[Constructive criticism] Need for Speed used to be an art form.

[ilobsterexe]

Foreword: This will be a long read, but I urge you to read because NFS will continue the decline so long as the core aspect of spirit is not fixed. Additionally, I have put certain parts of the text in bold coating so you can read that and parts of text around it if you're short on time. Thank you!

I'm not sure any of you know me, but I've been a huge part of the Need for Speed community for years now. I've talked to actual EA executives in the past, made long lists of suggestions, gathering opinions from the forums like nfscars.com, and sent them bug reports. I've avoided reddit because the interface seemed pretty confusing to me (still does), and the site altogether feels weird.

Regardless, I decided to post here because this is pretty much the only active NFS forum on the internet with a lot of users. That being said, let me begin by saying I own every single Need For Speed game since the very beginning. Being 23 years old I guess you could call me a life-long fan. I grew with the franchise.

What I want to talk about here, as pointed by the title is - Need for Speed used to be art. What I mean by this is not related to graphics or the quality of actual art represented with the game. What I'm talking about here is the actual game itself.

There was this sort of spiritual connection with every element of the game. Be it Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit, or Need for Speed: Most Wanted. And this is where I feel like the games nowadays are lacking, among other things.

In summary you could say I think the following statement is true: Need for Speed games of yesterday were Need for Speed games of the racing genre. The games today are just racing games with a "Need for Speed" name slapped on them.

While yes, we can point to gameplay mechanics, the music, the graphics, the fps, the bugs, the car roster, the way customization works and say "Hey EA, this here is not what we like or think is of good quality, please fix it", I think all of this can be embodied by the statement that Need for Speed just isn't art anymore. There's no more feelings poured into it to make sure the game is "perfect" in the eyes of the creator. I guess good analogy could be music, as most people relate to the following statement: Rap music used to be great and now it's *. Or rock music, or whatever genre that's popular today but used to be so much better before.

*Whatever the reason for the decline of spirit is, I think it's important to point it out and constructively state why I think what I think:*

Need for Speed: The first game in the series. What made this game great is the fact that it came with a simulation environment (for the time) and you had a dozen of the world's fastest exotic cars at the time. It just resonated with the game's name: Need for Speed. Every aspect of the game did. Be it the thrill of being chased by the police for going too fast, or the magnificent crashes at 300+kph where you saw cars flying everywhere. It had that special "speed" feeling connecting every part of the game, and that's why it stood out as art in the racing genre at the time. The music was fast-paced energetic rock and electronica. This also screamed "speed".

Need for Speed II came out next. While some argue it was worse than the precursor because of the lack of police, it did deliver on the same art aspects I'm talking about. You had even faster cars than before (McLaren F1, Ford GT-90, Ferrari F50 etc), the game was a bit more of an arcade because that's what was hot at the time, and the energetic music was still there. Regardless of the gameplay changes, It continued the spiritual art aspect of why Need for Speed is called Need for Speed.

Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit delivered where NFS II failed, and the name pretty much resonates with that. The game focused on pursuits, and it pretty much expanded where NFS 1 and 2 left off.

Need for Speed IV: High Stakes was all about taking risks for those of you who remember, and is considered the greatest NFS game of the first era because it was the pinnacle of why NFS has the iconic name. It was pretty much NFS1 on steroids and it offered, for the first time - customization, but that's a story for a different post. The point is - it was still art and the game resonated with the title.

Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed was one of the games I didn't like too much in particular. But you can't deny, again, that it's a piece of art. They made the game more realistic, to show you how driving a Porsche feels in real life. It's glorious and every part of the game again was there for a reason. Many have actually learned to drive in real life thanks to practicing on this game. That's really telling of how great the simulation was for it's time.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit II was pretty much EA saying: "Yes we pulled another NFS2 on you and made you mad. But remember what came after that? Hot Pursuit". The game was a statement. A statement saying "we will make NFS great again". And they did do just that. They returned everything everyone loved about NFS and why the franchise made it that far. It was also the first game to use commercial music (which was chosen absolutely perfect btw) and the part that it had "2" in the title is pretty suggestive of the whole "we commercial now, boy!" feeling. It was still art, it had spirit, and it was great.

Underground and Underground 2 are pretty much self-explanatory. I personally grew up on NFS being all about speed. And I've hated everything post-Hot Pursuit 2 for a long, looong time. But looking back at it, you can't say it wasn't art. I hated myself for feeling nostalgic for these games. But now I realize why I did, and still do: They were art, they were generation-defining and they were a bold statement from EA: We are the first to embody the Fast and Furious hype and make it part of our franchise. So spiritually speaking it continued where HP2 left off - commercialism. The music, atmosphere, etc. everything was there for a reason, and not because "hey lets throw this in to make it cool" or whatever. It was art.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted to Underground 2 was what High Stakes was to Hot Pursuit and what Hot Pursuit was to NFS2: Lets expand the game with more features and better gameplay The title is again pretty suggestive, and every feeling the game provoked out of you was authentic to the atmosphere and everything was spiritually in place. Utter perfection to even satisfy part of the fans of first era of NFS games. Some say this is the pinnacle of the second era of NFS games, and the last truly good game in the franchise. Personally, I liked Underground 2 better because Most Wanted seemed like a futile attempt to satisfy two eras of fans at once. Like an attempt to try bridge the two spirits of Need for Speed which are the polar opposite: on one hand you have "the fastest cars on the planet - the elite" and on the other hand "the underdog. The car which works it's way up the ladder as you progress". Much like trying to equate Goku and Superman - You satisfy people who shallowly analyze both, as they look the same on the outside, but digging deeper would make you realize that they're not.

I digress. To continue: The game was still a huge success in terms of being art, and that's the whole point of why it was great. I can dislike it all I want, but it had spirit, it was art and it was amazing.

Need for Speed: Carbon is where the games, arguably started to decline in terms of quality. We were presented with a "modified Most Wanted" in a way. With Most Wanted being very expansive of Underground 2, I guess we wanted more with Carbon. I often think Carbon's pretty underrated though, because I feel like the fans were spoiled with MW. Maybe if EA did more in regards to graphics it would've been considered a great MW sequel and would be held up as better than MW possibly. In any case, it was a great sequel. It had everything MW had and the name resonated with an expanded customization feature. That and the Underground-esque constant night time is what made it spiritually in place with the 2nd era of NFS games. They could've done more with this game, but it was still art as everything was sort of connected and in-place. Worse than it's precursor, bud still art.

Need for Speed: Pro Street is where art was pretty much getting wiped off the face of the franchise. I call this the NFS2 of the 2nd genre - and not just because it removed the police and made the game a "politically correct pansy" in a way. While Need for Speed 2 was destructive in terms of elements like game-play, Pro Street did that in terms of art. First of all the name was probably decided by "hey lets name it pro street lol". This was the start of games which hijacked the franchise. Of games which are racing games which mimic the success of the games before them and act like they're part of the franchise. The customization aspect was "improved but cut off". The car roster as well, and the same could be said about the music and everything else about this game. Need for Speed stopped being an art form and started being a game which adopts art: Hey look we have good graphics! He look we have great sound quality! etc. There's no spirit, there's no authenticity, it's pretty much 100% commercial and dead.

That being said, I personally loved Pro Street because I was a fan of the first era of NFS games, and with the plot/story of the game taking a backseat to the feeling of speed and driving the best cars on earth again, I was personally satisfied. But I can't lie to myself and call this game great when it is not. Not in terms of art and not in terms of gameplay: the cars were more fragile than an American college student who needs a safe space because someone stated a fact they don't like.

Need for Speed: Undercover is the nail in the coffin. It was basically them saying "Okay so you hated Pro Street, but you liked Most Wanted, right?". The features were there but the spirit was not. It had too much of a focus on the plot nobody really cared about, and they couldn't tap into the fan-base anymore because the spirit was dead. The art just wasn't there.

Look at it this way:

Honestly, Does anyone remember one song from this game? Just one. What's the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Undergrou-TO THE WINDOOOOOW

Get my point? Everything was carefully placed together for Underground, for High Stakes, for Most Wanted and that's why we still have these weird feelings of nostalgia of actually being inside the game when we think about them, and why we forget games like Undercover.

This is where EA saw a profit crash and where the popularity of the franchise began to drop rapidly. And this is where they started listening to the audience and started to care again, for the wrong reasons speaking from a fan-perspective (profit), but they cared nevertheless.

It was 2009/2010 and the angriest mob of NFS fans was still the first-era fans including myself who wanted to see something drastically different since 2004. We got our voice acknowledged and EA did pull out something drastically different, but not exactly what we wanted:

Enter Need for Speed: SHIFT. This game was prime example of what I'm writing about. The title was snapped by a money-hungry company (can't blame them I'd be pursuing money in their shoes as well. not trying to hate here), but under the hood, the game had a small developer company's spirit. Slightly Mad studios was pretty much an enthusiastic soccer player playing for a coach who only cares about making money. That's why this game, even though disliked by everyone left and right (speaking about NFS fanbase here) still had spirit and was an art form on its own. It meant upping the simulation genre to a new level, and was an improvement visually and physically. It paved way for SHIFT 2 and eventually Project: Cars which is proof of what I'm talking about - the spirit of the game drew fans. It drew simulation fans and it drew big.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010) is when EA started to listen again. Not just acknowledge, but listen. This is where the first era fans got their voice heard.Criterion studios was still high on spirit at the time, and even though this game is disliked for a "too much of an arcade" feeling, it still had spirit, and it drew from the franchise's roots. You can still dig out the tweets of Criterion executives stating how the loved the very first NFS game the most, etc. They poured their heart into this, and this game feels the most like an art form of the 3rd and current era of NFS games. Everything was in place, but the game felt too much like Burnout and not enough like NFS due to the fans remembering the 2nd era of NFS games instead of acknowledging the 1st.

Did anyone else had this experience in 2010? When you said "Man NFS2 was great even though it didn't have cops", your average nfs fan would reply with "Yeah and we had customization and all that good stuff smh Ea should just make Underground 3." -> this is why Hot Pursuit wasn't well-received among other things and why people failed to realize it was art, just like how I failed to realize this at first about Underground and Most Wanted.

2nd era fans were in the shoes of 1st era fans. we swapped places.

Need for Speed: The Run came out next, as again, EA was listening to the fans and the pissed off group now was the 2nd era of fans. They got their voice, and BlackBox developed their final title. The sad part people here don't realize is "The Run" is pretty much "Undercover 2" in terms of spirit. It came from the same studio and it lacked spirit just as much: "Hey you liked Most Wanted? Here's another *ty dead game without spirit which has a STORY! huh? You liked that, right? and Hot Pursuit 2010 didn't have it! ah! we're finally listening kids!" It still wasn't art. Everything was out of place and it still felt like a racing game which just happened to have the NFS title slapped over the cover.

The 2nd era fans were somewhat satisfied, as they pulled off a ProStreet of the 3rd era, and that was it.

Does anyone remember anything about "The Run"? Most people don't. It lacked spirit, it lacked heart and it was not art.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2012 was yet another example of EA "listening" to us. It's the epitome of "lets slap something misleading on the game box to make the fans happy." It was somewhat well-received by the ex-burnout fans and people like me who enjoyed Hot Pursuit 2010, but the absurd development schedule killed whatever spirit was left in the Criterion studio, making this game yet another forgettable experience, and certainly not art.

Need for Speed: Rivals finally came out in 2013. This is the game which disappointed me the most. Being a fan of the first era of NFS games, Rivals was a dream come true when announced. It had me thinking: "Damn. They are pretty much making High Stakes with a modern twist and having a great multiplayer experience!" That is...until it was actually released. It was filled with bugs and missed opportunities so much that it makes me wonder if we received a beta version of the game rather than the actual release version. I think the dev cycle was cut short so much it killed what could've been one of the greatest NFS games to date.

This game is KEY EXAMPLE of how the developers aren't emotionally in touch with their product, and why the game lacks spirit, lacks heart and is not art anymore. Here are some of the missed opportunities which we could've related to and assured more money poured into their pockets:

• The return of Ferrari. After 10+ long years we finally get the "star of the show to return", and they just brush it off, and don't hype us over it. The most we heard about this was on E3 when they casually said "Oh yeah, Ferrari's back lol". While yeah you can go autistic fact-check on my * and say "but ferrari was part of SHIFT 2" - yeah it was an expansion and it was xbox-exclusive. This was the first time it officially happened with the franchise. They could've hyped this, they could've later added LaFerrari as DLC, they could've done so much to breathe life into the spirit of NFS.

• Rivals. The game's name is justified just because you have cops and racers being "rivals". and that's where this stops. Compare the title of Underground to this game. Just do it. Underground is what embodied every aspect of the game with the title - scenery, atmosphere, car roster, customization, constant night, music,etc.

• They could've even returned Romolo Di Prisco or Saki Kaskas to allow for more authenticity and deliver a more spiritual experience. Either here or with Hot Pursuit 2010.

Rivals is another missed opportunity of breathing spirit into the game and making it art: They could've made so many gameplay changes to embody this. Remember how blacklists played a huge role in Most Wanted? You could've made something similar here and add a "rival gimmick" to the game, where you get to pick a friend to be your rival or AI from the game or whatever. Hell, the Mclaren P1 and Ferrari: LaFerrari came out around that time. They could've had these cars on the cover and in the game in case of the latter. They could've made manufacturer rivalries and made you pick a play route and added some replayability to the game. i could go on and on, but you get the point.

The point is: this game feels like a walking catastrophe of elements which could've made art.

And finally, we have Need for Speed (2015). The supposed reboot of the series. If High Stakes and Most Wanted are the pinnacles of their eras in terms of what the eras represent, you could say that this game is the pinnacle of the third era of NFS games: it embodies promising great features from the past and delivering partially, making you wonder what's wrong and why you don't feel "connected" to the game in the same way you felt connected with Underground or Most Wanted or NFS I. The answer: It lacks spirit and it's not art.

It is a step in the right direction, though. They are listening to us, and giving us updates which make the game better, more features and nostalgic throw-backs.

But that's just it: You're giving us an illusion. The features are there, you are giving some feelings of nostalgic sensation, but the spirit - it's just not there. If High Stakes is a train which works flawlessly on coal and a legend of it's time, and if Most Wanted is a train which runs on electric energy and the fastest train to date, then Need for Speed (2015) is a train which has a coal burner, an electric motor and is glued by bubble gum. The devs are in fact listening to us and improving here and there, but the spirit is dead:

If this game is all about defining what Need for Speed is as a franchise, then where's the spiritual connection with the fans? We are the heart and soul of this franchise. Why didn't the release trailer come out to Lil John's "Get Low"? Why can't we, 10 years later still be able to do what we could long time ago: Where's my single race option? We can't pick the opponent cars and track route + race type and just go at it. Why doesn't anyone relate to the soundtrack (with the exception of nostalgic throwback songs I'm very thankful for)? Why can't I race split-screen with my dad anymore like I used to in the old days? Where's the street-race ambient feeling? Underground games provided this in their own way. Pro-Street had a much more detailed manufacture options for car customization. Underground had more customization options. etc etc.

I know some of these listed are features and not necesarely directly related to what makes them art when analyzed together, but the point is things got very overlooked again, and there were many missed opportunities again:

• For instance, you could've paid respects to the very first game in the franchise by having both the Diablo VT 1993 and Ferrari 512TR in the game AND on the cover - in a new ambient of course. This would've made a perfect "special/deluxe edition" of the game.

• You could've picked the songs more carefully which are energizing and resonate with the ambient like in Underground 2 or Most Wanted, AND at the same time hired Rom Di Prisco to work out the menu tracks in his electric/dnb style.

• There are many iconic cars missing and much more which resonate with the car culture today. Where's the spiritual connection?

• The plot is horrible cringe-fest and forgettable. Honestly just copying Underground 1, Underground 2, Most Wanted, Carbon and making it into one big story which this game rode on would've been a much better choice and resonated with the fans' cry of Making NFS Great Again.

Speaking of which, the core aspect of this game SHOULD'VE BEEN: Make NFS Great Again. I know I throw this phrase around a lot. I'm not American but I know one of your presidential candidates coined this phrase and maybe you'll relate to what I'm talking about here. The NFS reboot (Hey - REBOOT!) should've been about listening to the fans all year long, taking notes and making what we all wanted, CAREFULLY AND WITH ABSOLUTE PRECISION, ultimately - Making NFS Great Again. As great as Most Wanted (2005) and as great as High Stakes (1999).

• And finally - Always online. What happens 5 or 10 years from now, when you move on? The game dies with the servers. It is forgotten. Forgotten just like The Run, just like Undercover, just like Pro Street. This is the epitome of what's wrong with the franchise and where the executives should look in order to make things better.

Please, just hire someone who knows their NFS and what made every game great and make sure to put things CAREFULLY in place next time. I have high hopes for the latest game too, as you do provide regular updates. If Blizzard has made Diablo 3 amazing after a release flunk, maybe you could make this game amazing as well after a long long road of patching.

Thank you for your time!

UPDATE: I think it's worth noting that when I say "NFS games were a form of art" I don't mean that they had good music or good visual representation. What I mean by this is that every part of the game served it's purpose, the music was carefully picked (or composed) to enhance the ambient, the physics (realistic or not) felt in spiritual relation to either the franchise or the "gimmick" of the game, and everything felt complete with no major existential features missing (like the free race mode where you pick your car, opponents, track and race. Or (nowadays) customization, or the free-roam, split-screen etc.). In return the games became memorable and have defined a generation of fans - which is why we still play them to this day.

[SchiZo_Chesler]

i completely agree with you, i've been playing need for speed since 2003 and i haven't  really felt a full connection to the new 2015 need for speed although i like it. You need to realize ghost is trying as hard as they can to satisfy the 1st (road and track pure speed era) and the 2nd (tuner era). All games are art forms but racing has slowing been dying off, but years ago it was massive.

[GTU4G8NDAQMSCAR]

EA is now only been dedicated in making money even the msg networks,most wanted2012 in game photo , all has been removed. Especially the Rivals, it's same borring what EA got to understand is graphics is not all!!!

[SLYDOGG0018]

And all I'm asking is for some remakes of the old games with better graphics lol. I think you failed to mention Need for Speed World. It was for PC only but if it was an Xbox or PS game think about that.. That would be dope. That game was stacked!!! I had everything. And also everyone has there own opinion on all of the games. Me personally I like the originals up to underground 2 and most wanted 2005. Carbon, Pro Street, and Undercover were decent but you know that's average. Then NFS World came and that was koo for PC. It was something different you know. I liked how carbon land was connected to most wanted land it was just pure freedom. You could do anything you want from the biggest NFS inventory they ever created. It was just great and different. After that I feel like all of the new NFS games were trying to impress fans of fast and furious movies or other movies or video games. It wasn't very need for speed like. Then Need for speed came out I think 2012 no limits but for console. That was something new I enjoyed that one but it still did not compare to all the first games to me because they keep trying to make something new when they need to go back to the old and just upgrade the old games a little bit. Just a little bit though. That would be something else!