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| NFS C: First Impressions |
Wednesday, 30.08.2006 |
 Smoothie, the Community Manager from EA posted at the official boards his first impressions of Need for Speed Carbon:
I'll do my best to not sound like the "company guy", but sometimes it goes w/ the territory.
Let me say that each year, I think the team really hits a strong bar in game development and that they won't be able to surpass that the following year.
Once again, I was wrong.
NFS Carbon is shaping up to be an amazing title. The feel is very similar to NFSMW which I liked a lot, but some of the new aspects of Carbon really stand out.
First, the car list. I won't go into too many details as the 2nd list unveiling is sometime next week. But suffice to say, it's got a great mix of exotic, tuner and muscle cars. Much better than what was in NFSMW and they all handle differently. No joke. The muscle car I played with forces you to react differently than the tuner and exotic car I played with. Awesome job there. (Go Kristian!)
Second, drifting. Friggin sick! The element of speed was definitely lacking in Underground 2 and I really didn't give it much thought until playing Drift in Carbon. This is going to be a big deal for people and tie this back into car handling, you guys are going to have a big challenge on your hands.
Canyon Duel. I don't know where to start here. First, the premise is a good one. For anyone who's seen Initial D, you'll feel right at home. The idea of falling off a cliff really adds to the intensity. Speaking of intensity, the music for this mode is PERFECT. The composition really adds to the white knuckle feel of racing down the mountain trying to beat your opponent.
A fantastic job here yet again.
Autosculpt - I don't think I have the words to express how cool this feature is. The idea of being able to tweak out your car based upon your personal style is ingenious. You'll only see another car that looks like yours by design, the system is that complex. But so easy to learn and really adds to the flavor of customization. Add to that the ability to modify vinyls, it's not just a step above past NFS games, but a huge leap.
Crews & territory - Very, very cool. Team racing hasn't really been done as successfully in the past and again, a huge leap forward for that gameplay feature. I was skeptical of how this would work at first, but having played around with it, I think it's well implemented and even cooler that it's an option, not a requirement.
Online - Ohhh, I CAN'T WAIT to talk about this. Y'all are going to have to shut up thinking we didn't come out with a bang on this time.
 Thread @ EA Boards
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| NFS C: Demo comes end of September? |
Tuesday, 29.08.2006 |
The german magazine PCGames got word from Electronic Arts that the demo of Need for Speed Carbon will be released at the end of September / beginning of October. Inititally the 3rd September was planned, but since the NFSMW demo was released beginning November last year a new release date of beginning October sounds more plausible.
On the Games Convention EA already spread a PS2 demo, so we may can expect to find the demo in one of the next issues of the OPM2.
Update:
There is an official statement about that from Smoothie (an EA Rep) at the EA boards:
Here's the official statement. It'll be done when it's done and not before :)
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| NFS C: Interview with composer Trevor Morris |
Monday, 14.08.2006 |
As our partner site NFSUnlimited reports, a interview with Trevor Morris, composer of the Need for Speed Carbon soundtrack, is online at Music4Games. Here's a short extract:
M4G: How did you get involved with NFS: Carbon? Were you familiar with the Need For Speed series prior to working on Carbon?
Trevor Morris: I got introduced to Electronic Arts through my agent and friend Maria Machado, who has a great working relationship with that company. I am a huge car guy, and fan of NFS. I’ve played all the car racing games at some point, from my youthful days back on my Amiga. The EA gang seriously rock at cars, they totally get real car dynamics and the feel of understeer and oversteer. I’ve raced my cars recreationally on the serious tracks in Canada and in California, so I know. Trust me, NFS Carbon is going to kick serious ass. There are also things in this game that I have seriously never seen before. I think they may be setting some visual trends that will certainly appear in feature films down the road.
Interview with Trevor Morris @ Music4Games
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| NFS C: New Preview and Video |
Wednesday, 26.07.2006 |
The german magazine GamePRO published an article and a video of Need for Speed Carbon. EA invited the european press last week to the Porsche-Center in Leipzig, Germany for an exclusive presentation of NFS Carbon.
In the preview Steve Anthony talks about the game and tells us that EA Blackbox is working on the controller for the Wii-Version. The innovative controller offers many possibilities, and either it will be used as a steering wheel or you can accelerate or brake by tilting the remote controller. And he says that the soundtrack will be a mix of electronic and hip hop.
The preview article might be useless if you don't speak german (you can use a translator though) but the video is quite interesting since it shows some more scenes of the game and the new Autosculpt-system.
Just take a look. :)
NFS Carbon Event Article @ GamePRO (German)
NFS Carbon Video @ GamePRO
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| NFS C: Longer Teaser of NFS Carbon available |
Friday, 12.05.2006 |
Finally Electronic Arts published some media to the games they showed at the E3 in Los Angeles. Although the latest NFS title Need for Speed Carbon has not been shown at the E3, there is a new teaser from EA available, which is 19 seconds long this time.
 The video is similar to the first teaser, shown at the Sony Playstation3 press conference - you can see just front lights and fog - but this time there are more cars and engine sounds - and as it seems the neon lights are back! (picture)
...which cars are show, what do you think? Porsche? Lamborghini?
Discuss in our boards!
You can download the teaser here:
(Thanks to Renifer for the info)
NFS C: Movies
NFS-Planet Discussion Board
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| NFSMW: Interview with Charles Deenen |
Sunday, 05.03.2006 |
 TheStig made an interview with Need for Speed Most Wanted Senior Audio Director Charles Deenen, who talks about the sound recordings of the cars.
The main topic is the effort they put in their work, and what is the difference to similar computer games. For NFS Most Wanted approximately 40 cars have been recorded (at NFSU2 they recorded 40-45), with at least 8 channels each, sometimes even up to 16! They recorded each car in the stand and on the road to get the perfect shift mechanism.
An interesting answer on the question why the horn is missing in the game, is the following:
Imagine having 1.9mb of ram to squeeze all sound in. And now we're faced with trying to cram everything in. Something had to go. But the main reason is that we don't have a button left on the PS2 controller. All of them are used.
It's not a good evolution that PC users become less important than consoles and PC-specific features are left out. Just think of the menue in the onlinemode...
Back to the interview: It is really worth reading it and at the bottom you will find some fotos from the sound recordings. You can find this article at our affiliate NFSUnlimited:
NFSMW: Interview with Charles Deenen<br>
Order Need for Speed Most Wanted at Amazon.co.uk
Order Need for Speed Most Wanted at Amazon.com
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| NFSMW: Police Dialogue |
Monday, 05.12.2005 |
 In Need for Speed Most Wanted the police dialogue characterizes the pursuits. Electronic Arts published a short article about the recordings and development of the police speech:
Putting together the Police chatter this year for Need for Speed Most Wanted was a huge undertaking. The goal was to create realistic, intelligent, and emotional Cop Dialog that would stay fresh and exciting after playing the game many times. This has been attempted in very few driving games, so there was definitely new ground to be explored.
Cop speech highlights include the following:
- Over 300 professional voice actors were auditioned in Vancouver and L.A. The final actors cast have had experience on shows such as "24", "CSI's Miami and New York", and "Las Vegas".
- Over 12,000 lines of dialog were written and recorded during the preliminary voice over sessions.
- The voice actors ad-libbed those 12,000 written lines during the pick-up sessions to almost double the variation in the final game.
- Those lines were translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese to create a total of over 60,000 lines of Cop speech recorded worldwide.
- Real Police radios were aquired for the recordings in order to achieve the "authentic" scanner sound quality.
- Real-time Artificial Intelligence was programmed for each officer, including the Heli Cop - they know when they're gonna take you down, and how, and they know when to back off when they're getting banged up!
- Realistic pursuit escalation based on research and development with real professional Police officers.
You can download and listen to a police chatter example here:
Download Police Chatter Sample (958 KB)
Official Need for Speed Most Wanted Website
Order Need for Speed Most Wanted at Amazon.co.uk
Order Need for Speed Most Wanted at Amazon.com
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| NFSMW: Interview with Paul Linford |
Wednesday, 23.11.2005 |
 On the official Need for Speed Most Wanted website you can find an interview with Paul Linford, who was in charge of the music in the game, such as the background music during the exciting pursuit challenges.
Excerpt:
CD: How would you describe the style of the score?
PL: The score is hybrid orchestral/rocktronica. It's kind of like dueling chainsaws, and emotes a falling-down-the-stairs type of sonic experience.
CD: What what type of equipment was used in recording the piece?
PL: I ran my Logic 7 rig on one Mac with Protools HD3 Accel hardware. I use all of the Logic plugs and instruments, like Sculpture, the EXS24, ES2, Ultrabeat, Space Designer - the whole gamut. I also used the Gmedia stuff, like impOscar, Minimonsta, Oddity and M-tron. I got some serious mileage out of Spectrasonics Stylus RMX, mixed in with some iZotope Trash and Ozone3. I sprinkled in some Ableton Live/Operator too and use the Line6 PODxt Pro stuff for guitar and bass.
I have 3 Gigastudios to provide sounds too. Those were the horsepower for orchestral elements mostly. I also used several hardware synths by Access, Emu, Korg, Nord, Roland and Waldorf. All of that went into another Mac running Protools HD3 Accel, used mainly as a 96-input mixer.
CD: Tell us about scoring the movies in the game.
PL: Scoring the movies was pretty fun. I mean, all the characters...they were talking to me, right? That was different from film, since they usually aren't speaking to the camera. I wrote themes for the main characters, and worked them into the various situations they got themselves into. I thought the backline story was cool, actresses Simone Bailly and Josie Maran are inspiring as well.
NFSMW: Interview mit Paul Linford
Preorder Need for Speed Most Wanted at Amazon.co.uk
Order Need for Speed Most Wanted at Amazon.com
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| NFSMW: Official System Requirements |
Friday, 11.11.2005 |
 The official system requirements of Need for Speed Most Wanted don't differ very much from those of the Demo, but I post them anyway. ;)
OS: Windows XP or 2000
CPU: 1.4 GHz or faster
RAM: 256 MB or more
Disc Drive: 8x or faster CD/DVD drive
Hard Drive: 3 GB or more free space
Video: DirectX 9.0c compatible (see right)
Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible
Input: Keyboard, mouse, or USB Steering Wheel/Gamepad
Video card with 32 MB or more memory and one of these chipsets is required: ATI Radeon 7500 or greater; ATI Radeon Xpress 200; NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/GTS or greater; Intel 950/i915g; S3 GammaChrome S18 Pro
Multiplayer requires 1 set of discs per PC and a broadband (Cable, DSL, or faster) connection.
Internet or LAN (2-4 players)
Need for Speed Most Wanted will be available on the PC for these territories on the following dates.
North America: November 17, 2005
Europe: November 25, 2005
NFSMW: Systemrequirements
NFSMW: Demo<br>
Preorder Need for Speed Most Wanted at Amazon.co.uk
Preorder Need for Speed Most Wanted at Amazon.com
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EA put a lot of effort in the sound recordings of the car engines in Need for Speed Most Wanted. Now you can hear in a video how small the difference between reality and ingame is: