Gameplay
The Need for Speed (NFS) series are racing games, all of which employ the same fundamental rules and have similar mechanics. In each game, the player controls a race car in a variety of races, the goal being to win the race. In the tournament/career mode, the player must win a series of races in order to unlock vehicles, tracks, etc. Before playing each race, the player chooses a vehicle to race in and has the option of choosing the transmission of the vehicle, which includes automatic and manual transmission. All games in the series have some form of multiplayer mode allowing players to race one another via split screen, LAN or the Internet.
Although the games share the same name, the tone and focus of the games has varied significantly, in one form or another. For example, in some games the cars can suffer mechanical and visual damage, while in other games the cars cannot be damaged at all, some games have physics—that is, the way the software simulates a real car behavior—that are reminiscent of a real car, while other games have forgiving physics (e.g. going through some curves at the slowest speed).
With the release of Need for Speed: Underground, the series shifted focus from the racing of exotic sports cars on scenic point-to-point tracks, evocative of open road racing to import/tuner subculture, and street racing in an urban setting. To-date, this theme has remained prevalent in most of the following games.
Need for Speed: Shift and especially its sequel took a simulator approach to racing. These games primarily feature closed-circuit racing on real tracks like the Nürburgring and the Laguna Seca, and fictional street circuits in cities like London and Chicago. In addition, the drag and drift modes from the street-racing games are kept and presented as professional sports (such as Formula Drift). There is a strong focus on the FIA GT1 World Championship and the FIA GT3 European Championship. The car lists include a combination of exotics, sports cars, and tuners in addition to special race cars. With Shift 2: Unleashed, EA has decided to split this off into a separate racing series, though it is not known whether further sequels will be produced.
Most of the games in the franchise include police pursuits in some form or other. In the first game, the player races against the X-Men, the objective is to beat him without getting arrested. In some of the games featuring police pursuit, the player can play as either the felon or the cop; as a felon, the player must elude the police, or if playing as the cop, must pursue and capture the felon. Introduced in Need for Speed: Underground were the concepts of drifting and dragging, which are used in drift and drag racing, respectively. These new mechanics are included in the tournament/career mode aside from the regular street races. In drift races, the player must defeat other racers by setting higher points than the other racers; these points are earned by the length and timing of the drift made by the player's vehicle. In drag races, the player uses a car set in manual transmission. The objective in this type of race is to follow an opposing car and mimic its performance to gain a boost in the player's speed. Like an ordinary drag race, the player must finish first to win the race, though if the player crashes into an obstacle, the race ends.
The concept of car tuning evolved with each new game. In the earlier games in the series, it focused mainly on the mechanics of the car rather than the looks of it. Every game has some form of car tuning that can be set by toggling options on and off (i.e. ABS, or traction control), adjusting options (i.e. front downforce, rear downforce, brake bias, gear ratios) or upgrading parts (i.e. engine, gearbox). From Underground to the current game, customization of vehicles is similar to the vehicles depicted in the 2001 film The Fast and the Furious. The two categories in which the player can choose to modify his cars are visual and performance. Visual tuning of the player's car becomes an important aspect in tournament/career mode after the release of Need for Speed: Underground 2. The player's car appearance is rated using a scale from zero to ten points; the more visual points it has, the more likely it is to be featured in fictional automobile magazines. When a car attains a high enough visual rating, the player is told that their vehicle is eligible to be on the cover of a magazine; thereafter, the player must drive to a specific location to take the photo of the vehicle.
Like all racing games, the Need for Speed series features an extensive list of cars that are available for the player to use. The vehicles included in the game are modeled and named after actual cars in real life. Cars in the franchise are divided into four categories, exotic cars, muscle cars, tuners, and special vehicles. Exotic cars feature high performance, expensive European cars like the Lamborghini Murciélago and Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren with some American models like Chevrolet Corvette and Ford GT; muscle cars refer to mostly American cars such as the Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger and the Chevrolet Camaro; while tuner cars are mostly Japanese-imported cars like the Nissan Skyline and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. The special vehicles are civilian and police cars that are available for use in some games, either directly or through hacking, such as the Ford Crown Victoria in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010 video game) and garbage trucks, fire engines and taxis in Need for Speed: Carbon.
Originally the series took place in international settings, such as race tracks in Australia, Europe, and Africa among other settings. Beginning with Underground, the series has taken place in fictional metropolitan cities. The first game featured traffic on "head to head" game mode and on later games traffic can be toggled on and off at the options screen. Starting with Underground, traffic is a fixed obstacle added during a race. The 2010 remake of Hot Pursuit was the first to include real-life cars such as the Chevrolet Cobalt and Porsche Cayenne as traffic cars, instead of fictional models in previous games.
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