crhylove
Banned
Ok, i'm going 2 do a little mini review... i can get more detailed later if you want, including screen shots... (there's LOTS of eye candy in this game!), but i'm not sure (yet) how to take them... 
That being said, drumroll please:
Need for Speed 3 was my favorite racer of all time. In fact, in genereal I don't enjoy driving games, but something about getting slammed around by cops and getting tickets and even the radar detector totally entrhalled me. The graphics were awesome, the gameplay rocked, and NFS3 is still on every computer I own, as it's multiplayer mode is so much fun over the LAN.
That being said, let me give my first impressions of the update to this game (which I've waited YEARS for). First off, it's one of the most beautiful games i've ever seen. Bar none. The skyboxes, tree models, tracks, environments, cars, helicopter, all of them look amazing. Want real time reflections in your shiny car? they're there. want per pixel shadows? check. want freeze frame slow mo pans every time you are (significantly) air borne? you bet your ass, it's in the game. The game is a triumph of computer technology in the graphics department, and the real kicker is:
Sound is every bit as good.
We're talking real time 3d acoustic modelling that puts you right in the game.
However, like the earlier hot pursuit title, you are going to need tomorrow's computer to turn all the eye candy up all the way. For instance: you HAVE to disable AA altogether. you read that right. with my specs, i could not get decent fps with any kind of AA on. not only that, you have to turn off some eye candy, and the choices for this in menu are pretty vague as to what you are in fact doing. basically, turn down the car detail and you can still play at 1024 on most levels.
Some would say the engine is inefficient, but honestly, run tenebrae (which has many similar features) and you get similar performance, and afaik, tenebrae is a pretty solid engine.
But eye candy is not the sole purpose of a game, is it?
The gameplay is also pretty darn good (once you get the gfx issues sorted out (in other words TURNED DOWN)). The dual analog stick setup that they recommend was configured automatically for me, and ran beautifully (out of box). the other drivers are ruthless. the cops are very difficult to elude. a helicopter starts bombing you. the game is HARD. and, imho, that makes the game FUN. I haven't tried it multiplayer yet, because the other machines on my LAN can't even come close to handling any decent frames with this game, and that is a major issue for testing the gameplay out. However, the single player game is imho the best racing game in the industry AGAIN.
This is just an early (i played it for about 12 hours yesterday) review, but i can honestly recommend that if you have today's latest hardware, you should buy this game.
somebody tell me how to make screenshots.... thnx!
rhy
That being said, drumroll please:
Need for Speed 3 was my favorite racer of all time. In fact, in genereal I don't enjoy driving games, but something about getting slammed around by cops and getting tickets and even the radar detector totally entrhalled me. The graphics were awesome, the gameplay rocked, and NFS3 is still on every computer I own, as it's multiplayer mode is so much fun over the LAN.
That being said, let me give my first impressions of the update to this game (which I've waited YEARS for). First off, it's one of the most beautiful games i've ever seen. Bar none. The skyboxes, tree models, tracks, environments, cars, helicopter, all of them look amazing. Want real time reflections in your shiny car? they're there. want per pixel shadows? check. want freeze frame slow mo pans every time you are (significantly) air borne? you bet your ass, it's in the game. The game is a triumph of computer technology in the graphics department, and the real kicker is:
Sound is every bit as good.
We're talking real time 3d acoustic modelling that puts you right in the game.
However, like the earlier hot pursuit title, you are going to need tomorrow's computer to turn all the eye candy up all the way. For instance: you HAVE to disable AA altogether. you read that right. with my specs, i could not get decent fps with any kind of AA on. not only that, you have to turn off some eye candy, and the choices for this in menu are pretty vague as to what you are in fact doing. basically, turn down the car detail and you can still play at 1024 on most levels.
Some would say the engine is inefficient, but honestly, run tenebrae (which has many similar features) and you get similar performance, and afaik, tenebrae is a pretty solid engine.
But eye candy is not the sole purpose of a game, is it?
The gameplay is also pretty darn good (once you get the gfx issues sorted out (in other words TURNED DOWN)). The dual analog stick setup that they recommend was configured automatically for me, and ran beautifully (out of box). the other drivers are ruthless. the cops are very difficult to elude. a helicopter starts bombing you. the game is HARD. and, imho, that makes the game FUN. I haven't tried it multiplayer yet, because the other machines on my LAN can't even come close to handling any decent frames with this game, and that is a major issue for testing the gameplay out. However, the single player game is imho the best racing game in the industry AGAIN.
This is just an early (i played it for about 12 hours yesterday) review, but i can honestly recommend that if you have today's latest hardware, you should buy this game.
somebody tell me how to make screenshots.... thnx!
rhy
