Need for Speed was the only EA game that I liked recently, until now. I played the latest installment of the series and I’m a bit shocked. The question I would like to ask here, is why is there a promotion of stupidity in the mainstream games?
I remember years ago when I was playing Test Drive I had to figure out the best and fastest route for the car to drive on. It was part of the fun, a learning experience. So now when I drive a real car I know how to cut those corners and give the finger to anyone that was in front of me. Well you don’t have to think about it anymore with a new DEFAULT option (remember stupid people never play with the options) called Best Line. You can see how evil it is on the following screen I took it personally with my digital camera “Print Scrn”:
The next great feature is game difficulty levels. What’s bad about that?
Game difficulty used to set how tough are your opponents. Not anymore. The new game difficulty levels are as following:
Casual, something I don’t remember and King.
Wow! I wanna be king! I’m gonna play that level it will be tough as hell! Why is it more difficult than the others?
Because you have to use the brakes on your own.
Apparently on the first level the game brakes for you entirely, on hard corners and such. The second level helps you with controlling the speed on the turns.
It’ll take me months of figuring out how brakes work until I can play the King level… fortunately I have the Best Line so I don’t have to think about where I’m going. I just have to focus on keeping the car on the green line.
Hmm… I was trying to think of an old arcade game to compare it that was 2D and the only thing you had to do is focus to stay on a line, but I can’t think of anything. This must be the stupidest game ever.
At least we have the graphics. With EA’s famous touch for the level of details we don’t have to worry about that. Or do we? Take a look.
Apparently 300 programmers and artists didn’t notice that the driver has no butt.
Not to mention that he doesn’t move his arms while driving, I think 15 years ago Car & Driver had better attention to details.
I played NFS 2-Most Wanted and it’s getting shitty. I think because of the tuning. It bores me.
NFS4 is my favourite.
The only one I ever liked in that series was the very first one, The Need For Speed. From there, the game has gotten progressively worse.
That seems to happen a lot. Games that have sequels, if not done correctly, turn out bad. EA like making sequels, and EA is bad at doing so.
It’s probably why I like Soldat so much. It’s simplistic and small, whereas most EA games are fecking huge, require a large portion of your computer to operate (my friend keeps whining to me about BF2142), have poor support from EA and have generally poor gameplay.
Of course, not all games from EA suck, or will suck, my balls (Crysis, but that’s mainly due to the fact that they didn’t make it).
Butts are essential for a great game.
I personally liked NFS 3 (Hot Pursuit) and 5 (Porshe Unleashed) the most. After that, possibly with exception of HP2, they have just gotten worse.
EA is a money making not a game making company. They don’t care about creating something really great. All they want is money. So the best way is to create 300 sequels of the same game.
MM given a great example. NFS used to be a great racing game. Now it changed into arcade for kids. EA seeks one thing – they want their game to be for everyone(so more people can pay EA). And that is one thing that doesn’t exist – you cannot create something which will be liked by everyone.
Maybe EA workers think “look we sold X copies, it means everyone likes our games!” But what it really means is: the true genre fans have moven to other titles and next sequel of the “great” game is played by brainless kids.
Yeah, I was wondering why the latest NFS game was so hyped up. When I played it for the first, I was sickened with how unrealistic and arcade-ish it was.
NFS isn’t a racing simulation, it is there for mere entertainment. People looking for a challenge shouldn’t bother with NFS.
Without a challenge there isn’t any entertainment, so basically NFS isn’t entertainment, except for people who find driving on a line a challenge.
Have you seen Danc’s blog (www.lostgarden.com). He is a game designer and in all the articles he wrote, challenges are the foundations of entertainment in games. Think about Tetris without a roof limit or space invaders without a enemies, hi-score or time, or even pong with a bat as tall as the screen.
I agree with Shuger, EA are just looking to make money. And when they see something original and well known in the gaming community (take BF1942 for example, made by DICE) they buy them out. It’s kinda sickening really, they take money off of brainless gamers, and then buy out the developers who make good games for more mature gamers, their most recent cash-in, Command and Conquer 3:Tiberium wars (which I currently own) has had poor support on the forums, has a multitude of idiots/10 year olds/hackers making up the community, and has extremely poor balancing. Now nearing it’s curve, they announced a couple of months ago of a expansion (how many times have they done this?). I wonder how much support we will get for that.
Haha!
(I read them, rarely comment tho)
I like your articles man
Bugs, no challange, sounds like what EA is good at, spewing out crap that aint worth a penny.. Seems like all they think about is money.. What amazes me the most is that people actually buy the games -.-
I remember having to help my friend use the patch released for BF2, cause in order to stop the game from working he had to patch it.. But, the patch didnt work either xD
@teh_ham
Yeah, ever since EA started working on the Command & Conquer series, it’s sucked. I will always prefer Red Alert over Generals.
And this shit where they’ve created, where they put twelve games of the series onto one CD… yet another scheme of making money.
Hm… I think Medal of Honor is the best series from EA Games…
Medal of Honor: European Assult was a GREAT sequel!
I haven’t played Medal of Honor: Vanguard but I’m guessing it’s good and probably better than European Assault.
–=EDIT=–
Almost forgot…
Medal of Honor: Airborne! w00t!
Hell no, best EA series is by far is Burnout. How can anyone not like this series? I just hope they don’t screw up the new one, it looks great right now.
I think 90% of people doesn’t feel the need for challange, as they don’t want to see any other movies than e.g. van helsing, I mean that kind of that doesn’t require some thinking, but only dull entertainment out of special efects, they don’t read, don’t have interest in what’s happening in the world and so. Most people think about: eat, sleep, shit, sex. We all agree thet EA games are crappy and so, becouse we are different from them, as we can understand what is MM’s talking abuot and why he does it.
I think, it’s becouse Soldat (from where we know MM and his blog) is played by (apart from kids) by people who know that 3d enviroment, graphics, advertising or how much the game (and it’s development) cost are not esentiall to the game, but the feel it gives.
If I launched out a bit, ignore the post.
No no… good point… Feels Good! I just cant stop playing Soldat…
Must make Michal proud when he finishes a game and see’s how far it’s come.
Meh, all you need to do is turn it off 😀
They make this games easier, because they did it like Forza..
Forza, that I know, is the only game that has this, besides NFS now 😛
Racing games suck in general; always have.
I totally agree whit Divan, challenge is entertainment, just for example, play Kingdom Hearts I, and then play Kingdom Hearts II, KHII just is not as challenging as KHI, the so called “secret bosses” are not even close to secret, are way too easy to beat, you level up too fast, is almost imposible to lose in the gummi ship, and so on, this make KHI much more entertaining.
Another example, is viewtiful joe II, the game may not be that awesome at all, but it’s sure challenging, and when i played it, i felt like i was playing a game in the Atari/mega drive/SNES. The game was hard, you had to actually think, there were no hints to spoil the fun and i was astonished whit that, today games are not challenging at all…
Lol, long post, but a last example, ICO, you are just left on the ruins and have to find it all by yourself, whit just a little help every so and then.
Just hopr link-dead is going to be challanging 😀
I dont like racing games at leass 99% of them if I there’s a racing game that I like it would probably be mars77a 2D top view little racing game. That was awsome!
The only racing game I like is Flatout 2, and that’s hardly a racing game; more of a smashy smashy game where you just smash into your friends. Great at LAN parties.
I kinda agree and disagree at the same time. I’m not sure at all but I heard they were going more into simulation in this one, and the guide line is what Gran Turismo does, so why not do same? However, I agree this is stupid to present it like the difficulty option. GT use it only in the school mode. You can actually practice one single curve for 30 mins and still improve, and the guide lines really help you to learn to drive. Even in real life just like you can improve your orientation skills in Test Drive.
Anyways, I agree it’s not fun to have everything done for you. As already said, EA want to make money, and they want to sell the game to everyone. If it’s a simulation game (I don’t know, and even if it is it’s probly still arcade), it’s probly harder to control. So they take the player for a retard.
”Butts are essential for a great game.” lol!
I can’t understand why people play these games. Maybe if I did I would make my own version of a stupid game and be rich :).
These games are probably targetted at really new players (10 year olds?) and they don’t have big expectations, or never played Soldat and don’t know what real entertainment is.
In the last time i wished your games would be more stupid. I hate to loose, i love good competition and i’m a perfectionist. These conditions are really good to get addicted to your f*** game
Atmosphere is very important for me. If there were some sprites or animations in Soldat that i wouldn’t like too much i won’t play the game, independently of the gameplay. But it a personal taste of mine. Many people give a f*** about details.
I don’t think the developers of EA have forgotten the butt. It would not make enough money to add such detail to the game, because only some “Nerds” like me would look at it.
Anyway, most teenagers rather like to see nice graphics instead of good gameplay.
Personally i dont like racing games. That “left – right – brake” seems to be a little too boring to me (i know that it can be funny but id rather play other games).
@NooMoahk
Yes, Burnout is defenetly the best EA series.
Burnout 3 rocked, Burnout 4 rocked, Burnout 5 is going to be the best i think.
Flatout > Burnout any day of the week.
Bioware games: Baldur’s Gate, Kotor, Mass Effect
Pandemic Studios games: Full Spectrum Warrior, Star Wars: Battlefront, Mercenaries
Why have i listed these? Just today i read in my favourite PC-gaming magazine that Eleveation Partners(Bioware & Pandemic Studios) were bought by EA for 800 milion dollars.
(o_0)
@#$^%#@#$@#!$#@$5&^%
@Michal
EA knows that experienced gamers would take one look at the game and know it’s shit, so they probably decide to focus on the inexperienced gamers who don’t know crap about a good game. Even if it does practically smack gamers in the face, it’s a good strategy nonetheless.
@Shuger
I LOVED Mercenaries, excellent blend of free roaming and action, does this mean Mercenaries 2 will be developed by EA? They would probably ruin that too.
It makes me angry that developers will just say yes to these buy-outs, but then again, who would refuse $800,000,000?
I was just wondering, when you buy a company, does that include it’s employees? that would kinda suck.
”I don’t think the developers of EA have forgotten the butt. It would not make enough money to add such detail to the game, because only some “Nerds” like me would look at it.”
I think it’s more about saving polygons than actually not have make a butt. Even me can make a low poly ass in a few minutes.
Most of today’s games just fucking suck, except very VERY few.
No love in the programming code, just the lust for MONAYZ!
@Anonymous: yes, but WHY they want to save polygons?
They don’t need to save polygons anymore, theres only so much detail you can put into a game before you go overboard.
I think it’s more about saving polygons than actually not have make a butt. Even me can make a low poly ass in a few minutes.
There are already millions of polygons in one scene of the game. It would make no difference to add a butt. They just didn’t care.
`Stryfe – you’re right on. They just don’t care about real gamers. Somebody like me isn’t worth their interest, because I buy a game maybe once or twice a year and then I play it for that long. I don’t spend much $$$ on them.
The only game with any innovation in the last 10 years is GTA, otherwise it is all nintendo games with updated graphics.
blah, the Wii is overrated. GTA is great because it simulates life. OMG, what about that mindfuck?
That’s actually the point where you are wrong Anonymous, GTA does NOT simulate life… all it does is provide a lot of freedom.
Wow. Lol, the new NFS seem to suck. Also a friend of mine just told me that it only has “legal races”. Sounds like they really ruined the series.
@Anonymous & PHeMoX: and let’s be thankful that it doesn’t try to simulate life like life is, because then the game would be boring.
Wow, a pay attention to detail but i never noticed that.
AND YEAH WHATS UP WITH THE GREEN LINE!? hated that, they are babying us now… im king because ive played racing games before? green lines are excited and all but… wow.
sigh ea… but still they made EA Skate. and that games literally amazing.
physics to the max in that game…
however as far as need for speed..
Most wanted was the best to date. IMO.
do people think hell is gonna be fun…
How does the rss feed work so I can get updated on your blog?…