The Need for Speed (video game)

The Need for Speed also features a fictional bonus car named the "Warrior PTO E/2." The car possesses unrealistically high speed and acceleration, sensitive handling, and also produces an unusual horn sound (like a phaser-type sound, whilest the engine sound, is similar to a jet engine.The Warrior features pieces of all the above vehicles in its dash board.

Tracks
The Need for Speed featured seven tracks (the original 3DO version only featured the 3 point-to-point courses), which consisted of varied locations suggestively located in the United States. They included four closed-circuit tracks (with one as a bonus track), and three point-to-point tracks (each divided into three segments). Point-to-point tracks were the only tracks in the game that allowed the flow of open traffic and police, but are only featured during one-on-one races. The tracks are outlined below:


 * Point-to-point tracks
 * City: Set on largely straight, highway-like roadways stretching across an urban setting.
 * Coastal: Set along resort beaches, seaside cliffs and natural seafront terrain. The finish line of the track featured a half-buried Statue of Liberty on the beach, reminiscent of that featured in the Planet of the Apes film. Coastal's appearance is very similar the Big Sur area of Pacific Coast Highway No 1.
 * Alpine: Consisted of a short drive along farmlands, and long, windy roads along alpine forests. The last segment of the track was covered in snow.


 * Closed tracks
 * Rusty Springs Raceway: An old, oval-shaped, and short race circuit set in the desert.
 * Autumn Valley Speedway: A modern race circuit with numerous steeply banked corners, set among autumn-color trees.
 * Vertigo Ridge: Highland roadway with passages through forests and mountain ridges.
 * Lost Vegas (bonus track): A Las Vegas-like circuit, and the only track in the game to be set at night.

The Need For Speed Playstation version included 2 variants of the rusty Springs closed track, accessed via a cheat.
 * Lunar Springs, is a version of Rusty Springs, except graphically it is on the moon.
 * Oasis Springs is an Egyptian version of Rusty Springs.

The Special Edition of the game included an additional two closed tracks:


 * Burnt Sienna: Set in an American Old West ghost town located in barren land, with a segment of the track running below a mine and cave.
 * Transtropolis: Set in a heavily urbanized and industrialized setting, running across various industrial establishments, a multi-story car park and an airport.

On the closed-circuit tracks, players had the option of racing on a "quick", "normal", or "endurance" setting, with Rusty Springs and Lost Vegas having the option to choose 4, 8, or 16 laps, while Autumn Valley and Vertigo Ridge allowed a choice of 2, 6, or 12 laps, except in tournament mode, where you were stuck on the "normal" setting for laps.

Reception
British magazine PC Power gave the DOS version a score of 95 %, praising car handling, graphics and overall presentation, but criticizing hardware requirements and sound. Jim Varner of GameSpot gave the game a 8.3 "Great" rating and said: "With its marvelous attention to detail, exotic course design, and straightforward gameplay, this game is a true winner. Simply put, The Need for Speed is the next best thing to owning a $200,000 sports car!" the only criticism was the graphics.

The Need For Speed: Special Edition
Released in 1996, an edition of The Need for Speed, The Need for Speed: Special Edition, is made available only on PC CD-ROM, containing DOS and Windows 95 versions. The Windows 95 version supports DirectX 2 and TCP/IP networking, and includes two new tracks and various enhancements in the game engine. Special Edition is the last game in the Need for Speed series to support DOS, as subsequent releases for the PC only run on Microsoft Windows 95 or above.

However, it can still be run under Windows XP using DOSbox (x86 DOS emulator) for DOS version of the game.