Need For Speed World: planetary level racing

If you like driving games you have surely heard about the famous Need For Speed series, released by EA Sports 16 years ago, when a part of the fans the game has today were not even born. Each year brought a new NFS game, sometimes better, sometimes not that good. However this year EA Sports have prepared no less than 3 titles.

If NFS Shift and NFS Nitro are classical games things change when it comes to the 3^rd title: Need for Speed World, a game which is available exclusively on the internet and is also free. A true paradise for users with good internet connections, the fans say. Let us see if they are right.

Introduction

First thing that we have to mention is that even if it is an online game NFS World runs on a client software that must be preinstalled on the PC. Fortunately things go fast. You will have no headaches caused by the install process. Once in the game you have a sum of money to buy your first car in the game. At this point one of the most interesting choices is the Volkswagen Scirocco. However later in the game you will be able to drive cars like the Porsche Cayman S, Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX, Nissan 370Z, Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 or Audi R8.

Gameplay

Winning the first race is necessary in order to gain access to the multiplayer mode, which s also the main feature of this online game. Once there you have 3 types of races: speed races, lap races, or exploring the city.

For each of the type you can buy abilities with the money won in the previous races. Abilities range from the classic Nitro to options such as Dragster, that boosts acceleration, Need for Speed, that raises maximum speed, or Nerves of Steel, which assures good maneuverability.

Even if at first it may seem boring, exploring the city can become exciting due to the possibility of police pursuits. In this mode you can obtain other abilities such as the Radar which detects where police cars are placed and the Most Wanted ability which increases the player’s reputation.

Unfortunately the routes on which you can race are mostly known to NFS fans, since they are from more or less similar to the ones that could be found on the previous versions NFS Carbon and NFS Most Wanted.

One of the main problems is the automatic selection of competitors in a race. Practically level 2 players are often forced to race against level 10-15 players due to the fact that there is no criterion for selecting the competitors in a race. This seriously affects the balance of the races.

In addition to this testers noticed a big number of errors and crashes which resulted in the complete exist from the game during races, which can be quite annoying if you are in the 1^st place close to the finish line.

Money in the game

Even if it is free EA is currently analyzing the way it will use money in NFS World. One choice that has the biggest chances of being used is that of having the possibility to use real money to buy abilities that will help you have bigger chances to win the race.

Conclusions

EA Sports is trying to come up with something special with the Need for Speed new entirely online game. First impressions after the beta are pretty good, but the bugs must be repaired fast in order not to annoy gamers from the beginning. The official launch of Need for Speed World is was last year. Check out the website here.