The Need for Speed

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This article is about the first Need for Speed video game. For the rest of the series, see Need for Speed. For other uses of "Need for Speed", see Need for Speed (disambiguation).
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Road & Track Presents:
The Need for Speed

Developer(s) EA Canada
Publisher(s) Electronic Arts
Series Need for Speed
Platform(s) 3DO, DOS, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Windows
Release date 1994 (3DO)
1995 (DOS)
1996 (PS, Sat)
Genre(s) Racing
Mode(s) Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s) ELSPA: 3+, ESRB: K-A
Media CD

The Need for Speed (occasionally referred to in full as Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed is a 1994 racing video game, developed by Electronic Arts Canada and published by Electronic Arts. It is the first in the Need for Speed series, which spans more than 15 titles to date. The premise of the game involves racing in sport cars, including several exotic models and Japanese imports. The game was noted for its realism and audio and video commentaries. Electronic Arts teamed up with automotive magazine Road & Track to match vehicle behavior, including the mimicking of the sounds made by the vehicles' gear control levers. The game also contained precise vehicle data with spoken commentary, several "magazine style" images of each car interior and exterior and even short video clips highlighting the vehicles set to music.

Contents

[edit] Features

  • Featured both closed circuits and three point-to-point tracks, each divided into three stages. For the latter, traffic vehicles appeared in races.
  • Included police pursuits, in which the player could be ticketed or arrested after a police car succeeded in catching up with the player. The player was arrested if he/she received a third police ticket, while the Sega Saturn version only required two tickets for the player to be arrested.
  • Featured detailed specifications, history, audio commentaries and real-life videos of each vehicle.
  • Featured data and records of each race, during and after the race. These included speed, track records and racer position.
  • Replay feature allowed the player to view a saved race. Multiple camera views, playback speed and video navigation were offered.
  • A special feature for finishing the tournament's (or entering the cheat) was "rally" mode. This highly popular very fun mode rivaled Sega Rally in its driving dynamics. The car dynamics changed to make for faster arcade experience. Rally mode was in the original PC DOS based version, however it was completely rewritten in the PC Special Edition and Playstation version. This update included new graphics that made the tracks look like dirt.

[edit] Cars

The Need for Speed included a total of eight sports cars from Japan, Europe and the United States. The cars were divided into three classes, each representing models within specific performance brackets, such as speed and handling. Cars featured in the game included the following:

The Need for Speed also features a fictional bonus car named the "Warrior PTO E/2." The car possesses unrealistically high speed and acceleration, sensitive handling, and also produces an unusual horn sound (like a phaser-type sound, whilest the engine sound, is similar to a jet engine.The Warrior features pieces of all the above vehicles in its dash board.

[edit] Tracks

The Need for Speed featured seven tracks (the original 3DO version only featured the 3 point-to-point courses), which consisted of varied locations suggestively located in the United States. They included four closed-circuit tracks (with one as a bonus track), and three point-to-point tracks (each divided into three segments). Point-to-point tracks were the only tracks in the game that allowed the flow of open traffic and police, but are only featured during one-on-one races. The tracks are outlined below:

  • Point-to-point tracks
    • City: Set on largely straight, highway-like roadways stretching across an urban setting.
    • Coastal: Set along resort beaches, seaside cliffs and natural seafront terrain. The finish line of the track featured a half-buried Statue of Liberty on the beach, reminiscent of that featured in the Planet of the Apes film. Coastal's appearance is very similar the Big Sur area of Pacific Coast Highway No 1.
    • Alpine: Consisted of a short drive along farmlands, and long, windy roads along alpine forests. The last half of the track was covered in snow.
  • Closed tracks
    • Rusty Springs Raceway: An old, oval-shaped, and short race circuit set in the desert.
    • Autumn Valley Speedway: A modern race circuit with numerous steeply banked corners, set among autumn-color trees.
    • Vertigo Ridge: Highland roadway with passages through forests and mountain ridges.
    • Lost Vegas (bonus track): A Las Vegas-like circuit, and the only track in the game to be set at night.

The Need For Speed Playstation version included 2 variants of the rusty Springs closed track, accessed via a cheat.

    • Lunar Springs, is a version of Rusty Springs, except graphically it is on the moon.
    • Oasis Springs is an Egyptian version of Rusty Springs.

The Special Edition of the game included an additional two closed tracks:

  • Burnt Sienna: Set in an American Old West ghost town located in barren land, with a segment of the track running below a mine and cave.
  • Transtropolis: Set in a heavily urbanized and industrialized setting, running across various industrial establishments, a multi-story car park and an airport.

[edit] Reception

British magazine PC Power gave the DOS version a score of 95 %, praising car handling, graphics and overall presentation, but criticizing hardware requirements and sound.[1] Jim Varner of GameSpot gave the game a 8.3 "Great" rating and said: "With its marvelous attention to detail, exotic course design, and straightforward gameplay, this game is a true winner. Simply put, The Need for Speed is the next best thing to owning a $200,000 sports car!" the only criticism was the graphics.[2]

[edit] The Need For Speed: Special Edition

Released in 1996, an edition of The Need for Speed, The Need for Speed: Special Edition, is made available only on PC CD-ROM, containing DOS and Windows 95 versions. The Windows 95 version supports DirectX 2 and TCP/IP networking, and includes two new tracks and various enhancements in the game engine. Special Edition is the last game in the Need for Speed series to support DOS, as subsequent releases for the PC only run on Microsoft Windows 95 or above.

However, it can still be run under Windows XP using DOSbox (x86 DOS emulator) for DOS version of the game.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Butt, Damian (October 1995), “The Need for Speed”, PC Power (no. 22): 38–41 
  2. ^ Varner, Jim. The Need for Speed review. GameSpot. May 26, 1996.

[edit] External links

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Need for Speed video games