2010). Don't want open world because somehow ironically it feels generic and boring.

 

[Devon68]

Seen it yesterday. Really hope it is the underground 3.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I liked Underground better than Underground 2 overall but Underground 2's open world was welcome. Then Most Wanted came and blew both of them away...followed by Carbon which begun the series' slow descent into EA hell.

If EA wants to do it right, step one is kick Criterion Games off the project. Step two? Well, there is no step two because they don't have the people to make a great racing game anymore.

 

[natr0n]

I liked Underground better than Underground 2 overall but Underground 2's open world was welcome. Then Most Wanted came and blew both of them away...followed by Carbon and the slow descent into EA hell.

If EA wants to do it right, step one is kick Criterion Games off the project. Step two? Well, there is no step two because they don't have the people to make a great racing game anymore.

From what I remember reading/seeing Criterion is making an extreme sports game. Supposedly no longer working on NFS series.

 

[NC37]

All they have to do is do an HD version of Underground 1 or 2 and they'll rake in millions. Course I won't buy it cause it'll be Origin exclusive. But still, HD version, make it so. Every game since was utter crap. Most Wanted was alright but the first signs of decline were visible in it. Think the last one I bought was Carbon. Swore off buying them again till they redid the Undergrounds. Course by then they did that huge super car push. Which was lame. Underground was nice cause it was all about modding and upgrading and turning cars into supercars. No way in heck would Porsche or the other posh supercar makers want a bunch of street car nuts modding their cars up in a game.

Man, now I have an urge to play Underground 2 again.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Most Wanted was my favorite because the game didn't compel you to make r!cers at all. You could if you wanted to but unlike the Underground games, it didn't require doing it for progression. Carbon was the same way but where Carbon failed was the removal of the challenges and Rap Sheet as well as the map and plot not being as interesting.

 

[WhiteNoise]

No thank you. These games were shit from the get go.

 

[cheesy999]

No thank you. These games were shit from the get go.

u wot m8?

 

[WhiteNoise]

u wot m8?

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by that but let me clarify: The OP asked, "NFS Underground 3 anyone?" And my response was, "No thank you."

Hey if you liked the past games then pretty cool if they make a new one for the fans. I for one though did not enjoy any of the NFS Underground games. In fact the last NFS game that was any good was porsche Unleashed.

 

[rooivalk]

Anybody saw this? a 993? now that's interesting! F40 vs 959 please! UG or MW or whatever, dun care.

 

[bubbleawsome]

I loved shift two and now the second team on that (slightlymad) is making projectcars, one of the biggest racing games coming out soon.

I enjoyed most wanted 2012 a ton, though it was gimped without dlc and the mods requred a cracked version. It is crazy fun to go on a rampage in a SWAT truck though. Hot pursuit was a spiritual precessor to Rivals, and while I loved HotPursuit, Rivals was crap.

I hope EA never makes another NFS game. Rivals has a 30 fps cap, tons of game breaking bugs, and performance issues even with the 30fps cap, and since the fps is tied to the sim speed an fps drop drops game time making it suck.

Even most wanted 2012 had issues. Cutscenes would glitch and the only method of aa was super sampling. 2x crushes my overclocked 280x into the 45fps range and 4x is just hopeless.

 

[Devon68]

Anybody saw this? a 993? now that's interesting! F40 vs 959 please! UG or MW or whatever, dun care.

That image looks black for me:
Here's a better one

 

[rtwjunkie]

I'm gonna date myself here, but the last NFS game I actually enjoyed was Hot Pursuit 2, from right around the turn of the last decade.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Mr Bean is a big fan of NFS shift 2, he just came in a very creditable third at Spa

 

[Frag_Maniac]

I loved shift two and now the second team on that (slightlymad) is making projectcars, one of the biggest racing games coming out soon.

I enjoyed most wanted 2012 a ton, though it was gimped without dlc and the mods requred a cracked version. It is crazy fun to go on a rampage in a SWAT truck though. Hot pursuit was a spiritual precessor to Rivals, and while I loved HotPursuit, Rivals was crap.

I hope EA never makes another NFS game. Rivals has a 30 fps cap, tons of game breaking bugs, and performance issues even with the 30fps cap, and since the fps is tied to the sim speed an fps drop drops game time making it suck.

Even most wanted 2012 had issues. Cutscenes would glitch and the only method of aa was super sampling. 2x crushes my overclocked 280x into the 45fps range and 4x is just hopeless.

Funny you should mention Shift 2, because I was assuming Project CARS would be harder, maybe even damn near impossible to play with my usual Keyboard control, but it's actually been easier than Shift 2 so far. Seems buggier though. I'm on GT4 so far and was amazed how easy it was to drive the Mustang, so I took it out on Nords in the Solo setup. I was able top put in a lap OK, but the replay always froze at one spot on the track. I checked and found a lot of people are having problems with races freezing a certain ways into the Career mode, so I'm wondering if when I get to certain tracks I'll have such problems. It generates an error in the debug file referring to "replay out of memory".

I run a 7970, pretty much same as you, and you CAN remove the 30 cap on Rivals with a simple launch option.
http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Need_for_Speed:_Rivals#High_frame_rate

Once I did that, Rivals ran pretty smoothly. I'm not excusing the cap since it's obvious lazy porting from console, but there IS a workaround that fixes it.

I enjoyed Underground 2, Most Wanted 2005, Shift, Shift 2, The Run, and Rivals, but I've still yet to find a game that had the complete wow factor from racing to replays like the original Race Driver GRID from Codemasters. It's AI was pretty good, the slip to grip ratio was decent for the type of game it was, the tracks were great, the damage model kept you honest, it's sense of speed was fantastic, and the multi view replays are unparalleled.

I don't know what to think of a new mysterious NFS title if there is one though. I worry it might be even worse than some of their latest screw ups. Then again, nothing can be worse than Codemasters DiRT Showdown.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I don't know what to think of a new mysterious NFS title if there is one though. I worry it might be even worse than some of their latest screw ups. Then again, nothing can be worse than Codemasters DiRT Showdown Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing.

ftfy

 

[cheesy999]

Funny you should mention Shift 2, because I was assuming Project CARS would be harder, maybe even damn near impossible to play with my usual Keyboard control, but it's actually been easier than Shift 2 so far. Seems buggier though. I'm on GT4 so far and was amazed how easy it was to drive the Mustang, so I took it out on Nords in the Solo setup. I was able top put in a lap OK, but the replay always froze at one spot on the track. I checked and found a lot of people are having problems with races freezing a certain ways into the Career mode, so I'm wondering if when I get to certain tracks I'll have such problems. It generates an error in the debug file referring to "replay out of memory".

I run a 7970, pretty much same as you, and you CAN remove the 30 cap on Rivals with a simple launch option.
http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Need_for_Speed:_Rivals#High_frame_rate

Once I did that, Rivals ran pretty smoothly. I'm not excusing the cap since it's obvious lazy porting from console, but there IS a workaround that fixes it.

I enjoyed Underground 2, Most Wanted 2005, Shift, Shift 2, The Run, and Rivals, but I've still yet to find a game that had the complete wow factor from racing to replays like the original Race Driver GRID from Codemasters. It's AI was pretty good, the slip to grip ratio was decent for the type of game it was, the tracks were great, the damage model kept you honest, it's sense of speed was fantastic, and the multi view replays are unparalleled.

I don't know what to think of a new mysterious NFS title if there is one though. I worry it might be even worse than some of their latest screw ups. Then again, nothing can be worse than Codemasters DiRT Showdown.

least they made up for it with Dirt Rally

 

[bubbleawsome]

I run a 7970, pretty much same as you, and you CAN remove the 30 cap on Rivals with a simple launch option.
http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Need_for_Speed:_Rivals#High_frame_rate
Once I did that, Rivals ran pretty smoothly. I'm not excusing the cap since it's obvious lazy porting from console, but there IS a workaround that fixes it.

Right but if you drop below whatever fps you choose (I used 45) the game slows down. With how horribly optimized it is I was dropping below the stock 30. Games stopped being framerate tied in like 2000 right?

 

[RejZoR]

Real world circuit racetracks are boring as fuck. Miles of "fly out" zones, zero elevation changes and bland environments that all look identical. And they are sacking a fantastic franchise just because THEY got lazy and made crap games. Rivals was bland with shitty multiplayer (that seamlessly connected singleplayer and multiplayer was the dumbest thing ever, couldn't ever tell real players from NPC's)...

Old NFS's were fun with really amazingly crafted circuit tracks that had so different themes with option to mirror or invert them, play during night, with weather conditions or even both. I still can't forget driving Lost Canyon track in NFS3 during night with rain. Rushing through a dark canyon, lightnings and thunder happening in the distance, rain drops hitting the windshield, just wooow. Same goes for NFS4 which was basically extension of NFS3. And NFS Porsche, with the slow evolution through eras of Porsche history, it was a mindblowing experience paired with superb visuals and car physics. Good times, good times.

From new generations, NFS Hot Pursuit 2010. Granted, single player was rather bland, but the multiplayer, now that was AMAZING. At first I didn't like it, but then it became amazing. The car control was arcade-ish, but since it behaved like Screamer 2 with cornering that required precise sliding made it incredibly tricky and complex game to play and master. We even got so good that we started outrunning much faster cars just because we mastered the cornering and drifting so much. That Aston Martin V12 Vantage was freaking amazing.

And even later, NFS The Run. Some people complained, but I think it was amazing game. The story was really cool and the fact that I had to race through entire continent of North America was just wow. Massive elevation changes, condition changes and environments helped a lot, hell even those QTE's were pretty cool. I really wish they'd make a race, this time in Europe. Start in UK and race through Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain back through Italy, Austria, Netherlands, through my own country and going down through Balkan to Greece. Or something along those lines. I'd try to lump in Scandinavia as well to use the snow potential.

But in general, I wish EA would return to its roots with thematic circuit tracks, logged time records, Hot Pursuit mode like in NFS3/NFS4 etc. Kinda combining NFS3, NFS4, NFS5 and car control and obsession with times from NFS HP 2010. Scoring awesome times on amazing looking tracks while cops and other racers are harassing you is for me the most fun thing you can do in racing game.

I don't want super realistic game, I want super fun game that doesn't get boring.

 

[xvi]

NFS Porsche Unleashed was probably my favorite NFS game, although I haven't played others from earlier than then. I disliked the focus on over-the-top body styling in Underground and Underground 2, but really liked how predictable the controls were pretty much from this point all the way to.. I think it was NFS ProStreet (or maybe Shift?) that made a huge change to how the cars drove. Controls felt very imprecise and sloppy relative to the snappy, albeit unrealistic, controls in prior titles. (It was just easy to handbrake around corners and spin up tires in a precise and predictable way, which was fun.)

I've been trying to play NFS: The Run, but it feels like they just made it "Nintendo Hard". It's not engaging or exciting, just frustrating and repetitive. Try, hit a car around a blind corner. Try again, hit the car again. Try again, dodge the car, lose control and fly off the mountain. Try again, doge the car, regain control, last place. Try again, dodge the car, regain control, third place. Try again, dodge the car, regain control, first place. Next stage, do it all again.

If Underground 3 has a similar gameplay experience to previous Underground titles, I may be interested, but my only enjoyment would be just ripping around randomly in a free world, something that's already fulfilled by a number of titles, such as Burnout Paradise or probably most fun of all (due to multiplayer and the massive free roaming mainly) Grand Theft Auto V.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Uh, two versions of Need for Speed Porsche Unleashed exist: console and PC. They are nothing alike other than sharing cars. Need to specify which. Personally, I think the console version was better because it had an open world before open worlds were popular. The Windows version had a lot more shock and awe factor though. Both are excellent games even compared to today's standards. The attention to detail was phenomenal and there were innovating facets to both. I'd still take Need for Speed Most Wanted (2005) over Porsche Unleashed though because Most Wanted took the best of both games (open world police chases from console version; vehicle customization and challenges from Windows version) and made it so much better (pursuit breakers, greater selection of cars than just Porsche, a coherent plot).