NEED
FOR SPEED 3
Bo and Luke Duke go nineties in
EA's Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit, as fine a sequel as
has ever come barreling down the pike. NFS II occupied
dozens of evenings in our offices, and when we learned
that NFS III would feature police pursuits, we were
ecstatic.
The basics of gameplay are the
same. You have your choice from thirteen souped-up
supercars like the McLaren F1 and a Ford Mustang GT.
There are eight road courses modeled from real-world
stretches of road, in varying environments such as cities,
mountain passes, and forests. The cars have individually
tailored characteristics, the most prominently different
ones being top speed, acceleration, durability, and
handling, and the different environments present
different hazards.
It's pretty much meat-and-potatoes
arcade racing, which is just the way we like it. NFS III
is the ultimate LAN racing game. Outmaneuvering opponents
through tight turns is second in pleasure only to angling
them off the road with well-timed bumps. Opposing cars
flip and roll with blissful abandon, and in NFS III they
actually explode sometimes, as well, which takes the
unfortunate explodee even longer to recover from.
Night driving adds a nerve-wracking
twist to the proceedings, as you switch to high beams
just to try and find the road in the forest darkness.
Weather effects really send the game into overdrive,
particularly when accelerated via 3Dfx; the rain effects
are the best I've yet seen in a 3D engine, with water on
the blacktop being sprayed up in a mist behind the tires
and splattering your windshiled just the way real cars do
to you on the freeway. Your tires don't like weather,
either, and the hydroplaning and fishtailing feels eerily
true (not that I've hydroplaned or fishtailed much,
whistle whistle) and with force-feedback support, there's
a lot of sweating to do.
But the big MacGuffin, the real
reason for sequel hoopla, is the addition of police
pursuit. This option introduces tricked-out police cars
that will be trying to shut down the joyride. Depending
on the difficulty level (there are three), your headaches
may include just a single patrol car, multiple cars
coordinating speed traps, or even tire spikes stretched
out on one lane of the road (this is flat-out rad;
nothing beats the thrill of being chased by several
smokeys and spotting those tire spikes up ahead, then
swerving from the spikes and regaining control of your
car). If you do get run down and pulled over, the
ticketing process sidelines you for a while-usually long
enough to make the race unwinnable as your opponents blow
by you.
If you want, you can even take
the wheel of the police pursuers and go about shutting
down the fun. The most engaging multiplayer configuration
for NFS III is to get about six guys into the race and
then have everyone rotate turns as a police car. While he
tries to shut down the race, everyone else goes for broke.
NFS III is a ridiculous amount
of fun, particularly over LAN where the lag is nullified.
The game plays over modem, but is noticeably slower-and
in a racing game, any moment's slowdown is a momentum
killer. Get some friends to bring their systems over,
spawn a big game, and you can have fun all night. Even if
you don't have a Daisy Duke cheering you on.
SUMMARY:
Almost endlessly fun arcade
racing, with thrilling physics and awesome visuals.
TIPS:
-Anticipate the turns and begin
sliding through them early. If you get the timing down,
you can powerslide through some vicious turns without
losing much speed.
-There's no rules against
bumping. At high speed, it just takes a well-angled nudge
to steer a bad guy off the road. Try tapping a rear
corner from a forty-five degree angle and watch the
fireworks,
-On the other hand, bumping a
bunch of opponents right out of the starting gate tends
to be counterproductive. You usually want to get off the
block fast before entering into a nudge campaign.
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