Happy 25th Anniversary, Need For Speed!

Yesterday was the 25th Anniversary of Need For Speed.

25 years ago, on August 31, 1994, Road & Track Presents: The Need For Speed was released on the Panasonic 3DO. At the time, no one could’ve imagined how important that game would turn out to be.
In NFS, players could choose one from 8 different exotic sports cars and race against other cars in Cannonball-style races, while trying not to get ticketed by the police.
An updated version of the game, Road & Track Presents: The Need For Speed Special Edition (NFS: SE), was released in 1996.

The following year, in 1997, EA released Need For Speed II and its updated version NFS2: SE. This sequel dithched the predecessor’s point-to-point races and the cops, focusing instead on circuit racing. The game fatured a lot of concept cars from the era.

1998 was a very important year for the series, following the release of its 3rd game: Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit.
NFS: HP brought back the police chases, which were drastically improved and became a major part of the gameplay. Players could now also play as the cops. An early form of car tuning was also introduced.

Hot Pursuit was followed in 1999 by Need for Speed IV: High Stakes (NF4: HS), also known as Road Challenge (NFS: RC) in Europe.
This game introduced a career mode, where players could buy and customize cars and enter several racing circuits.
For the first time, car damage was added, and affected the cars both aesthetically and performance-wise.

2000 saw the release of one of the most controversial, but at the same time most appreciated titles of the series: Need For Speed: Porsche Unleashed (NFS: PS), also known as Porsche 2000 or simply Porsche.
As the title suggests, this game was entirely dedicated to the Porsche brand, from its origins all the way to 2000. The handling of this game was more realistic than the other NFS titles.

2002 was the last year of the ‘classic’ NFS era, following the release of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (NFS: HP2).
Hot Pursuit 2 went back to exotic car racing and police chases. Car damage was still present, though it didn’t affect the vehicles’ performance anymore.
The PS2 and PC/Xbox/Gamecube versions were very different, and the PS2 version was the first NFS game developed by Black Box Studios.

In 2003, after movies like 2 Fast 2 Furious became unexpectedly popular, the NFS series witnessed its first ‘revolution’ following the rlease of Need For Speed: Underground (NFS: U).
Underground was not anymore about driving exotic cars and running away from the cops, instead it let players buy and customize much cheaper cars and race in the streets of the fictional city Olimpic City. Car tuning and customization were a major part of the gameplay, and players could customize their cars by choosing hundreds of different parts and vinyls. NFS: U was also the first game in the series to feature a story and characters. it was also set entirely at night.

The following year, in 2004, Need for Speed: Underground 2 was released. It was pretty much the same as its precedessor, but noe featured even crazier customization possibilities.
But most importantly, NFS: U2 was the first game in the series to have an open-world map that could be freely explored by the players. Like its predecessor, it was entirely set at night.
A PSP version, named NFS: Underground Rivals, was released in 2005.

2005 is regarded by many as the series’ peak, thanks to the release of Need For Speed: Most Wanted.
NFS: MW brought back the exotic supercars and the police chases, which were heavily improved and became major part of the game’s career.
A function known as Speedbreaker, which slowed down time, was also added along with the Pursuit Breakers, which were structures that the player car use to take down police cars. The customization was not as extensive as U2, but the game’s story and police chases made up for it. Unlike the Undergroud games, MW was set entirely during the day. A PSP version called NFS: Most Wanted 5-1-0 was also released.
It is currently the best-selling game in the NFS series, with over 16 million copies sold worldwide on the various consoles, and the vast majority of the series’ fans consider MW to be the best NFS game.

NFS: MW’s direct sequel, Need For Speed: Carbon, was released in 2006. Some consider Carbon to be the last great NFS game, others consider it to be the start of the series’ downfall.
Carbon introduced the Autosculpt system, which allowed players to create custom parts for their cars by modifying pre-existing ones.
Another big addition were the crews; Players could recruit other drivers, each with unique abilities, to form a crew, and race along with one of their teammates. Each crew’s objective is to take over other cres’ territory and then race their boss. Another new addition were the canyon races, which were inspired by movies like The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift and anime like Initial D. Like the Underground games, Carbon was set during the night. A portable version, called NFS: Carbon - Own The City, was also released and featured a completely different storyline.

In 2007 the fans were split once again when the latest game in the series, Need For Speed: ProStreet, hit the stores.
ProStreet abandoned the series’ trademark illegal street races in favour of legalized events, set in various locations around the world. The driving physics were now a mixture of arcade and simulation and the Autosculpt system was improved. Tuning now played a major role than before, with each part affecting the cars’ performance differently.
Some people consider ProStreet to be the worst game in the series, while others consider it to be one of the best. Over the years, more and more people have started appreciating it.

Need For Speed: Undercover (NFS: UC) is considered by most fans to be the worst game in the franchise.
Released in 2008, this game had a darker and more serious tone than its predecessors.
The game taked place in Tri-City Bay, which, to this day, is the biggest NFS city ever.
As the title suggests, the player impersonated an undercover police officer, who has to take down a criminal syndicate.
Reviews were mostly mixed. In particular, there were complaints about the game’s easy difficulty, repetitiveness, and poor texture maintenance, as well as the handling.

In 2009 two NFS games were released.
The first was Need for Speed: Shift, which abandoned the street racing scene and focused on legal circuit racing. It was developed by Slightly Mad Studios.
The other was Need For Speed: Nitro, released exclusively for Nintendo DS and Wii and featuring arcade-style gameplay and targeting a casual audience. Nitro is characterized by a unique visual style, which most fans don’t like.

In 2010 two more important games were released.
The first one was Need For Speed: World, a free-to-play MMO racing game for PC. World united the cities from MW and Carbon. The official servers got closde in 2015, but the game has since been revived by the community.
The second game released in 2010 was Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, which brought the series back to its roots, ditching customization in favour of exotic supercars and intense police chases. it was the first game developed by Criterion Games, known for their Burnout series, from which NFS:HP took a lot of inspiration. The biggest feature introduced was the Need for Speed Autolog, which tracked player progressions and recommended events to play. Like with ProStreet, the fans are still divided, with some considering HP to be one of the best games in the series and others considering it as one of the worst ones.

Again, in 2011 two other games were released.
Shift 2: Unleashed is the sequel to 2009’s NFS: Shift and was develpoed by Slightly Mad Studios.
On the other hand, Need For Speed: The Run was the last game developed by Black Box Studios. In this game, the player impersonates Jack Rourke, a mechanic who’s in trouble with the mafia and whose only chance to survive is winning a race across the United States from San Francisco to New York.

In 2012, Criterion Games released Need For Speed: Most Wanted, a remake of the 2005 game with the same name.
Unfortunately, the game had nearly nothing in common with the original MW and features such as customization and story were eliminated. Most of the cars in the game are available from the start, hidden in different locations.
To this day, most of the fans still consider NFS: MW 2012 as one of the worst games in the series, despite the reviews being mostly positive.

Once again, in 2013, the fans were divided by Ghost Games’ first NFS game, Need For Speed: Rivals.
Rivals can be considered an open-world version of Hot Pursuit 2010.
Despite a mostly very positive critical reception, players criticized the lack of body customization, the impossibility to pause the game, the many bugs and glitches, frustrations around the lack of dedicated servers, triggering frequent host migration, and cops chasing players for no reason at all (i personally don’t understand this last critique. You’re a wanted racer, remember? Of course the cops are gonna chase you as soon as they identify you, think about it).

In 2015 the NFS series was rebooted, following the launch of Need for Speed.
NFS 2015 brought back vehicle customization, a feature fans had been asking for years, featuring real-world companies such as RWB and Liberty Walk. The game’s overall setting and atmosphere were inspired by the Underground titles. All of the game’s updated were free and no microtransactions were present.
Despite reintroducing body customization, NFS 2015 was met with mixed reactions from players and critics alike, mostly due to its always-online nature, having only dusk to dawn racing (Underground was night-only, remember?), rubber-banding AI, lacking a cockpit view, performance issues due to the always-online requirement on all platforms, the inability to pause the game, having no manual transmission, and lacking drag races (the latter two being added in an update). The handling was also heavily criticized by fans. On the plus side, NFS 2015 has the best graphics of any NFS game so far.

Ghost Games once again left the NFS fans divided with 2017‘s Need For Speed: Payback.
Payback reintroduced a single-player, offline story mode and fixed most of its predecessor’s problems, but the storyline, scripted police chases, lack of police chases during free roam, loot box mechanics, unrealistic car damage and several other issues were heavily criticized.

Currently, Ghost Games is developing Need For Speed: Heat, scheduled for release on November 8, 2019. So far, thigs seem to be shaping up quite nicely, and the hype surrounding NFS: Heat is the highest of any NFS game ever. All we can do is wish good luck to Ghost Games for their latest NFS and celebrate this historical franchise’s 25th Anniversary!

Happy 25th Anniversary, Need For Speed!

Fun fact: The Need For Speed name originated from a line said by Tom Cruise in the 1986 movie Top Gun