Morgan Evanar
Nov 16th, 2002, 12:03:33 AM
Well, initially, I was REALLY ANGRY at EA. I downloaded the demo.
It ran about as well as the Doom 3 Alpha. Well, slight exageration, but I was getting about 20 frames per second... on a GeForce 3, Athlon XP 1700 with 256 MB DDR RAM. And its pretty tweaked out.
Also, the cars handled like complete, utter crap. Mreh. To top it off, the sound crackles. Yes, the Acoustic Edge isn't the most common card. But the drivers for it are excellent, and hell, even the Doom 3 Alpha's sound works right.
Grumble grumble grumble...
Well, I was a huge fan of the first Hot Pursuit (NFS 3). Soo, what the hell, I get my hands on a copy.
The retail is a completely different animal. Some of the cars ride on Rails (Lotus Elise, BMW Z8, Opel Speedster), while the heavier ones drift a bit more, like they should (BMW M5, Holden SV Coupe GTS). Then you have cars that are pure sex, such as the Mercedes CLK GTR, which handles like its on rails at 180 mph. You almost always are classed against cars of similar performance potential. Vipers, Vettes, and Mustangs are in the same bag (prefer the Z06 Vette myself, handles better than the others.)
I haven't done multi yet, but there are a few guys over at another forum I frequent who do. I'll update when/if I do.
Enough about the cars, the graphics... they're very nice. Kind of jaggy right now, but far cleaner than a Box, Cube or PS2 could dream of. I bet it will look like diamonds once I do a video upgrade, as I think thats my main limiter right now.
Sound is excellent, but its apparent that only Audigy owners will really get EAX love. Small surprise, the developers only had 6 months to work on porting it from the PS2 version, which is supposed to be excellent. I did have higher hopes for the game, but at least it turned out to be solid fare instead of the utter dren the demo implied.
The big minuses:
- You're limited to the view you were driving in for replays. WTF?
- No in car view. NFS 3 and 4 had very pretty dashboards. EA rushed the developers, so no pretty dashes.
All in all: A good game that could have been far better. It was rushed out the door by a stupid, jerk publisher. I hate EA, but I like this game. My condolences for the devs.
Word on the street is that the PS2 version is the one to get. I hate the PS2's graphics, so I'll stick with what I've got.
It ran about as well as the Doom 3 Alpha. Well, slight exageration, but I was getting about 20 frames per second... on a GeForce 3, Athlon XP 1700 with 256 MB DDR RAM. And its pretty tweaked out.
Also, the cars handled like complete, utter crap. Mreh. To top it off, the sound crackles. Yes, the Acoustic Edge isn't the most common card. But the drivers for it are excellent, and hell, even the Doom 3 Alpha's sound works right.
Grumble grumble grumble...
Well, I was a huge fan of the first Hot Pursuit (NFS 3). Soo, what the hell, I get my hands on a copy.
The retail is a completely different animal. Some of the cars ride on Rails (Lotus Elise, BMW Z8, Opel Speedster), while the heavier ones drift a bit more, like they should (BMW M5, Holden SV Coupe GTS). Then you have cars that are pure sex, such as the Mercedes CLK GTR, which handles like its on rails at 180 mph. You almost always are classed against cars of similar performance potential. Vipers, Vettes, and Mustangs are in the same bag (prefer the Z06 Vette myself, handles better than the others.)
I haven't done multi yet, but there are a few guys over at another forum I frequent who do. I'll update when/if I do.
Enough about the cars, the graphics... they're very nice. Kind of jaggy right now, but far cleaner than a Box, Cube or PS2 could dream of. I bet it will look like diamonds once I do a video upgrade, as I think thats my main limiter right now.
Sound is excellent, but its apparent that only Audigy owners will really get EAX love. Small surprise, the developers only had 6 months to work on porting it from the PS2 version, which is supposed to be excellent. I did have higher hopes for the game, but at least it turned out to be solid fare instead of the utter dren the demo implied.
The big minuses:
- You're limited to the view you were driving in for replays. WTF?
- No in car view. NFS 3 and 4 had very pretty dashboards. EA rushed the developers, so no pretty dashes.
All in all: A good game that could have been far better. It was rushed out the door by a stupid, jerk publisher. I hate EA, but I like this game. My condolences for the devs.
Word on the street is that the PS2 version is the one to get. I hate the PS2's graphics, so I'll stick with what I've got.