Need for Speed 5: Porsche 2000 Unleashed

How long has it been, since the original Need for Speed [NFS]?

The NFS series has been entertaining the PC scene for so much time, that it is now a champion of longevity, on the same division as non-related titles, such as the Monkey Island adventures (that will return this year, with a fresh 3D look, a la Grim Fandango).

But, more important than longevity, the NFS games have been innovating, release after release. The debut was the proof that the PC could handle a quality arcade racer; the next two on the row, were refinements of the original, with more cars to choose from and graphics that started to exploit 3D hardware to the full extent of the available APIs. High Stakes, the 4th installment, brought a fresh approach to the gender, with the bet-your-own-car style of play, career mode, personal garage, and spectacular force feedback.

What about this new Porsche Unleashed?!

NFS5 is all about Porsches. You can drive any car in the world... as long as it is a Porsche :) But instead of limiting your joy, this option actually surprises and pleases you. I think that specializing NFS was / is an intelligent step towards a more serious racing title, that won't scare the usual arcade buyers.

In order to keep everyone happy, NFS5 has many playing options. I completed just the factory driver mode, in ~9 hours of straight gameplay (the whole night!), and I had so much fun, that I remembered the nights I was a young teenager and had to play ZX Spectrum with the lights off, so my parents couldn't notice I was doing it :)

NFS5 is very, very addictive. It is so addictive, that you will NOT resist playing it, even as you find some of the bugs that resisted to the commercial release...

The factory mode is Porsche Unleashed's way for a career mode. You start as rookie and will climb up to "Ace Test Driver", as you win your mates, perform slalom races and look good on TV commercials (really!).

The slalom races will irritate you, A LOT! Nearly all the slaloms will demand a 360 degrees spin... Easy? What if you are NOT allowed to loose speed? Still not hard? What if you must accomplish it, on special marked areas? Think you can do it? Wait until you try performing two 360s with a GT competition car that glues to the track as gum glues to shoes... At some point, I bet you will be saying: THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!

But it is not. Still, it irritates you. Actually, I ended up finding it very funny to do a certain slalom, for a TV commercial. In this particular challenge, you have to throttle a Carrera Turbo up to 3rd gear, perform a clockwise 180 spin (obeying a cone restricted area and not loosing speed), then engage rear and perform the same trick backwards, clockwise, some meters behind, looking for the marks on your rear-view mirror... bla bla bla... and finally end up doing a 360 show... ALL this on less than 50 seconds... On this one, I have the very impressive mark of 36.40 seconds... Check the avaible replays.

The best moments are when driving selected roads. The scenery is just beautiful, with a graphical quality so high, that I have no doubts that in very few years time, NFS will be played with photographic quality!!

The audio is equally superb: you can hear waterfalls, birds, the tires scream, the wind on the windshield, the rain, and have it all realtime affectable by the ambience (tunnels and open road have different acoustics...). The minor problem with the game's current audio performance, is that the engine doesn't roarrrr high enough, when driving on the cockpit view.

I know that the game's options let you setup the relative volume of each sound, but I did that, and the engine still sounds "too far".

Bugs I did notice:

#1) the road doesn't always scale perfectly to the car, on high resolution modes, and external camera views. Sometimes, when one "TV camera" zooms out, the track will "enlarge", as if the car suddenly had a road, many meters wider.

#2) cones on slalom tracks are higher than the car... Is this normal?

#3) when you race with someone on your side, if you look right, you won't see he / she, from inside... despite that person being visible, from the outside...

But these annoyances are all there is. If we forget them, NFS5 is absolutely GREAT: by far, the best racing game of the year! Each Porsche (and there are so many!) feels r-e-a-l-l-y different. Each track is a design piece-of-Art. The adversaries are "solid": you believe their driving.

There is such a huge variety of stuff to do, so many alternatives, that this product "over justifies" every cent it costs!

I already tried the evolution game mode, where you get to race all the Porsches, on a chronological order, and after a very dull, very slow, 1st race, with the OLD 356, I had a great time with its successor, the 356A, on the second tournament!! Huge progress!

Replays have changed, since NFS4: now they are more cinematic and focus your car much closer.

Download this nfs5_pack1.zip file [222 KB] and enjoy my current best replays, my garage (with a 356, a 356A and all the competition cars that are offered to those who complete the "factory driver" challenge) plus my personal file. Unzip the zip to your NFS5 folder, but backup your own files first!

Here are some times I achieved and that are avaible, as replays, on the aforementioned zip:

#1) 3 Laps to Monaco, on 03:00:71 (minutes: seconds: cents)

#2) Take Rolf to the train, on 03:10:75

#3) Won Rolf, for the "Ace Test Driver" position, on 03:14:06

etc...

Other serious improvements over NFS4 are a damage model that now differentiates several car parts, and cops that are much better on their task of making your life miserable.

More on NFS5, soon.