NFS Hot Pursuit....hello Old School racing!
Posted: 23 Nov 2010, 17:49
I'm too lazy to write down my impression of the game. Only thing I will talk about that is that the game is just awesome in every single way, except some issues I detected now that I finished both Racer and Cop missions (in single):
- AI -> It's ok, rubberbanding is there to actually put things hard for you, but I think it's a clear disadvantage for the new players that are just getting into NFS. It's not attractive for them to actually get beaten up by the AI several times and have to restart races sometimes 10 times or even more. I had to restart a time trial even like 5 times because the AI, even if it crashed like 5-6 times behind me, was still there. I left him behind for about 6-7 seconds, and after that, magically he was behind me like nothing and passed me. Curiously I was using a CCXR at I was going at 420 (max. speed, the gauge was red) but this normal CCX passed me like nothing (and it wasn't using the nitrous) and I was like -> if they could re-balance the AI again, would be sweet. For a trivia, in the last race as Racer (the SeaCrest Tour) like 3/4 of the race, the AI was behind me until the last 20.0kms: for some reason, he crashed once and was behind me for about 10 seconds or 15, but he didn't catch me up, which was strange and I could won the race very relaxed. It was like if the AI rubberbanding just got deactivated :S
- Graphical -> Game for me, runs at 60FPs with no complications, none. But I've seen that some effects are missing in the PC version. I know it's a port of the console version, but I think the raindrops would enhance the experience a little bit more. Also the police siren lights are like "dead", there's no glow of the light as seen in the console versions. The textures of course are way sharper than the console versions, but in my opinion they enhance the gameplay even more. Now, something that has been whined in the forums to death, it's the AA (AntiAliasing), which at least, for me, is not that important, but it would be cool to have it there, sometimes looking at the horizon, due to the jaggies, I can't see what is coming in the opposite lane or the actual spike strip
- Sound -> Some time ago I read through a twit that the game would have the option to import soundtrack (mp3) and was going to be useable in NFSHP. However, there's no option for it. Don't get me wrong, I don't care honestly, I just run Winamp and problem solved, but if you are twitting through an official account...hey....I think it's responsability of the company to actually do what they say...anyways, again, it doesn't bother me at all.
Another thing I have noticed is the low engine sounds and music as well. For some reason, some cars are actually have normal volume levels, such as the Porsche GT3 RS, which sounds awesome. But some cars, like the Nissan GTR sound pretty low. You can notice this when you fully stop you car, turn off the engine, and then fire up again. The fire up sound level is higher than the actual initial revving of the car. The LP670-4 SV is a clear example of that: ignite the engine and listen to the revving of the engine as soon as the gauge starts to rise.
And of course, EA Trax missing, I hate some songs
- Handling: is perfect, nothing to say, I enjoy so much to drift in this game, but the overuse of drifting sometimes annoys me. Especially online which some of the guys out there drift like crazy and curiously don't lose speed when doing it. I was racing with a group and 2 of them were drifting in every single corner, and I took a shortcut but they were ahead of me before I was out of the tunnel, maybe they were using nitrous but anyways...just a point.
- Online: Balancing? I agree that online pursuits are awesome, but sometimes it gets nasty especially at the very start of the race (as racer). Not to mention that we have guys throwing spike strips to other racers, the emp feature in cops seems way too unbalanced. I have no problems to dodge the emp by going through some small areas, but the EMP will resume after the initial "touch" has made. I guess if that you interrupt the emp sequence, that would count as dodged, but it is not. I wish I could fully interrupt the EMP as soon as I'm out of visibility.
- Photomode: Criterion's attempt to create something similar to Forza 3 photomode. It's awesome, but I did a test with it: While I was running speedtest.net and the upload ammount, I took a photo and did the corresponding tweaks, then I pressed upload, and I went to resume: to my surprise, the game still had the image tweaks I did, and I was playing normally, but when the upload was complete, tweaks were turned off and image went to normal.
By the way, Bojan, you should send a letter to Criterion and ask them if they're at least aware of some issues like AA and other small things, but I'm sure they're working in autolog fixes rather than graphical things. Or at least tell them to look over this forum, we have a way more constructive environment rather than all the rage stuff that is going through the official forums
And for now, that's it
- AI -> It's ok, rubberbanding is there to actually put things hard for you, but I think it's a clear disadvantage for the new players that are just getting into NFS. It's not attractive for them to actually get beaten up by the AI several times and have to restart races sometimes 10 times or even more. I had to restart a time trial even like 5 times because the AI, even if it crashed like 5-6 times behind me, was still there. I left him behind for about 6-7 seconds, and after that, magically he was behind me like nothing and passed me. Curiously I was using a CCXR at I was going at 420 (max. speed, the gauge was red) but this normal CCX passed me like nothing (and it wasn't using the nitrous) and I was like -> if they could re-balance the AI again, would be sweet. For a trivia, in the last race as Racer (the SeaCrest Tour) like 3/4 of the race, the AI was behind me until the last 20.0kms: for some reason, he crashed once and was behind me for about 10 seconds or 15, but he didn't catch me up, which was strange and I could won the race very relaxed. It was like if the AI rubberbanding just got deactivated :S
- Graphical -> Game for me, runs at 60FPs with no complications, none. But I've seen that some effects are missing in the PC version. I know it's a port of the console version, but I think the raindrops would enhance the experience a little bit more. Also the police siren lights are like "dead", there's no glow of the light as seen in the console versions. The textures of course are way sharper than the console versions, but in my opinion they enhance the gameplay even more. Now, something that has been whined in the forums to death, it's the AA (AntiAliasing), which at least, for me, is not that important, but it would be cool to have it there, sometimes looking at the horizon, due to the jaggies, I can't see what is coming in the opposite lane or the actual spike strip
- Sound -> Some time ago I read through a twit that the game would have the option to import soundtrack (mp3) and was going to be useable in NFSHP. However, there's no option for it. Don't get me wrong, I don't care honestly, I just run Winamp and problem solved, but if you are twitting through an official account...hey....I think it's responsability of the company to actually do what they say...anyways, again, it doesn't bother me at all.
Another thing I have noticed is the low engine sounds and music as well. For some reason, some cars are actually have normal volume levels, such as the Porsche GT3 RS, which sounds awesome. But some cars, like the Nissan GTR sound pretty low. You can notice this when you fully stop you car, turn off the engine, and then fire up again. The fire up sound level is higher than the actual initial revving of the car. The LP670-4 SV is a clear example of that: ignite the engine and listen to the revving of the engine as soon as the gauge starts to rise.
And of course, EA Trax missing, I hate some songs
- Handling: is perfect, nothing to say, I enjoy so much to drift in this game, but the overuse of drifting sometimes annoys me. Especially online which some of the guys out there drift like crazy and curiously don't lose speed when doing it. I was racing with a group and 2 of them were drifting in every single corner, and I took a shortcut but they were ahead of me before I was out of the tunnel, maybe they were using nitrous but anyways...just a point.
- Online: Balancing? I agree that online pursuits are awesome, but sometimes it gets nasty especially at the very start of the race (as racer). Not to mention that we have guys throwing spike strips to other racers, the emp feature in cops seems way too unbalanced. I have no problems to dodge the emp by going through some small areas, but the EMP will resume after the initial "touch" has made. I guess if that you interrupt the emp sequence, that would count as dodged, but it is not. I wish I could fully interrupt the EMP as soon as I'm out of visibility.
- Photomode: Criterion's attempt to create something similar to Forza 3 photomode. It's awesome, but I did a test with it: While I was running speedtest.net and the upload ammount, I took a photo and did the corresponding tweaks, then I pressed upload, and I went to resume: to my surprise, the game still had the image tweaks I did, and I was playing normally, but when the upload was complete, tweaks were turned off and image went to normal.
By the way, Bojan, you should send a letter to Criterion and ask them if they're at least aware of some issues like AA and other small things, but I'm sure they're working in autolog fixes rather than graphical things. Or at least tell them to look over this forum, we have a way more constructive environment rather than all the rage stuff that is going through the official forums
And for now, that's it