Franchise Focus - Need for Speed : High Stakes
Well, it's time for round four. High Stakes was a big move for the Need for Speed franchise, as it marks the game where a lot of key current features made their first introduction to the games. Featuring a lot more cars and tracks, as well as some sweet upgrades to a lot of previous features and a couple new ones, this game is a big step away from what the previous games were.
First off, the car and track selection in this game is phenomenal. Ninteen cars, and ten tracks fill this game up a lot more than the previous titles did. A lot of cars and tracks need to be unlocked by completing in the games tournaments, but even right off the bat there is a great selection for the player. Additionally, what you can do to the cars takes it's own step forward as well. Up until now all we could was select the car and tweak a few tuning settings. Now, cars can be upgraded with a few different packages, specific to each car, which will greatly improve the cars speed, handling, grip, and a number of other things.
Hot Pursuit mode remains mostly the same, but it did get a few changes as well. Cop cars feature liveries specific to the different countries you'll be racing in, instead of just having one "universal" cop look. You can play as the racer or as the cop, with a mode specific to each style. As a racer, you'll have access to Getaway mode where you'll need to escape from ALL police contact within a set time limit. Playing as the police gets you Time Trial, which plays a lot like an arcade game. You'll have a time limit where you'll have to catch the racer in front of you, and after you do time will be added back to the clock and you'll move on to the next one. This process repeats until you either run out of time and fail to catch a driver, or you pull everyone over.
On the surface, Career Mode is just an extended Tournament Mode from the previous games, but it is much more detailed and fleshed out this time around. For the first time, money is a feature in the game. The Career features six tournaments for you to race in, of varying lengths in different locations. You'll start out with $20,000 and need to actually purchase each car to participate in the tournaments, as well as any and all upgrade packages you'd like for each vehicle. Each race nets you points to that respective tournament, and a cash prize. Placing top three at the end of the tournament comes with an even bigger money bonus. Some tournaments will end in a High Stakes race, where it will be you against one other driver, and the winner gets the losers car.
As usual, the game features some graphical improvements and some things under the hood. Car physics get tweaked, and feature a new damage model. So if you crash too hard, it'll show and it will effect your vehicles handling and whatnot until you repair it. Tracks have a lot more "extra" stuff going on, including moving trains and floating hot air balloons while you zip around the curves. One thing I also noticed about this too, and it's something I neglected to check in the previous games, was the ability to switch the controller to analog mode and use the joysticks for steering instead of digital mode with the D-pad. (Before I wrap up the PS1 section of games with Porsche Unleashed I'll check it out).
Showcase videos return once again, and now the car models (while racing) include full interior visuals, adding a bit of flavor to your vehicles. A lot has changed between this game and the last, so let's see whats new and improved.
Changes
Career Mode - While it's still labeled as Tournament, it is much more than it had been before. All three of the previous games, Tournament mode was just a way to force you into racing every track, hoping to win and unlock one more track and car. Now, it's broken up into multiple tournametns, each of which unlocks something for you. What's nice too is even though the tracks can repeat in back to back tournaments, the game makes heavy use of the backwards and mirror versions, so each track gets its own fresh feel each time you visit it.
Vehicle Upgrades - I have to admit, even though I knew they weren't in the games, it was weird playing the first few and not being able to customize or upgrade any parts of the cars in the early part of the franchise. Now, it isn't super specific. You can't go through and upgrade each part individually. Instead things are packaged together and broken up into three levels, slowly bringing your car up from a stock vanilla machine, to a racing beast. Some even come with a few visual upgrades to your spoiler and other body packages, making sure it doesn't just feel like you're doing stuff without seeing the result.
Bigger Selection - By far, the most impressive step up from game-to-game so far in the series. Nearly tripling the amount of cars, High Stakes brought a lot of driving options to the player. It may not be as impressive when stood up against other massive racers at the time like some of the NASCAR games, or even Gran Turismo, however NASCAR games were built simpler, and the GT series has always placed a heavy focus on simulation driving, and priding on representing as many cars as possible. At this point in the series, Need for Speed began it's shift towards being an arcade racer, so while the cars were impressive, it wasn't strictly about what you were driving, but instead what you could do while you were driving.
Obviously, all these changes were more than helpful to the series. The first three games got everything off the ground, but High Stakes turned things into what this series would eventually become. We've got one more stop on the PS1 generation before we move to PS2 (remember I'm coming back at the end for the two V-Rally games), but after what I experienced in this game, I'm plenty excited for Porsche Unleashed, despite it being centrered to one make of car. I think we can safely wrap up the PS1 batch of games before the year is wrapped
Up Next : Need for Speed - Porsche Unleashed
