DANIEL: You know Fasih, we’ve recently pointed out how the PC is a far superior platform to any console when it comes to first person shooters…
FASIH: We have?
DANIEL: … and so I thought that in the interest of fairness we should also mention other types of games where the two platforms see eye to eye. Like racing games.
FASIH: Right. Are you sure you…
DANIEL: I thought we could take the PC’s biggest racing franchise, Need for Speed, and compare it to…
FASIH: Burnout.
DANIEL: I was going to say to its console version…
FASIH: Nah, that wouldn’t be fun.
DANIEL: Okay. Burnout. Now in the new Need for Speed…
FASIH: Did you know that they removed the crash mode in Burnout? There is something called stunt mode instead, in which you drive around the city freely and smash into cars, jump from ramps, roll in the air, smash through billboards, and drive on the wrong side of the street very fast to reach a target score in a time limit. If you’re fast enough, you can chain these stunts together into combos, and the best thing is that you can do this cooperatively in multiplayer for maximum mayhem.
DANIEL: That sounds… pretty cool. I mean, for, uh, illegal racing, which Need for Speed no longer features. In the new ProStreet we are completely legal…
FASIH: Oh, Burnout is very legal too. You have to have a driver’s license in order to play the game. You can even put your own photo onto it. I totally endorse the usage of the driver’s license. In Burnout, whenever you commit some kind of horrible traffic crime it gets recorded on your driver’s license so that you can show it to everyone and brag about it. Did I also tell you when someone takes you out, you are practically able to send them a photo of you telling them your personal opinion about the incident in universal sign language?
DANIEL: Uh… that does sound pretty cool. But I was talking about Need for Speed: ProStreet. We’re off the streets now, racing in closed circuits…
FASIH: Ah. Now I understand. It’s professional racing. Yeah. Like Gran Turismo. Did you know Gran Turismo 4 on the PS2 had 721 different cars from 80 different manifacturers racing on 51 different real life tracks? That is, if you don’t count the reverse versions of the same track. And the driving model is so realistic that Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear had almost the same time in game with a Honda NSX on Lacuna Seca as in real world. By the way, the Top Gear test track will be featured in the new Gran Turismo game along with Top Gear episodes as downloadable content. So you’re saying Need For Speed is THIS kind of game?
DANIEL: Hmm. Not really, no. I mean, we have, uhm, 55 cars, but most of them seem to be Mazdas or Nissans. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Uhm. You race in what the game calls “Race Days”, typically on airports or some such. Most of the tracks are made up.
FASIH: So it’s professional racing then?
DANIEL: Well, no, not really. There are all these kids in hip hop clothes and this constantly talking DJ who really, really likes you.
FASIH: I don’t like DJs in any game. In Burnout he tries to give you useful zen advice like: “They say speed isn’t everything… they are wrong”.
DANIEL: Well, there’s this cool, uh, AI in the announcer in Need for Speed ProStreet, where he comments on the race depending on what just happened. It almost really gives you the impression that he understands what’s happening. Like, for instance, when you’re last in the race, he will say “Where’s my man Ryan Cooper? He must be having a bad day!”, and, like, when you’re first place, he says, “There’s my man Ryan Cooper! Watch him go!” So it’s like, uh, yeah, context-sensitive. I think.
FASIH: Oh, that’s very cool. Sort of like a friend inside the game huh? Very nice. So even if you don’t have any friends, you can just talk to the announcer. Good. Burnout doesn’t have anything like that. Instead you can call your friends to your city with just one button press and they will arrive without any delay or change of interface or anything. Sometimes my friends join and I don’t realize they did until one of them lands on me with his car. It’s a sort of Burnout hug we have. So I guess… this is bad… sort of. It breaks your car. When someone lands on you, you see your roof slowly bending downwards and your windows exploding outside. It’s horrible. You have to go to the repair shop again.
DANIEL: Speaking of which, Need for Speed ProStreet now features a damage model! When you brush along the rail on the side for instance your hood cover will sometimes stand up, or the trunk will open. Also, you’re kind of going slower, and between races you have to pay money to repair the damage.
FASIH: Money? You have to pay money? This is horrible. The only money in Burnout is the money THEY have to pay because of the damage you cause. You do go to the repair shop but it repairs your car instantly even if you fly through at full speed. Which is very useful because you crash all the time, and when you crash your car sheds parts and twists in slow motion, turning into an accordion on wheels.
DANIEL: Sometimes I land on my roof.
FASIH: Yeah. But don’t worry. Crashes are part of racing. It isn’t fun if you don’t crash. And you will crash because you never feel your hand leaving the accelerate button. And when it’s not fast enough, which is almost all the time, you push the turbo button, or nitro button, or whatever it is that makes the screen shake and the the car shoot giant blue flames out of the exhaust ports and go so fast you get tears in your eyes just looking at the screen. Right?
DANIEL: Uh… right. We have that too! It’s nitrous oxide which you can, uh, inject and then the camera goes a little bit farther away from your car and I guess you go faster. In the last Need for Speed, NO2 was recharging over time. Now you have two charges and that’s that. I, uh, I guess that’s realistic. I mean, it isn’t like in Gran Turismo where nitrous usage wears out your engine, or in Burnout where I guess you still get burnout points for driving on the wrong side of the street…
FASIH: I don’t think it’s Nitro in Burnout. It’s more like mana. For the uninitiated, mana is a sort of blue liquid which allows you to throw fireballs. And appearently in Burnout it is produced by doing extremely dangerous things while driving. Like smashing through objects or launching your car into the air towards oncoming traffic and flipping it. This way your burnout meter fills up and you can go very fast for an eternity. You can even steal your opponents’ burnout bar by rubbing your car against theirs or by bumping into them, which makes them flip out of the road and crash in flames.
DANIEL: Yeah, or that. So if you want realistic nitrous, I guess you’re better off with Gran Turismo, and if you want completely unrealistic fun, I guess you should go for Burnout, but if you don’t want EITHER of those, uh, yeah. I guess that’s the general theme here, then. Need for Speed fills that gap in between absolute realism and arcade racing fun. I mean, it’s a logical thing to do, filling that gap, right?
FASIH: Hm? What? Sorry I wasn’t paying attention. I was trying to complete some cooperative racing challanges with a few of my friends here. We have to jump over each other’s cars for at least 10 times in 2 minutes. Then maybe we will try the cooperative drifting challenge. I don’t know. I might just go for a marked man too, in which you have to go from one point to another in the city and evil cars are trying to take you out no matter what. Or maybe just plain PvP with some people. I really don’t know. It is hard to decide. Burnout is a horrible game.
DANIEL: That sounds… fun. Need for Speed has this… this racing mode where… where you go in a circle, and the first to finish the circle, uh, wins. Also, there’s a rhythm game called drag racing, where you have to hit a certain key to shift gear whenever your rpm is just right.
FASIH: Oh… So it’s just like Rock Band. Only without the guitar and Highway Star from Deep Purple…
DANIEL: Uh. Yeah. So… maybe racing wasn’t such a good idea. Let’s start over. Let’s talk about…
FASIH: Beat ‘em ups?
DANIEL: Uh…
FASIH: 3rd person action games?
DANIEL: Uhm…
FASIH: Survival horror?
DANIEL: Well…
FASIH: Japanese rpgs?
DANIEL: Maybe…
FASIH: Take your pick!
DANIEL: Fuck this! I’ll go play Civilization!
FASIH: Revolution?