Author Archives: Texhnolith
NFS The Run: IGN Article & Gameplay Video
The onlinemagazine IGN published a new article about Need for Speed: The Run, talking about the race, the variety of the sceneries and a little bit about the different game modes.
Additionally, you can watch a video showing a a short, intense section of The Run through a Death Valley desert canyon, a twisting, undulating road with rocky outcrops jutting up into the sky in the distance. The aim is to pass the opponents before the finishing line, which is harder than it sounds – this is still very much an arcade racer, with tight, satisfying handling and high speeds, but pick a bad place to attempt an overtake and you’ll go slamming into a rock wall.
Excerpt:
The cross-country concept also allows for a variety of gameplay, whether it’s racing technically around winding mountain tracks, hurtling into oncoming traffic on an interstate or evading cops in a city. There are one-on-one rival battles against arch-enemies, sprint races, elimination sections and cop pursuits, all of which feed into the overarching narrative. Having real locations has been a new experience for Black Box – the Frostbite 2 engine has made it much easier for them to create these open, detailed environments.
“When we’ve made Need for Speed games in the past, our first point of reference has always been amazing, beautiful drives in the real world – but we’ve never recreated them,” says Delong. “Instead we’ve done a fictional city of a fictional county… We’ve always been limited technically in what we can do. But when we moved to Frostbite, we discovered that we were able to iterate on content so quickly that we could create the epic scale of a coast to coast race. We could have picked five major cites and recreated those in limited detail, but for us the true Run, the true race, is the variety that you get inbetween those cities.”
Of course, Autolog is integrated at every step throughout the single-player campaign, showing you how much more talented your friends are at each individual section and then comparing your entire, coast-to-coast race time at the end. “You know second to second if you have a chance of beating your friend across the country. It makes the race more personal,” says Delong. He hints at multiplayer modes, too, but he won’t be drawn on specifics – we’ll have to wait for Gamescom for that.
Source: IGN Article
Need for Speed The Run – Insider Series Episode 3
Episode three of the Need for Speed The Run Insider Series features Physics Designer Todd Morin chatting with us about, obviously, the physics in NFS The Run. This week’s episode was a particularly long one because Todd was so excited to sit down and chat with us about all the new physics features in The Run. Even before we sat down to film he had a list of stuff that he really wanted to talk to the community about. I had no idea how much work has gone into the game’s physics so I hope that you all find this as interesting as it was for me to film it!
Quick note about the upcoming NFS The Run Insider Series videos; we’re going to be taking a few weeks off from filming the videos. Don’t worry though, the team is still super excited to get on camera and talk about all the great new features in the Run. We’ll have some new videos for you in a few weeks time…
ND4SPDWorld returns after long Hiatus.
Well, A triumphant day. We have finally relaunched ND4SPDWorld. We do not yet have everything up and running, but we are making the effort to bring you the newest content and the latest news regarding all the Need for Speed games.
ND4SPDWorld has been alive since 2000, however with the lack of personal time available and the programming skills necessary to update the old site, it had fell to ruins. To save face, and avoid catastrophe it was decided to pull the main site. Doing so, had resulted in lost database. The database was used not only for membership data, it also housed the information of all the files which were stored. So throughout the future we will be taking requests and creating packs in which to release the old files to new again.
We hope that with the relaunch of ND4SPDWorld, that we can reclaim our position as one of the top informative sites for anything Need For Speed, and that you, our members no matter if you’re new or a seasoned veteran to the site, will choose to follow us.
Lastly, we want to thank everyone who has stuck around and have helped keep the focus on track to revive the site. I really think that without all your support, we wouldn’t have gotten the site back up and running as quickly and thoroughly as we did.
Summer of Speed DLC Discounts (Europe)
It’s officially summer which, loosely translated, means driving with the top down, enjoying the sun and evading the police! It also means road trips, so it’s a good thing we’re only months away from Need for Speed The Run! To get you in the mood for that epic race across the country, we’re offering discounts across tons of EA Racing DLC and a new digital bundle for Burnout Paradise.
Whether you’re outrunning cops in Hot Pursuit or creating spectacular crashes in Burnout Paradise, the Summer of Speed DLC discounts on the PSN Store can breathe new life into your favourite racing games and help you catch up on the ones you missed because we’re discounting add-ons for the following games:
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit
Armed & Dangerous £3.19
Lamborghini Untamed £3.19
Porsche Unleashed £3.19
Super Sports Pack £3.19
Three For All Bundle £13.99
Need for Speed SHIFT
Exotic Racing Series £2.39
Burnout Paradise
Big Surf Island £2.39
Boost Specials Collection £1.59
Cops And Robbers £1.59
Legendary Cars Collection £1.59
Party Pack £1.59
Time Savers Pack £1.59
Toy Collection £1.59
Need for Speed: Undercover
Boss Car Bundle £1.59
Collector’s Edition Upgrade £1.99
Exotic Car Bundle £1.59
Muscle Car Bundle £1.59
Tuner Car Bundle £1.59
Ultimate Performance Bundle £1.59
Ultimate Visual Bundle £1.59
Need for Speed: ProStreet
Extender Pack Premium Car Bundle #1 £1.59
Extender Pack Premium Car Bundle #2 £1.59
These offers are now available on the PSN Store in Europe.
Need for Speed The Run – Insider Series Episode 2
In Episode Two of the Need for Speed The Run insider Series we’ve got Lead Vehicle Styling Director Andy Blackmore chatting with us about cars. This week we started revealing the cars that will appear in the game so Andy was kind enough to talk about the selection criteria that when into the car list as well as the cover car, the Ford Shelby GT500 Super Snake.
In the coming weeks and months we’re going to be talking to a many members of the dev team and they will be answering your questions. If you want to submit a question to the dev team about The Run, you can do so by emailing Drew@NeedforSpeed.com.
Need For Speed The Run – Insider Series Episode 1
This week we’re kicking off the Need for Speed The Run Insider Series! This series will feature members of the development team talking about their work and the features they are working on as well as answering questions from the community.
We’re starting off the series with Kirk Gibbons who is the Lead Art Director for The Run. In this short video he talks a little bit about the game, its art direction and the team building all the environments.
This is the first of many, many episodes that we’ll be releasing in the coming weeks and months. Because it’s the first we’re didn’t answer any questions from the community, however, we will in future episodes. If you want to submit a question to the dev team about The Run, you can do so by emailing me at Drew@NeedforSpeed.com.
Enjoy!
Need for Speed The Run – Physics and Handling
CARS
As with all Need for Speed games, we’ve selected an incredible list of the world’s hottest cars for The Run. At E3 we revealed the first five.
The fire-breathing 800hp Mustang Super Snake, the sleek McLaren MP4-12C, the gorgeous BMW M3 GTS, the timeless Porsche 993 GT2, and the immaculate Audi R8. Of course, we couldn’t lay all of our cards down at once, so these five are just a taste of the amazing cars that will be featured in the game. We will be sharing car details regularly so check back often.
HANDLING
The handling philosophy for this game is to make it very “human.” For example, when you’re driving the Super Snake, we want to give you the experience of what you’d imagine it would be like to drive a heavy, rear-wheeled drive American beast through tight city streets.
The physics are immediately accessible but with incredible depth. By that we mean anyone should be able to pick it up and play, but at the same time, experienced racers will feel rewarded when they master the handling of each car. The Mustang will feel far different from the Porsche, and the Police Interceptor will feel slow and sluggish in comparison to both.
When you do steal the cop car, it becomes a moment to realize that not only are you rushing to get back into the race, but you need to do it strategically so you’re not taken out by the helicopter or crushing debris. We all know the Police Interceptor isn’t the fastest, but the driver that can weave out of the spotlight, employing a strategy of survival rather than speed, will find himself back in the race quicker than others. This type of racing rewards the smart and calculating driver, not necessarily the one with the heaviest foot.
AUTOLOG
Your driving expertise will in turn be rewarded through The Run’s implementation of Autolog, which will track your progress stage-by-stage, race-by-race across the country to see if you can be first among your friends to reach New York. Mastering the handling of a certain car is going to shave seconds off your event times, and while that may not seem crucial at first, when you add up all those seconds by the end, they become precious.