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Need for Speed and Burnout are completely different franchises. Both are arcade racers, sure, but the former kind of starts and stops with outrunning the cops in Lamborghinis and other supercars at extremely high speeds. The latter used unlicensed knock-offs for its races because its main dynamic was portraying car accidents with near-pornographic detail. Something you just can't do when a game developer is essentially "borrowing" cars from their real-world owners. Enter the just-debuted Need for Speed: Payback which blurs the lines between the two divergent franchises in its depiction of vehicular mayhem, pushing the boundaries of how much carnage is possible with a real-world car.
Car manufacturers can impose strict rules on just what a game designer can do to their four-wheeled babies in exchange for a studio having access to virtual versions of the vehicles. For example, Chevy might tell Game Studio A that if it wants to have a Corvette in its game, then under no circumstances can the vehicle flip over or have body parts fall off. Based on what Electronic Arts has shown of Payback, it looks like the team at Ghost Games has persuaded manufacturers to give them more freedom.
When you crash in the game, everything happens in slow motion. The camera zooms in on the "goon" car you just shunted, the sound drops out, colors oversaturate, sparks fly and fire engulfs the enemy vehicle as it spins on its front bumper. If you've played Burnout: Paradise this will look familiar, but in Payback it happens with a BMW versus a ride from one of the game's made-up automakers. How is that even possible?
"We have close communications with [car manufacturers]," Executive Producer Marcus Nilsson said. "We show them everything, and they can absolutely go back and say, 'We don't like the way you treat our brand in this specific situation; we won't approve that.' And we'd have to change it."
Source: Engadget
(Score: 2) by n1 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @12:38AM (5 children)
Playing the original Burnout games was a lot of fun, not sure how well they stand up today. Carmageddon and Twisted Metal were some of my favorite games of that era... I think best left to the memories.
You could perhaps look into the FlatOut series for that type of thing.
In my opinion, the racing/car genre is quite neglected in modern game development, the more serious ones. There are only two exceptional series that I know of, Gran Turismo and Forza, but they are console exclusive titles... But in the PC world there's almost nothing, a few attempts have been made in recent years, Asseto Corsa and Project Cars have their audiences, but never really seemed to gain any real relevance. I can see no way in making a AAA racing/driving game on a low budget, all the licensing for cars and tracks required before you even get into developing the physics and graphics. So that's probably why, the RoI is just not appealing to any developers with the resources.
What we do have now is My Summer Car, and that's the only racing/driving game I play now... It's different.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday June 13 2017, @12:45AM (1 child)
Trackmania series, for the arcade feel.
Dirt (4, rallye) for more realism.
Not interested in the list by realistic track racing games, so I can't help you there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 13 2017, @01:02AM
There's a new Gran Turismo for PS4 coming out in December.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 13 2017, @12:49AM
Both should be cheap used, and it doesn't require online activation.
I personally preferred The Pre-Undercover NFS games (Shift games were alright with a steering wheel, but I was tired of DRM by the time they came out, so I didn't end up buying them. Everybody I know who tried to play them with a controller thought they were shit.)
IMHO NFS:U2 is still the pinnacle of the Need For Speed Franchise. If they had combined its tuning, customization, and vehicles with Most Wanted ('06) it would have been damn near the perfect game. If they'd done both of those with Shift or Forza style vehicle damage, and added radiator/intercooler/etc damage, and limited fuel, it could have been perfect (being able to smash through as many cop cars as possible without having to try and minimize damage always peeved me a bit. Having to slide into them sideways or from the back to keep your car running long enough to escape could have allowed for much more interested wrecks, escapes, and helped cut down on the number of police cars needed for some of the more 'absurd' endgame chases. All of the games after that lacked the customization and most of them lacked the free world roam, something that TDU 1/2 got perfect, and the Forza Horizon series has come closest to replacing in the intervening years.
YMMV and all that, but I don't know why anybody is still discussing NFS games in this day and age.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday June 13 2017, @01:00AM
There was a PS3 racing game, Grid 3 or something. I did everything needed at the first level but didn't have the points to get to the second level. Did everything I could to gain points, could not get enough for level 2.
Sold the game, then got it at the library for a week for $0. Same result, can't get to level 2. I still want to know WTF.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 13 2017, @01:50PM
Project Cars was on sale on Steam the other day for $20 with a ton of mods included. So my roommate and I grabbed it.
Really, it's not much of a fully-realized game like Gran Turismo is. The strict realism means that you pretty much need to own a $200 steering wheel and pedal peripheral to even play it (which I do not). The roommate was telling me that it was produced by a lot of people who had worked on Gran Turismo but were frustrated with Sony. I'd believe it. The game engine looks rock solid and seems to go even further than Gran Turismo in simulating the different parts of the car, but there just isn't enough content there to be compelling.
Project Cars normally sells for $60. Despite the fantastic engine, I'm having difficulty feeling good about spending even the $20 on it, because I don't think I'll be pouring hundreds of hours into it like I do when a new Gran Turismo releases.
I think you're right about licensing budget. The only alternative is budget to invent fictional makes and models. I wouldn't mind fictional but realistic cars, and I don't remember anybody complaining that the tracks in Gran Turismo 1 back on the PS1 (which they still include through GT6) were all fictional. Thinking of GT6, that game has fictional cars as well (Vision Gran Turismo [wikipedia.org] concept cars) but most of them have insane amounts of performance that don't make them very fun to drive. Either way, you need $$$ to put out a (serious) racing game worth playing.
Overall, Project Cars is an excellent simulator but a very poor game. Gran Turismo is a good simulator and also a good game. Simple progression gimmicks like buying used cars (not in GT6! argh) and working your way up to driving that Mitsubishi Evo or Ford Focus Rally Car (two cars in both games iirc) are what make a game fun. Things I'm irritated with Gran Turismo about are dropping things like standing starts, and I don't think Gran Turismo has actually had racing flags ever.