Motor City Online Preview
Review By : McMaster1029
Review Date : 3rd September 2000 Rating :
Introduction
Publisher/Developer:
Electronic Arts Genre: Online Racing Release Date: Soon!
A
Whole New Spin on Things
The Need for Speed Series has always been considered
to be the best racing series for the PC. They have revolutionized the
racing genre with almost every new game. Always adding more and more
cars, until in NFS 3 and High Stakes, you were able to make your own
cars. Finally in NFS Porsche they scored a big hit with the depth they
went into by allowing you to play nearly every single Porsche ever.
Now those geniuses over at EA are working on the next revolution in
racing for the PC. Need For Speed: Motor City promises to be the most
innovative new game since perhaps Diablo. Set in a fictional city resembling
Detroit, the heart of the American automobile industry, Motor City will
allow users to customize almost every aspect of their hot-rod muscle
cars and race them over the internet using an interface that has never
been seen before.
Gameplay
and Atmosphere
Motor City will be set in… um… Motor City a city much
like Detroit, but in a place where time never passes. That’s why a 1932
Ford Coupe will still have a chance to beat the classic ‘64 Chevy Impala,
provided it has the right additions of course. And in Motor City, upgrades
and customization are the name of the game. The game will also feature
a very different look and feel from the previous NFS games. It’s edgier,
darker and more dramatic and will focus solely on American hot-rods
and muscle cars. The interface screens will have a lot of chrome and
50’s diner décor. The music will also be mixes of oldies such as jazz,
be-bop, and good ol’ rock and roll. Of course the most important part
of any NFS game are the cars.
Customize,
Customize, Customize Once you get a car, nearly every part of it will be upgradable.
You will get money to upgrade by winning races, and the purchasing possibilities
are almost limitless. Say your old ’63 T-Bird seems a little sluggish.
Well you can buy a new compatible engine. No big deal right? But if
you want, you can also choose what type of carburetor, valve train,
intake/exhaust system, or cooling system you want (and that’s not how
detailed you can get). This allows newbies who just want a good engine
to buy one, and it allows die-hard virtual grease-monkeys to get virtually
down and dirty and customize nearly every single part of the car. With
all this customizability your car could end up looking quite different
than the car you first purchased. But one thing we don’t think about
is how different the car could end up sounding. Most of today’s drivers
know that if your engine is making a different noise than usual, something
has changed (usually for the worse). But EA has taken all of that into
account. If you add a blower to your muscle car, the game will add that
sound and it will accompany the revving of the engine. You’ll know it,
you’ll hear it. And so will everyone else.
Paint
Jobs and Physics You will also be able to create different paint jobs for
your car. The game will ship with a variety of different paint schemes
for you hot-rod (or soon to be hot-rod). You can also create custom
skins and you will be able to trade skins online as well. Motor City
will also feature a entire different type of game engine. Whereas the
previous NFS game code treated each car as a well… car, Motor City will
treat each car as a collection of different parts. Each car will then
feel and drive very different from anything else. This also means that
upgrading your car will definitely change the physics involved and how
you drive.
Hardware
Requirements
Minimum
Required Hardware
Windows® 95 or
Windows 98
233 MHz or faster
Intel® Pentium®
II, Cyrix M2 or AMD® processor
32 MB RAM
4x or faster
CD-ROM/DVD drive (600k/second transfer rate) using 32-bit Windows
95/98 driver
150 MB free hard
disk space plus additional space for saved games, Windows swap file
and Direct X™ 7 installation
Hardware accelerated
D3D compatible 4MB video card with DirectDraw™ compatible driver
Sound card with
DirectSound™ support
Keyboard
Mouse
Recommended Hardware
Pentium II 300
MHz or faster processor
64 MB RAM
8x CD-ROM/DVD
drive (12000k/second transfer rate) using 32-bit Windows 95/98 driver
8MB PCI or AGP
3D graphics accelerator using 3dfx or Direct3D compatible chipset
Force feedback input device
Conclusion
Motor City Online
is part of NFS's great line of PC driving smulation games for almost
ten years. Need 4 Speed was NFS's first game which sold very big in
the PC world. As Need 4 Speed SE, Need 4 Speed 2, and Need 4 Speed 2
SE came out over the years NFS's popularity went up a lot. In the next
few years NFS put out Need 4 Speed 3 Hot Pursuit, Need 4 Speed 4 High
Stakes, and finally Need 4 Speed 5 Porshe Unleashed. Untill the year
2000 when NFS decided to make an online Need 4 Speed game; maybe even
the best racing/driving simulation game ever.
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