Need For Speed - Motor City

• publisher: Electronic Arts
• developer: Electronic Arts - Need for Speed

The Need for Speed Series has always been considered to be the best racing series for the PC. They have revolutionized the racing genre with almost every new game. Always adding more and more cars, until in NFS 3 and High Stakes, you were able to make your own cars. Finally in NFS Porsche they scored a big hit with the depth they went into by allowing you to play nearly every single Porsche ever.

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Now those geniuses over at EA are working on the next revolution in racing for the PC. Need For Speed: Motor City promises to be the most innovative new game since perhaps Diablo. Set in a fictional city resembling Detroit, the heart of the American automobile industry, Motor City will allow users to customize almost every aspect of their hot-rod muscle cars and race them over the internet using an interface that has never been seen before.

Motor City will be set in… um… Motor City a city much like Detroit, but in a place where time never passes. That's why a 1932 Ford Coupe will still have a chance to beat the classic '64 Chevy Impala, provided it has the right additions of course. And in Motor City, upgrades and customization are the name of the game.

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The game will also feature a very different look and feel from the previous NFS games. It's edgier, darker and more dramatic and will focus solely on American hot-rods and muscle cars. The interface screens will have a lot of chrome and 50's diner décor. The music will also be mixes of oldies such as jazz, be-bop, and good ol' rock and roll. Of course the most important part of any NFS game are the cars.

Once you get a car, nearly every part of it will be upgradeable. You will get money to upgrade by winning races, and the purchasing possibilities are almost limitless. Say your old '63 T-Bird seems a little sluggish. Well you can buy a new compatible engine. No big deal right? But if you want, you can also choose what type of carburetor, valve train, intake/exhaust system, or cooling system you want (and that's not how detailed you can get). This allows newbies who just want a good engine to buy one, and it allows die-hard virtual grease-monkeys to get virtually down and dirty and customize nearly every single part of the car.

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With all this customizability your car could end up looking quite different than the car you first purchased. But one thing we don't think about is how different the car could end up sounding. Most of today's drivers know that if your engine is making a different noise than usual, something has changed (usually for the worse). But EA has taken all of that into account. If you add a blower to your muscle car, the game will add that sound and it will accompany the revving of the engine. You'll know it, you'll hear it. And so will everyone else.

You will also be able to create different paint jobs for your car. The game will ship with a variety of different paint schemes for you hot-rod (or soon to be hot-rod). You can also create custom skins and you will be able to trade skins online as well.

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Motor City will also feature a entire different type of game engine. Whereas the previous NFS game code treated each car as a well… car, Motor City will treat each car as a collection of different parts. Each car will then feel and drive very different from anything else. This also means that upgrading your car will definitely change the physics involved and how you drive

Motor City has so many new things in it; we cannot cover everything in just one feature. Watch out next week for the best part of this groundbreaking new game.