Thanks to www.n4s.de and NFSUnlimited for the news and mirror links.
Update: Mike Henderson, who is cool beyond words, has already mirrored the Demo at the NFSGarage. (http://www.nfsg.net) update: the traffic was slowly killing the server, so we had to take it down, sorry. =[
More news/mirrors as follows.
Oh, and it's 345 MB big... &(
Update: you will need to have DirectX 9.0c in order to run this demo - if you don't have it yet, go here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=0A9B6820-BFBB-4799-9908-D418CDEAC197
Some info:
The Demo contains:
Free Roam (Beacon Hill)
Outrun Race
Circuit (one event - accessible in world)
Downhill Drift (one event - accessible in world)
Stores (Car Lot, and Specialty Shop)
Quick Race
Downhill drift (same track as in free roam)
Circuit (same track as in free roam)
Online (full server, no LAN)
Downhill drift (same track as in free roam)
Circuit (same track as in free roam)
Cars
Player car - Nissan 350Z Preview
Performance Shop
Body Shop
Car Lot
Graphics Shop
Car Specialties Shop
wouldn't you know it, just as I planned other work to do tonight... :teeter:
Remko
10-26-2004, 01:31 PM
http://www.nfscars.net/phpbb/files/nfs_u2_-_4.jpg
:eek:
First demo screenshots (that I know of) that were taken by ViperJay 5 from NFSCars, you can see the rest here: http://www.nfscars.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=285625#285625
Frank N. O.
10-26-2004, 01:36 PM
Movie-Quote: Oh I'm gonna throw up dog! (and that was from GI60S with the streetgang where the young kids tried to get the Mercedes-keys in the dog's ahem droppings).
This says how bored I am that I'm actually continuing my download, or maybe it's the flu talking?
Frank
jtace
10-26-2004, 06:44 PM
well time to break out the steering wheel again from the box. :)
Ayce
10-26-2004, 08:06 PM
Think I'll wait and see. Still busy with WR, RD2 & PU. ;)
bogs
10-26-2004, 11:43 PM
Well , after trying the demo , I can certainly say I am not in the target group this game is looking for . Some of it might well be fun , but most certainly it would be fun for someone else . If it didn't have nfs in the title and I had stumbled across it , I would never have guessed it to be a continuation of the series . < sigh >
Ayce
10-27-2004, 07:27 PM
Decided to give it a try, unfortunatly, I think the servers are way too busy. I tried to get it from 2 places. One reset, the other crashed out,and left part of the file on the HDD. When I tried to run it I got the ol' "Not a valid win 32 Application" I'll wait a few days and try again after the initial rush.
jtace
10-27-2004, 08:34 PM
Honestly NFS UG2 is what I've come to expect from an NFS series game. Not that I wouldn't like more sim feel, but honestly EA has thier own idea of what a good balance is and it's not a true sim but it's a lot of fun and what I've come to expect from them physics wise. Physics aside, it's got some good gameplay elements from what I've seen, looks like they've gotten a bit smarter with the online part as well, so that might be a big improvement over the original, but we'll see. :)
VQ
10-27-2004, 11:39 PM
I like that boat, from NFS5 ey? I hate the spinners and the bodykits are worse then before. At least they have some "muscle" cars.
blackice111288
10-28-2004, 02:30 PM
I like that boat, from NFS5 ey? I hate the spinners and the bodykits are worse then before. At least they have some "muscle" cars.
oh goodness, are you serious? lemme guess, you can put spinners on the race cars right? tsk, tsk, tsk. that yellow 350 in the screen shot is a prime example why im getting SRS instead on NFS UG2
Sepecat
10-28-2004, 06:59 PM
I think I'll just wait for the game to show up... ;) I'll prob download the demo tonight, and see how it is...
ASyjM
10-29-2004, 06:20 AM
oh goodness, are you serious? lemme guess, you can put spinners on the race cars right? tsk, tsk, tsk. that yellow 350 in the screen shot is a prime example why im getting SRS instead on NFS UG2
heh bad move.. i played both SRS and NFSu2 (final)
SRS Physics are bad.. of these two nfsu2 definatly is the better game
jtace
10-29-2004, 07:49 AM
That's where I give EA props, while the physics are not sim quality they're not half bad for the Underground series.
chris
10-29-2004, 09:30 AM
One thing I never got over with the old Underground was how damn difficult it was to play it with a steering wheel. There was this amazing and annoying delay between steering and the car actually turning.
I hope that is gone, because that ruined all the fun completely.
Sepecat
10-29-2004, 01:04 PM
One thing I never got over with the old Underground was how damn difficult it was to play it with a steering wheel. There was this amazing and annoying delay between steering and the car actually turning.
I hope that is gone, because that ruined all the fun completely.
Heh, And I thought I was the only one, that had a problem with the wheel… But then again, I had problems playing PU with a wheel…. I think its cause I used to playing more with the keyboard, than anything else…. That said, I found NFSU a bit or difficult than PU when it comes to using the wheel…
bogs
10-29-2004, 05:24 PM
Honestly NFS UG2 is what I've come to expect from an NFS series game. Not that I wouldn't like more sim feel, but honestly EA has thier own idea of what a good balance is and it's not a true sim but it's a lot of fun and what I've come to expect from them physics wise. Physics aside, it's got some good gameplay elements from what I've seen, looks like they've gotten a bit smarter with the online part as well, so that might be a big improvement over the original, but we'll see. :)
I'll assume this was a reply to my posting , which I didn't really have time to go indepth on and may have left some confused .
I dont think its any suprise ( to anyone on the boards for any length of time ) , I'm in the stodgy old folks category , and hence by definition WAY out of the target demographics for this game . Let me just say this about that , though , I was also WAY out of the target demographics for nfs 2 - hp2 . However I liked those ;)
Also something of a suprise , I wasn't disappointed by the driving which , if anything , might be described as comparable to NFS 3 - 4 . Might also be comparable to U1 , but since I dont own that one and don't remember what the demo was like , I really couldn't say .
Unlike some , I dont want nor am I looking for a game where you need 3 physics degrees to learn how to get your car moving off the line ( gpl , for instance ) . Pu was as close as I tend to get to that type of game . For the NFS series , I consider Pu extraordinary handling , and dont generally compare other games in the series to it . Nuff said bout that :D
I'll list the admittedly minor annoyances ( singly ) that add up to a completely annoying game to me .
Game Elements -- This is where most of my contention with the game comes from . I tried different parts of the game including Free Roam . One of the things I enjoyed most from the NFS series ( 1 - 6 including MCO ) was the track sizes . They were just right for my taste , not monstrously huge , not itty bitty .
[ 1 ] - Track length .
Of course , judging only by the demo , the track and even free roam seemed miniscule compared to any of the previous games in the series in length . Sure , if you free roam , it takes you time to get through , but it seems to me that is mostly due to the fact that you have a hair pin corner every 12 feet . Are there going to be tracks like Rocky pass , Alps , etc in length and format in the full game ? from what I see in the city , I would have to doubt it .
[ 2 ] - Crowds dancing all over .
Yes , you can get rid of them * graphically * , but you'll still hear them despite that . They offer no interaction of any sort ( can't hit em , lord knows I tried ) so I have to assume that its an atmosphere thing ( and before I hear this wisecrack , I realize this isn't Carmageddon ) . To me , its just annoying .
[ 3 ] - Always dark .
I understand that EA is trying to simulate an "underground racing feeling " and such . I wasn't always a stodgy ol fart , though , and quite clearly remember my own youth and the way we did similar things . Racing at night happened rarely , if at all . Maybe its different elsewhere , I dunno , but I personally find racing in the dark ALL the time to be ....bland ( for lack of a better word ) in a game . Add to that that its always raining , apparently . Do you know people who LOOK for rainy nights to go racing in ? I don't . Every other NFS game allows you to choose day , night , weather . ( I might have missed those options in here . If I have , disreguard the above about the weather ;) )
[ 4 ] - Effects .
In every other NFS game that I turned all the eye candy on in , it generally made the game look better . In this U2 , it seems to me that it actually becomes worse . For one thing , as if racing at night wouldn't make it dark enough , having all the graphics on top notch made the car nearly disappear !
Most of the graphics options you * can * change , however I found that this comes with a gotcha as well , since all of the options are poorly defined ( read that " Not defined at all " ) . Finding out what an option does after you changed it , go back to the game , change it again , go back to the game , etc , etc , etc infinitum isn't my idea of a good time .
As far as I can tell , this has to be targeted strictly at the youngins . Light trails 9' long seem a * tad * excessive to me , anyways .
The full screen AA only makes the entire game look blurry . ( Before I get an explanation of what AA does , I already know what it does , this is an extreme blurry my vid card's AA doesn't reproduce using the drivers AA. )
The way neon glow was implemented , if you turn it off your car is floating apparently with no shadow ( admittedly nitpicking there ) .
Tail slapping the walls is very easy in this game and has no effect at all on your speed ( far as I could tell ) .
**There were some other things I had remembered to add here the previous 3 times I posted this , but I seem to have lost them due to the post not posting . I've copied and pasted this to a permanent file until I am sure it posts this time :eek: *
I won't go into having stickers all over the car , or hood scoops on the roof , or any other number of odd looking things to me , again obviously thrown in for the kids .
----------------------------
Having said all that , let me say again that I realize I'm not in the target demographic for this game . I realize things that annoy the heck out of ME are probably not going to annoy the people who this game * IS * targeted for .
Of course , on the other side of that , I wasn't in the target demographic for any of the other NFS games since 2 was released either , as I said in the first part of this , and I still enjoy most of those games. Go figure .
" .....Honestly NFS UG2 is what I've come to expect from an NFS series game. " , as far as that goes , there has only been one other NFS game I know of similar to this , U1 , so I wouldn't expect the "series" to look like this game myself . This may well be the way it is *going* to go from here on out ( and if it is , I'm done with it I guess ) , but I stand by my statement in the last reply .
As I said in the last post , if I had been away from the series for a while and had found this game AND If I hadn't seen NFS in the title , I would never know it was in any way connected to the series , unlike MCO in which they dropped the NFS part of the title , but still looked and felt and played just like an NFS game ( if you took all the single player parts out of an NFS game , that is ) .
Hope thats clearer , I tried to drop the other really petty parts of it I didn't care for to be a tad more concise ^_^ and failed miserably ^_^
jtace
10-29-2004, 05:37 PM
Well honestly I've come to expect this because I can clearly see the 2 distict target markets EA has gone after with NFS. Back in the days of the early NFS games the PC was an almost seperate entity from the console game, with good and bad consequences.
As part of the digital generation grows up that distinction between the PC and console gamers is really less and less. You see EA sending NFS U1 and U2 at a different market segment then they had been serving in the past. It's gotten a flashier in several areas with that and the type of game has changed some.
I don't ever see EA doing a hardcore sim with NFS, U2 is a very nice compromise when it comes to driving physics I think.
But yeah I will agree that it's really been divergent from what NFS has been in the past. I've actually expressed the idea that there are 2 distinct NFS market segments out there now, And before they moved U2 up in schedule to this fall, there was another more traditional NFS title in the works.
Maybe EA will be smart enough to realize they can work both sides of the track so to speak and spend a title or two on the exotic heritage that began NFS interspersed with the more youthful targeted "underground" scene. :)
bogs
10-30-2004, 07:57 AM
...As part of the digital generation grows up that distinction between the PC and console gamers is really less and less. You see EA sending NFS U1 and U2 at a different market segment then they had been serving in the past. It's gotten a flashier in several areas with that and the type of game has changed some.
Agreed , Although ( keeping in mind I have no idea of how large or small their developement teams are ) it seems to me that a game like U1 and 2 should have been put into their own slot , as it seems to me a completely different genre than NFS has been up to this point .
I don't ever see EA doing a hardcore sim with NFS, U2 is a very nice compromise when it comes to driving physics I think.
Nor would I think anyone looking for an NFS title be expecting one . They already have a slot filled for ( more ) realism , the F1 series if I'm not mistaken .
But yeah I will agree that it's really been divergent from what NFS has been in the past. I've actually expressed the idea that there are 2 distinct NFS market segments out there now, And before they moved U2 up in schedule to this fall, there was another more traditional NFS title in the works.
Maybe EA will be smart enough to realize they can work both sides of the track so to speak and spend a title or two on the exotic heritage that began NFS interspersed with the more youthful targeted "underground" scene. :)
One could only hope , on that I think we both agree -^
monaro
10-31-2004, 04:59 AM
sony had the F1 licence now so theres that down the drain. if EA's only racing games will continue to be NFS:U titles i dont think they are playing their cards right.
blackice111288
10-31-2004, 01:59 PM
Oh, how i long for return of Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed...........
Cadillac
11-02-2004, 11:22 AM
Concerning the Online stuff... please contribute:
NFBS threadon NFS Online Player REqs (http://forum.needforbetterspeed.net/index.php?showtopic=12674)
LTNS gang,
jtace
11-02-2004, 12:34 PM
Good list Caddy, you've covered most everything that's stuck out in my mind. :)
DJSparrow
11-02-2004, 02:21 PM
I just downloaded the demo and I think the game is great. Probably the best NFS game ever, well PU is always close of course. The engine sounds are just astonishing and the new features are awesome. Especially the hydraulics ones. I hated HP2 and I didn't like U, but I definately like this game.
monaro
11-05-2004, 09:25 PM
heres a massive surprise, i like it.
the free roam function is great to learn the tracks and the city, shortcuts and the like while the outrun feature is plain fun. ive had many a fun time outrunning skylines, 240SX's and other 350z's in anything from 8 seconds to 5min15!
the races are fierce, and the AI seem to know what they are doing. the bit about earning nitrous through driving "stylish" is a bit weird, you can get 2 full tanks just by driving backwards for a minute or so.
the game is fun, even more fun if you like ricers. if i get it i'll be earning a GTO then playing with its performance, not its 2 foot long bumpers and 5 foot high spoilers.
8/10
VQ
11-06-2004, 12:19 AM
I can barely play the game, it runs sooooooo slow for me, it takes agess for the car to get speed and it's not worth it till I can afford a new 3d card (will have a new one by end of year with anyluck)