In Cologne could not miss him, Need for Speed. The franchise, in recent years, has seen a real rollercoaster of glory and shame, from memorable chapters to some iterations extremely questionable, culminating – two years ago – at that Need for Speed Rivals that saw the entry in the series of Ghosts, a developer based in Sweden and trained by veterans of motorsport series like Forza Horizon and Project Gotham Racing. Rivals was also the last title in the series to carry the heavy name of Criterion Games, who with the title of which we are going to speak out definitively scene leaving the field (and the white paper) to the team in Gothenburg.
Gamescom has taken the opportunity to reveal some more details about this anticipated game: Curiously, EA has chosen not to reveal new gameplay content – simply repeat the view demo at E3 – and used the stage for Cologne some important announcements.
Dream team
Apparently, the first important news comes from the presence of some very important people in the countryside. Let’s talk about Ken Block, Shinichi Morohoshi, Akira Nakai, Magnus Walker and Risky Devil (Fish, AJ Cook, Stevo and T2). Each of these characters embody the five pillars of the game, respectively Style, Outlaw, Tuning, Speed and Crew. The five pillars are easily decipherable: Outlaw refers to the possibility for the player to become an outlaw and escape the cops, Style focuses on the precision and skill of the pilot (and it is no coincidence that the chosen character is Ken Block) , Tuning echoes the enormous freedom to modify and customize their cars announced by developers, Speed needs no explanation and Crew – aspect already introduced at the time of Hot Pursuit with Autolog – refers to the great possibilities of social interaction granted by title.
At Gamescom we had the opportunity to explore some of these aspects. Specifically, we have been able to know the relationship between the driver and the police: committing infringements raises a counter that indicates the size of our head and, consequently, what we wanted. Once intercepted by police, the player is free to groped escape or pay the debt to justice, by paying a (often) large sum of money. The displacement of the various law enforcement aa depending on where you are: in general, the city is very difficult to go unnoticed if you commit a crime road, while in outdoor areas you have more freedom of movement. In doing so, developers should allow the player to explore their “creativity” in the most tortuous without triggering a veritable manhunt. At the same time, however, the highly discounted rides through the streets of the city of Ventura Bay expected to become even more exciting, with the police ready to intervene all the time and put a spoke in the wheels while our tachometer slams on the limiter.
The map, as can be imagined, it is huge and varied. We speak of a size double that of Rivals with a sophisticated but more realistic. If passed by Rivals areas seemingly incompatible with each other through a passage in the tunnel or any abrupt change in the landscape, the title presented this year seems to offer more gradual changes and, consequently, more lifelike. The landscape, divided into six different districts, is inspired by the West Coast of the United States, and the presence of numerous desert canyons that culminate in the hills and, finally, in a port seem grant a glance most plausible and most inspired Meatloaf forest-desert-snow-city seen in Rivals.
Where is the tuning?
The fact that Need for Speed has cited as the tuning key point of the experience and the name assigned to this aspect of Akira Nakai, genius of the Japanese tuning scene, bodes well. We confess, however, that I felt a bit of disappointment to see that, once again, EA has chosen to show the high level of aesthetic customization of the car completely forgetting the technical changes. So, even though today we know with certainty that Need for Speed will give the player the opportunity to speak to the individual components of the car, at Gamescom if they have not yet wanted to speak, merely confirmed the presence of several structures that allow the car to each car to get more performance-oriented speed, drifting, roadholding, etcetera.
It is instead placed the focus on the online component of the game: the old has given way to Autolog Need for Speed Network, a kind of social platform-game that will allow us to interact with our friends, see the latest content quickly shared (including images) and participate in a number of daily challenges. Even this title, therefore, will always play online with the continuous sharing of their data, in a manner not unlike that seen in Forza Horizon.
Magical Nights
The nocturnal setting choice for Need for Speed has allowed developers to work much on lighting. The graphics of the game, thus, offers a glance excellent and fascinating, which again surprised us positively. The short video game showed, of course, does not allow us to reach conclusions, but in general confirm the good feelings of E3. The game aims to offer a pleasant experience from the point of view of vision, and the excellent Frostbyte 3 – already seen in Rivals and Dragon Age: Inquisition – seems to have been squeezed properly for this production.
