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Need for Speed: The Run trailer and screens [Demo Out Now]

I've been playing the 360 demo this morning. Im gonna go +/- because im too lazy to write out paragraphs right now.



+It's fun. I have a bunch of issues with it (outlined below) but despite those im having fun/
+Effects looks nice. There are avalanches and stuff in one of the races, it's pretty cool. Not dynamic though, everything happens exactly the same every time.
+Cars look nice


-The frostbite 2 engine, on consoles, is poop. NFS Hot Pursuit looks better than this game.
-On that tip... framerate is garbage.
-I like sim racers, but the really heavy handling doesn't fit what this game is trying to be.
-They don't have any of the on foot stuff in the demo which I think confirms our suspicions that it's going to be crap.


Bottom line is that it's fun, but it's not outstanding by any stretch of the imagination.
 
famousmortimer said:
-I like sim racers, but the really heavy handling doesn't fit what this game is trying to be.
Click to expand...
Glad I'm not the only one feeling the same. I don't know how to put it in words, but something just doesn't jive correctly with it. Maybe it's the camera motion under heavy breaking that changes the POV, or how the controls suddenly feel like they give an extra 10 degree turn when you go under heavy braking, but something feels odd.
 
AlphaTwo00 said:
Nope. Zero cutscenes for in race things. You don't drop spikes and stuff, and if it's a cop chase, it's a cop chase for the entire race (as far as I've seen).
Click to expand...

Awesome, thanks!

I am now interested in this game.
 
famousmortimer said:
I've been playing the 360 demo this morning. Im gonna go +/- because im too lazy to write out paragraphs right now.



+It's fun. I have a bunch of issues with it (outlined below) but despite those im having fun/
+Effects looks nice. There are avalanches and stuff in one of the races, it's pretty cool. Not dynamic though, everything happens exactly the same every time.
+Cars look nice


-The frostbite 2 engine, on consoles, is poop. NFS Hot Pursuit looks better than this game.
-On that tip... framerate is garbage.
-I like sim racers, but the really heavy handling doesn't fit what this game is trying to be.
-They don't have any of the on foot stuff in the demo which I think confirms our suspicions that it's going to be crap.


Bottom line is that it's fun, but it's not outstanding by any stretch of the imagination.
Click to expand...
i agree with everything. its a fucking shame about the engine, why didnt they just use the engine from hp?
 
Is it bad once I saw this - I just assume I wait about a month or two and you'll see the price drop to the $20-40 range- because they will announce the sequel or next NFS title?

It seems they are releasing the NFS franchise way too quickly.

But I will try the demo today and pass final judgement.
 
brotkasten said:
Is the handling of the cars as terrible as it was in Hot Pursuit?
Click to expand...
Define terrible, cause personally, I liked it. It's definitely not how Hot Pursuit handles, but I don't know if you're going to like this one either...
 
The problem with the "sim" handling is that the two levels they showed were not designed around the concept of sim racing. Let me try to explain better.



Race #1 is what I expect most of the game to be... Point A to Point B - pass X amount of cars by the finish. So you are burning across the desert (and some mountain passes) at 200 MPH and the road is packed with others racers and traffic, and you are in cars that handle like boats. I see a car coming up and Im hitting my stick to go around it... but goddamnit this thing is so unresponsive. I love GT5, but if you took driving a finely tuned super car in GT5 and tossed it into the traffic of Burnout Paradise you would want to kill yourself. This isn't quite that bad, but that metaphor should give you a decent idea.


Race #2 is in the snowy mountains. The cars already control like boats... and now the ground is covered in snow. It's a 1v1 race, i have no idea why, but im guessing that's explained with the silly QTE's they left out of the demo. There are a ton of scripted events with an avalanche, which is cool, but i have to weave between rocks and shit while driving a boat on ice.



And then add to that the graphics are jaggy, not particularly crisp (other than the cars) and the framerate sucks... and you get a demo for a game that in concept could be amazing, but in action feels mediocre.


I love the concept of a point to point race across the country so much that I may just deal with the problems... but my hype levels are down after this demo.
 
AlphaTwo00 said:
Define terrible, cause personally, I liked it. It's definitely not how Hot Pursuit handles, but I don't know if you're going to like this one either...
Click to expand...
I thought HP was pretty much Burnout with real cars. Not a bad thing, but not what I expect from a NFS title. It was too arcade-y and the cars drifted way too much. I like NFS for the arcade style and playing it with a pad is great, but the cars in HP didn't feel really predictable in their handling. Definitely not my cup of tea and I'd prefer the handling of Most Wanted, which felt great, imo.
 
S1kkZ said:
i agree with everything. its a fucking shame about the engine, why didnt they just use the engine from hp?
Click to expand...

This, the HP engine was very good on the consoles and definitely much better than Frostbite 2.0 if the demo is an indication of the final version on the 360.

Game looks and runs like utter crap on 360 - shitty IQ (some of the worst I've seen on the 360) with constant tearing all of the place.

This and the beta of BF3 were not promising at all, Frostbite on the 360 at least is a joke...still waiting for the PS3 demo to arrive on the UK store.
 
Heavy said:
Listening to the dev interview the guy ends the video saying "95% of the time players will spend is racing and trying to beat your friends scores"... sadly I don't really have any friends so the great Autolog features would be put to waste. /foreveralone
Click to expand...
Even if you do, that doesn't guarantee any of them will be playing this game. That was the problem I had last year with Hot Pursuit, actually. Very few of my friends were playing it so I couldn't really take great advantage of the features (other than to race against Gaffers on my friends list).
 
I'm feeling the way most of you guys are about the handeling. For the game type, it's not working for me. On the mountain race I thought it was OK though. It also feels like the cars are floating across the road. The car didn't seem to shake/vibrate at all when going over the dirt road.
 
Feindflug said:
This, the HP engine was very good on the consoles and definitely much better than Frostbite 2.0 if the demo is an indication of the final version on the 360.

Game looks and runs like utter crap on 360 - shitty IQ (some of the worst I've seen on the 360) with constant tearing all of the place.

This and the beta of BF3 were not promising at all, Frostbite on the 360 at least is a joke...still waiting for the PS3 demo to arrive on the UK store.
Click to expand...

BF3 beta looked awful on PS3 too, don't get your hopes up.
 
Demo is TERRIBLE

Alright guys, lets make a game with narrow lanes, tight corners with no warning over and over again, AND LEST GIVE IT HEAVY HANDLING YEAH THAT'S A GREAT IDEA.

The gameplay is insulting to the premise of the game.
 
It's not the same team that created the sublime Hot Pursuit on PS2. That team is either at UFG or scattered to the four winds.
 
You guys do realize that Hot Pursuit was running on a heavily-tweaked version of the LAST Frostbite engine right?

The issue isn't the engine, it's the developers.

Criterion is God Tier. Black Box is B-Tier.


I wouldn't have an issue with the handling if it weren't for that camera sway on turns. It's a cool effect, but the devs need to pick one or the other - heavy handling, or tight handling with camera sway.
 
The Antitype said:
You guys do realize that Hot Pursuit was running on a heavily-tweaked version of the LAST Frostbite engine right?

The issue isn't the engine, it's the developers.
Click to expand...

yep it is like the U3 engine, not every developer is good at it.
 
The Antitype said:
You guys do realize that Hot Pursuit was running on a heavily-tweaked version of the LAST Frostbite engine right?

The issue isn't the engine, it's the developers.

Criterion is God Tier. Black Box is B-Tier.


I wouldn't have an issue with the handling if it weren't for that camera sway on turns. It's a cool effect, but the devs need to pick one or the other - heavy handling, or tight handling with camera sway.
Click to expand...
Weren't you Need for Speed PR or something? I take it you don't work for EA any more?
 
electroshockwave said:
Weren't you Need for Speed PR or something? I take it you don't work for EA any more?
Click to expand...

Haha, nah. Contract ended, I moved on to another marketing/PR opportunity.

No hard feelings with the company or anybody on the NFS marketing team either, they're great guys.
 
Blasted through the XB demo, started out with the Porsche.

Good:
* Looks nice, I suppose.
* The HUD is very elegant. Better than Hot Pursuit.
* Sounds nice.

Bad:
* Auto-rewind is bollocks.
* Instant reset when you drive off the road is bollocks.
* Car feels sluggish.
* Weight feels off.
* Constant experience popups.
* Messy frame rate.
* I expect it to look worse when put next to Hot Pursuit.
* Bad, bad cutscene with you and the car. Instantly reminded me of Undercover which was a complete turd.
 
First thing I noticed was the choppy frame rate, soft visuals and boat handling similar to Hot Pursuit but without the great drift mechanic.

I quite enjoyed the second race in the mountains, though...reminded me of SplitSecond or Stuntman (yeah, I liked those games)

If they tightened up the performance a little bit, i'd give this a shot.
 
The Antitype said:
You guys do realize that Hot Pursuit was running on a heavily-tweaked version of the LAST Frostbite engine right?
Click to expand...


Right. And BFBC 2 was on Frostbite 1 and that looks better than the BF3 beta.

So i stick by what i said... from what i've seen so far, the Frostbite 2 engine sucks on consoles. I hope to be proven otherwise by the full BF3 game. But so far it's a jaggy, framey, ugly low res texture havin' engine on consoles.

That's some serious tech talk for ya ;)
 
Not great. I like the environments and that your car can actually leave the ground (unlike in Hot Pursuit, where everything felt glued down). Otherwise, it feels a bit sloppy. It could have benefited from more arcadey controls.
 
All I want is NFS Underground 3. Yes, that's right, I said NFS Underground 3.
A grown up version without the neon lights and stereo systems and shit like that....
 
leng jai said:
Horrible impressions. Don't even feel like downloading it after reading this thread.
Click to expand...
If you don't have a bandwith cap then please go for it. I share the exact same feelings that are on this page, but maybe your experience will be different :D
 
One word. Disappointing.

Didn't like the handling and the frame rate is deplorable.

Question is, how old is the demo?
 
saladine1 said:
All I want is NFS Underground 3. Yes, that's right, I said NFS Underground 3.
A grown up version without the neon lights and stereo systems and shit like that....
Click to expand...
I'd love that too
underground 1 was the first NFS game I really got into
I mean HP was great and all, but I'd like to "pimp my ride" too not just race with preset cars where i can only change the color ^^

a map like NFS:HP just with an additional city part, and a garage where you can customize your cars would be perfect
 
Enosh said:
I'd love that too
underground 1 was the first NFS game I really got into
I mean HP was great and all, but I'd like to "pimp my ride" too not just race with preset cars where i can only change the color ^^

a map like NFS:HP just with an additional city part, and a garage where you can customize your cars would be perfect
Click to expand...

Nfsu2-win-cover.jpg
 
saladine1 said:
All I want is NFS Underground 3. Yes, that's right, I said NFS Underground 3.
A grown up version without the neon lights and stereo systems and shit like that....
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure they made that game.

It was called Most Wanted.
 
WTH, I LOVE the handling? It's imo a perfect mix between arcade/sim and that's how a NFS should feel. I didn#t play HP2 because it felt just like another burnout. Burnout is fine, but it's imo not fitting NFS.

The enigne however...my god it looks bad.
 
I thought Frostbyte was supposed to be the second coming. Looks more like someone came all over the screen. I love the need for speed series but jeez if this demo is anything to go by this is really an off year.
 
felipepl said:
Gives me a Hot Pursuit vibe. And that's GOOD.
Hoping for a bigger game and also for a PC demo (obvious screens from PC btw).
Click to expand...


Yea, these pics are NOT bullshots, its def the pc version, Hot Pursuit looked crazy good on a good pc versus the console version.

I played the demo last night on the 360, it just reminds me that I just cant get into console games as much because the graphics are just not even close to the pics on the first page. I need to finish my pc and play this on there. Same went with HP, I played it on both the ps3 and 360 and the graphics at times just looked horrible, but I know the pc they looked ALOT better.

Its hard to play these games now on the console knowing that there is superior version out there:/

The sense of speed blows in the chase cam, but the bumper cam is insanely good !
 
Gravijah said:
NFSU gets a lot of undeserved hate because of the street racer aspect. i enjoyed both of them a lot.
Click to expand...
What surprises me is that EA haven't made that 3rd game especially since the Underground series is their best in terms of sales iirc.
Bottom line is, people love customizing and upgrading. There really hasn't been a racing game from EA that had what Underground had.
I think it's time for a night time street racer again. Just let us go nuts with custom and upgrade options. Let us do battle on the streets of whatever and EA can sit back and rake in the money....simple.
 
brotkasten said:
Most Wanted is still my favorite NFS game.
Click to expand...


Agreed, it is for me too.


As for the issues with the frostbite 2 engine on the consoles, I am pretty sure this game will shine on the pc, just like BF3. Imagine The Run with 1080p native, 60 fps and the mod scene doing some cool stuff with the handling. :O

I do feel that the handling is actually really good in this game, kinda of a mix of Shift and arcade. Def not as much arcade as HP was lat year. I say this demo just like the BF3 beta is not indicative of what we will see retail, especially for pc gamers.
 
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