Need for Speed II

I Feel the Need

Need for Speed and Need for Speed SE were two surprise hits of 1996. These racing games proved quite popular on consoles as well as the PC. I spent more time playing NFS in 1996 than any other game so I was eager to get my driving gloves on Electronic Art's sequel, Need for Speed II. Full of anticipation, I ripped open the box and settled in for an exciting ride

Reverse

First let me address the NFS genre. This isn't a simulator like F1 or NASCAR, this is a racing game meant to provide entertainment and diversion. The appeal of the original NFS was the sense of speed and riding in actual production vehicles (with an occasional concept car thrown in). Sure it's fun to tool around in an Indy car, but that's not the point of this game. The original NFS offered tracks that wove through cities and the roads were congested with "innocent" traffic. If you weren't careful you might even get pulled over by a policeman. What initially appealed to me about NFS was the realism of the environment, not the realism of the cars or the race.

First Gear: A Change in Philosophy

If you expect NFS 2 to follow down that same successful freeway, you should be prepared for the EXIT right now. Gone are the race tracks that wove through cities. Gone are the race tracks that started and ended in different locations. Gone is the policeman (not that I really miss him). Gone are the "real" cars you raced in the original NFS. I'd say that NFS 2 is "not your father's Oldsmobile."

Second Gear: New Cars

The new cars: McLaren F1; Ferrari F50; Isdera Commendatore 112i; Jaguar XJ220; Italdesign Cala; Fort GT90; Lotus GT1; and the venerable Lotus Esprit V8. Of the eight cars available, are any of the touchable? By that I mean "will you ever in your life drive such a car?" In the original NFS you could drive an *affordable *Mazda RX-7 or a Toyota Supra. None of these new cars will likely ever cross your path. It takes away from the fun to have so many cars that are very limited production or concept cars. I'm disappointed in the selection of the cars, but I'm certain others will appreciate the new variety. Some enjoy racing new and exotic cars. For a real kick they should have included an Indy car. I wanted to race production cars.

Third Gear: New Tracks

The only real add-on hacks for NFS SE were track mods. People quickly got bored of the 8 tracks and started hacking the track file to create new and different tracks. You would think that EA would address this issue by including more tracks in NFS 2. To my dismay we are still limited to 8 tracks.

The tracks range from an easy and fast oval to an impossible (and I do mean impossible) icy Tibetan Alpine track. Overall, the tracks have increased in complexity and difficulty. As I mentioned earlier, all tracks are circular in nature - you end the race at the starting line. I missed the "City" track of NFS SE that started in the South and ended in the North. Are the tracks better? Not noticeably. I found the oval track to be extraordinarily easy and also extraordinary fun. No other track gives you the real effect of speed like this track. The others were also well done and generally fun to drive, but I won't say this group of tracks is better or worse than the tracks in NFS SE.

Fourth Gear: Game Performance

You may recall some of the ads that ran advertising NFS 2 as "faster than the original." I assume they are referring to cars that are faster than the original because the gamespeed isn't improved. Granted, I don't have the fastest machine on the planet, but it handled NFS SE just fine. NFS2, on the other hand, showed the age of my hardware. I don't mind that much because I was able to get decent performance by reducing my screen size. Besides, it says on the box: Recommended: Pentium 166. This I believe. For those with slower machines you still have options to increase your framerate. You can adjust the window size, the image detail, the distance at which objects are first drawn, and you can disable the unnecessary horizon graphics. I found that by disabling the horizon graphics, making objects appear closer, and reducing my screen size one level I was getting pretty good performance. Overall I'm pretty happy with the performance and options they've given. This is a DirectX 3.0 game so make certain your hardware and software are up to snuff. I am a little disappointed they didn't make this game Direct3D compliant to take advantage of the numerous 3D cards, but I can't say Direct3D has produced many stunning games yet.

Fifth Gear: Crossing the Finish Line

New to the game is the option of playing Arcade style or Simulation style. The biggest difference is that in Arcade mode you get a running start from a crash instead of spinning donuts when your 600hp is applied all at once. This was an annoying feature of NFS SE. If you crashed and wanted to get back into the race you would invariably burn enough rubber to spin out of control losing precious time. In Arcade mode the car is dropped down onto the track already moving - eliminating much of the slow speed skids. It seems to be harder to totally wreck your car but easier to wreck the computer opponents now. I like this change as it increases gameplay.

Grinding the Gears

Someone at EA must have discovered Adobe Photoshop in the year since NFS SE was released. The new interface is OP'd (Over Photoshopped). I wouldn't mind the new look (it looks great) but the interface is quite clunky. When I click on an object with my mouse, it should respond quickly. The NFS2 interface is like clicking in molasses. You really have to hold down the mouse button for about 1/3 second for the program to recognize the click- and this isn't even into the game yet. Really bad form. Also, I'm not the only one who had problems with the game not saving my control configuration. This frustrated me to the point of yelling. Because it wouldn't save my control configuration I had to reset my controls before EVERY GAME. This took about 3-4 minutes. Tech Support's solution is to re-install the application in the default directory. Excuse me, but I know that it is very easy to write a program that doesn't have the directory hard coded into the game. Fortunately this problem was resolved by doing just that - installing the game in the suggested directory.

I also had some problems with getting the game to run. About every three starts, the game would freeze the first time I clicked on an object. Tech Support says "perhaps you don't have a DirectX compatible sound card." Yeah, right. If I didn't have a compatible card then it wouldn't work 2/3 of the time. And when it hangs, the whole system hangs. Ouch. I hate to power off my PC without shutting down.

Crossing the Finish Line

I'm still pleased with the game but I can't say it's worth the money to upgrade. Sure you get new cars and new tracks, but this should have been an "add-on" pack, not a new game. I think I'm not the only one who feels a little cheated by this grab at money. Taken by itself it is quite a good game. If you are a fan of NFS SE then you will probably be a little disappointed. Hey, EA, how about these ideas?

• Give us a track editor
• Let us import the old cars
• Let us design new cars

Oh, that would take programming and programmers cost money and this was really just an attempt to milk the asset for a little more money. Never mind. Just keep coasting along and don't innovate. We understand. Maybe you should have a NFS 2 SE that adds 2 new cars and 2 new tracks.

Review By GamesDomain

Pursuit Mode

Retrogamer GexGaming found on the old web a hack to switch all car AI to cop AI:

It was a really oldschool looking site from the 90's, but I can't recall the name, last time I found it was more than 10yrs ago. Anyway, that was the only site I ever read about this weird "cheat" for NFS II which enabled a so-called "Psycho Mode" - that's how the site referred to it.

I would rather say it's a Pursuit mode which never got finished, so I guess the original author of the site just preferred to called it Psycho Mode, but I stuck with the name, also made a video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17kJbC4NUt0