korned_beef's Full Review: Need For Speed: High Stakes for Windows
As far as car racing games this is the best title you can get as far as driving exotics for a cheap price goes. Heck a Ferrari 360 Modena cost $140,000 leave alone the rest! And if you can "Drive" the same cars for $20 why not go for it?
When Test Drive 2 came out eons ago, nobody then would have imagined that Driving Games could get this good!
As a proud owner of a NFS2 SE, I thought of buying myself NFS4 High Stakes.
(Although this title was released last year... I only came to know about epinions,con very lately.)
Now unlike the previous NFS titles what really made me buy this game was the variety of cars available... (Of course you got to unlock a couple of goodies to really enjoy the game) I'm really sorry but NFS 3 titleholders won't be so much drawn into this title as long as you're a pure NFS fan. Damage was another thing to go for in this game.
As it happened I was lucky my friend bought NFS 3 before I could. I really didn't like NFS 3 because the tracks were basically modifications of one an another. And they had pathetic cars which really didn't match the glamour of the previous title. But what I liked in that title was the "Hot Pursuit Mode". And I think that was the most fun part of NFS3 .
So what is NFS4?
NFS 4 to me is basically a more advanced version of NFS 3. The cars are the best combination of NFS2 and NFS3. Which includes MclarenF1 And the Ferrari F50 from NFS 2 in the form of a GTR and Spider respectively;
And the Corvette, Ferrari 550 Maranello, Diablo and CLK-GTR as worthy additions from NFS3. Some new cars have been added in this sequel like the Firebird, Camaro, BMW M5 and Z3 and the Jaguar XKR. And Last but not the least the Porsche 911 Turbo (I'm sure all those playing Porsche Unleashed must be fed up of the name by now). But I personally would have loved the addition of more cars from the NFS 2 series (Like Ford Indigo, Lotus Esprit… etc) and a couple of tracks from there too.(Like Monolithic Studios… with super long straights and super high jumps)
The physics borrowed from NFS3 really help in bringing the realism into the game. (ie. Going up the slopes slows down speeds and coming down one becomes really frightening) But I miss the wonderful way the cars would rollover in an accident in NFS2.
In NFS4 collisions looks real fake and very much lame. For instance lets say your taking a very hard left turn (Say a 90-Degree bend). Now the logic should have been that if you were going fast and if you turned in at the wrong speed, your car should have smashed dramatically into the wall smashing your right door/s and cracking your windows, right? Wrong, instead you're given a flip that is very fake looking. Smashing into a vehicle coming in the opposite direction in traffic mode at high speed should have sent you flying/tumbling down the road until you came to scratching / screeching halt if your car got turtled or was "lucky". Instead you just come to a complete stop. Sometimes I feel the game is not very "fluid" as it was in NFS2.
But anyway this should give Electronic Arts something to think about before they release their next title (ie After Porsche Unleashed). To tell you the truth, the cars seem to be pretty heavy than what they should have really been.
On a broader note the cars in this game have their own characteristics about how they Handle, Accelerate, Brake, etc. The BMW Z3 and Mercedes SLK are very calm cars.... Then when you go to a Corvette the speed factor comes in. Go into the Porsche and you'll realize how easily this car shadows the Corvette in carving out curves quickly. Jump into a Diablo/F50 and the Porche is left in the dust. And driving the McLaren? Think of driving the Diablo in Fast Forward and thats the idea of the power of the Big Mac.
What is particularly interesting in this game is the way the drivers of other cars respond to you. For example if you're about to smash into a car coming from the opposite direction the driver flashes his head lights and honks so as to warn you. Other racers in the game will get "pretty angry" if you cut into them as they will also honk and flash their headlights onto you. Well it may not sound interesting but you have to play the game to know why it is so.
The tracks in a nutshell are: short and sweet (but no promises). Although you can get a briefing about where to brake and accelerate and etc in the "tutorial" in the track section. It is difficult as to what to do when you're actually driving a particular car on a track. Each car is different therefore each track becomes a different issue with each car! On a bigger note the tracks are not very easy to master. It could take you a lot of time to actually get it right. The tracks are pretty twisty and curvy, And believe me you really got to be a damn good driver to master these tracks.
Unlike NFS 2 this game is very tough!!
Tracks like Landstrasse, Route Adonf, Celtic Route are pretty easy to master in the same order. But try to master the shortest track of the Game i.e. Durham Road and you are in for a big surprise. That track is awfully dark leave alone how twisty the damn place gets. I can promise you one thing. Its gonna be a damn long time until you get out of the first divided section without shattering your windshield. Talking about shattering of windshields I almost forgot to talk about one of the pros of this game... DAMAGE!
Yup you can now trash those beautiful Ferraris and think you're in some hot movie. (Unfortunately it doesn't go to such a level as making a pancake out of a Ferrari as in the movie "The Rock") Smash your car a "little" and you'll loose your headlights/Taillights. (i.e. drive into a wall head on or get rear ended by a car) Please note that smashing wildly into the side can destroy your lights too.
Trash it a "little more" and your windshield will crack.... (Surprisingly vision is still pretty clear from within the car... Hmmm) Go through some more and your underbody will start scraping the tarmac. And that my friend is not a good sign. Too much of smashing will make your car smoke! And the engine will even start knocking! You will also notice that your car will slow down considerably. So in this game you REALLY have to know how to drive without smashing which is really difficult. Coz even taking a flight in your car from bumps can damage your suspension and lead to scratching the underbody.
And the occasional swiping of signposts can cost you your headlights, which is very expensive while night driving. But fortunately for every beginner (and "expert") there exists an option to turn the damage off or restrict it to just Visuals or Phyiscals.
So what else is new? The Hot pursuit is definitely good in this game. The BMWs can be a pain to shake off but the Lamborghini and Porches are next to impossible to rid them off your tail. There are two more Modes in the "Pursuit Mode" which includes "Time Trap" and "Getaway". "Time trap" gives you limited time to complete the track with Police after your behind. "Getaway" gives you two minutes in any track to Escape or to catch the Speeder. The pursuit mode is pretty exciting in these tracks and the road blocks can be pretty difficult to get through. The good part is that you can hear what the cops are planning and know the distance of the nearest cop. But the gameplay doesn't get any easier. Sometimes the action is so fast that there's barely enough time to get the info as to where the Road Block/spike Strip is being deployed. There might be times when your tire is already ripped apart by a Spike strip before it is said so. Chopper tracking makes no sense in this game. Especially if you were the cop. It should have given the proper location of the speeder you're chasing. This does work, but only in the new tracks. In the bonus tracks the choppers are useless. (Not that Hot Pursuit is available in the "Raceway" tracks)
Next is the Weather and Night Driving. Night Driving is particularly dangerous when you try to negotiate a track with damage on. As it is very easy to smash your headlights and literally "grope in the dark". Racing then seems to be next to impossible. With weather on you can notice snowflakes / rain hitting the cameras. Flying dust "settles into cameras" and the physics in the game is changed completely. No matter how well you know how your car drives its a different story in weather driving. Naturally times get slower but the action never dies as you slide into a new adventure. So response from the cars are naturally slowed down considerably. But once you come back into a tunnel it again becomes dry driving so you'll get a lot of surprises as to how to really negotiate the tracks.
The New NFS also sports a "career mode". You start with 25 grand to buy a car and race various circuits. As you finish completing various circuits the game gets tougher and tougher. At the end of each circuit is the all new "high stakes race". Win the race and win the opponent's car, lose it and you're car is lost to kingdom glory. As it turns out, the cars get better. And the better the car you have the higher the stakes get. Who knows… maybe you'll survive with a Z3, a Corvette and the likes. But it could boil down to such a situation that you could lose a Ferrari, which had cost you a fortune to build. The thing I don't like in this mode is the basic setup of the car. Tuning of the cars should have been allowed. I mean how can the same set of tires work in rain as well as on a dry surface? Even F1 has special tires for several conditions and I think the same should have been true for this game. But alas it isn't. And instead of tuning your car you have to buy "upgrade packages" that help "improve" the car's overall performance. I feel the packages increase some of the cars strongest points when it should be left as it was. After you complete a certain number of circuits you even get a "Cheat Page" which lists all the cheats in the game. Not that I can remember of any one of them.
Now as to how this game plays on a particular machine is very interesting to note.On a P233 with 32 MB RAM you can only play a single race. Trying to race it with just one more car and was next to impossible to drive. Upgrading the same P233 with a 64 MB RAM can dramatically change the performance on the game. Now the gameplay is a lot smoother and you can tell from a McLaren and a puny lil' SLK. But there will exist a small mismatch between RPM reading and Engine sound at that particular RPM. And this is very crucial for those who like to change gears themselves as I like to do. Now if you play on a PII 400 with 64 MB RAM this game plays beautifully, as the cars seem to carve out curves much more beautifully than they do on the slower machine mentioned earlier. All the previous "glitches" disappear. Please note that I've not got the Graphics Card, which is compatible with this game. So if you do have a graphics card, the load of the game will be a lot less than those without graphic cards on a same spec machine.
Another thing I don't know is what this game actually looks like is with graphics card but it is beautiful enough to play without one. If you want to know what it is like to play with a graphics card please read "gem1's " opinion. Please note that the machine i use has got 2 drives. One is a DVD and the other a CD-RW. And I don't have any problem whatsoever using this game. All you should keep in mind is to use the same drive you used to install the game
The sound on this game is simply amazing. There is a separate Engine and Exhaust note to each car. And this is really important to build up the realism in the game. For example a corvette will have a very low end "rumble" in its note and the same will be true for a Camaro. The Ferrari will have a beautiful "humm" that sounds like a super bike especially when changing gears. All other cars have different notes too but I'll leave that to you to find out.
To really enjoy the game, I'd reckon that you atleast have a PII 400 with 64MB RAM to enjoy this title (if you don't have the right graphics card). As to how it plays with a joystick or the wheel is not really in my department either, as I don't have either. But all I know is that they will make things a lot easier. The primary reason being that it would allow you to turn to the required amount rather than from "Lock to Lock" as on keyboard. Hmm… Let me elaborate. Supposing you're turning to the right on the keyboard, you'll turn the wheel completely to the right. And sometimes it becomes very difficult to control a car. Another thing is that if you get the "Steering Wheel", the "Accelerator" that comes with the wheel should allow you get the right input of power into the car. Rather than the "full blown" acceleration with keyboard. So if you want to really want to get a good feel in this game just add a steering wheel. (At your own discretion… as I can't possibly afford one)
But heck… nothing comes close to driving a real car in a real world so EA people still have scope for improvement. So if I could afford a Ferrari would I have bought this game? No way! But since I can't afford one, Let me atleast drive it virtually! So this is the main reason for buying this game!
Hmm…Now who should really go in for this game?
1. All those who love driving games should atleast borrow this game and try it. I can promise you that your friend will be begging of you to give it back to him (especially if that's his only title!) .
2. Those who have NFS3 are not going to be very happy about this game. This will be very true by the fact that the bonus tracks are all NFS 3 tracks except for the 3 New "Raceway" tracks.
3. This game is basically for the sheer pleasure of driving exotics. So don't be bothered if you don't have a graphics card. The "3D Cockpit" views just give an "Extra special feel" to the gamers with Graphics card I guess.
From the Demo videos I guess that's what it winds up to finally with the right graphics card.
I think damage was a neat addition to the game. I would have really liked it, if Radiators could spill steam, if oil leaked onto the tracks. Also if headlights could have cracked rather than just going "off". Damage would have been a lot better if only the "tire of the wheel exploded" rather than the "whole wheel" bursting into pieces of rubber upon running over a spike strip! Wheels and Bonnets flying, and bumpers getting "dragged" could really enhance the feel of the game. Another thing in pursuit mode should have been the allowance of all cars to take part in the pursuit. So what if Ferrari's get trashed easily? Its all part of the game!
Electronic Arts has been able to deliver damn good stuff in the past and I hope they combine the good points of all the previous titles and add in the new "innovations" that I've hinted in this opinion.
The game is a real cracker and can be very exciting. So get into your car, start your engines, shift into first and drive into an intoxicating adventure.
Stunning 3-D cockpits get in the driver's seat like never before 19 realistic courses--race a variety of exotic locales Take the ultimate high stakes ...More at Amazon
Stunning 3-D cockpits get in the driver's seat like never before 19 realistic courses--race a variety of exotic locales Take the ultimate high stakes ...More at Amazon Marketplace
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