why do people buy ferraris and lamborghinis if they can get an even more customized, rarer and much faster car for much less money with just a few mods? people just want something else. some people just love the engine sound of i.e. ferraris much more. the design and prestige and all. I dont understand people who say "I beat you in your $100.000 car with my $30.000 car. I laugh at you. how stupid are you to buy such a POS?"

The whole thing about "wow, i beat you with a 1/2-1/3 of your displacement" is overdone, what matters more are power to weight ratios, horsepower and torque curves, and gear ratios. When I beat a v8 camaro or something in my SRT-4, I'm not like "I have less than half your engine and beat you", I recognize that my engine is heavily turbocharged, going a different route to high output than just sheer displacement, and that it was a good matchup.

Alak, just so you're aware, that Prelude was powered by a paltry 2.2L 4 banger. A little more than a 1/3 of your displacement.

And yes, Tourque gets you to horsepower. Horsepower gets you to speed. Speed gets you to victory. And V8's have more lower end Tourque than any I4 or V6. That's why it can be very difficult for low displacement cars to compete on the drag strip. But take it to a road course, autox, or rally course, and it's a completely different story. In rally you RARELY find anything over 4 cylinders.

Even on the drag strip, though, NEVER underestimate any car until you've seen it run. You may be sitting next to a twin-engine Tiburon that makes 300+ hp from each engine, and runs 11s. It's out there.

-Passover_{DRC}
"Don't Fear the Reaper, fear ME."
(The poster previously known as Ronin)

And then there's the story about me in an '88 Town Car, with the same 5-liter V8 as the Mustang GT, beating the holy hell out of a 50s balding man in his midlife-crisis Mazda Miata at a stoplight...the look on his face when he realized a 'geezer car' (Hey, they're only about $3,000 used) just out-accelerated his little sports baby was priceless. Good thing there weren't any corners involved, though.

And, in a triumph for the retail culture, this game has been out in stores for a full day and there's STILL no sign of the studly 133t w@r3z version. Shall we hope for two warez-free days, or is that ridiculous?

Edit: Ridiculous, apparently. 5 freakin' minutes after I post, it shows up on nforce. *Forehead slap* We could hope, at least.

Athlon64 3200+/MSI K8T Neo/1 GB DDR-400 Corsair TwinX LL-PT/Radeon 9700 Pro/160 Gb SATA Seagate Barracuda/Playing X-Com & Commander Keen =)
This comment was edited on Nov 18, 08:55.

Yeah, I have a 5.7 in my 1990 GMC PU, gotta love the chevy 350.
Your van story reminds me of the 1972 fiber glass GMC RV we had. It was an olds 455 4brl holly front wheel drive monster. You want strange looks, burn the tires in a 27ft RV when the light turns green.

A for the NFS games, I was with EA up to the point they turned MCO into that p.o.s. they tried to get $10 a month out of the fans on. EA has taken the series down hill ever since but I may buy underground out of the bargin bin it's not that bad.

Gotta love that good ol' easy V8 Power. I've got a 5.7L V8 in my Chevy Astro Van (A vehicle never offered with stock V8 power, only made in I4 and V6 Configurations). I remember pulling upto this Ricer of somekind at a light. I think under the 1000 pound of addons it was a prelude. It was pretty quick. But I'll never forget the look on his face when he caught up to me at the next set of lights. I mean, my Van is quite stock under the hood for a V8 engine. We think somewheres around 280HP and my van weighs like 4000 Pounds. But it just had so much get up and go than the (Im assuming) V6 he had. All hail the V8 Power.

And everyone remembers the racing formula. Tourque gets you to horsepower. Horsepower gets you to speed. Speed gets you to victory. And V8's have more lower end Tourque than any I4 or V6.

As for NFS: Underground. The sooner it gets in my mailbox, the sooner I can play it.

Just got finished playing the demo.

Having been a big fan of some of the previous NFS titles (NFS HP2 being a most notable and nasty piece of shit exception), I had some expectations from this game. I knew before I downloaded it that there would be no damage model, no replays, and the sort of cars that would be in it. The first 2 issues upset me. But seeing as how I drive an Acura Integra GS-R, the latter issue did not upset me.

What did I think of the game? Not bad. A little arcadish, but that's basically what I was expecting. More realistic than HP2, thank God, but not as realistic as PU.

Now, I'm seeing the term ricer being thrown around here quite a bit. The fact is, most of you don't even realize the definition...

ri-cer (n): a vehicle, generally of Asian origin, but not exclusively, that has various parts attached to it in an effort to make it more "attractive", look "faster," or sound different. These "modifications" do very little if nothing to improve the actual performance of the car, and in some cases, decrease it.

Yes, many Japanese cars come off the assembly line with performance that can't match V8 muscle cars...and THEY SHOULDN'T, cause they have half the cylinders and a third of the displacement. However, when one can modify those cars to be able to outperform those muscle cars, it's a real accomplishment. THE VERY DEFINITION OF SLEEPER. So you're driving your Camaro, and a black Integra pulls up next to you. The light turns green, you take off, the Integra falls behind. You hit 5500 and shift. All of the sudden the Integra is at your door and passing.

But yes, I do have a deep love for muscle cars too. Nothing quite like a Charger or SS pounding so much torque into the pavement it pops a wheel stand. That's a thing of beauty as well.

Oh, I should also mention this. The current pushrod prostock 1/4 record is 6.65 seconds (or there about). The current sport compact pro rearwheel drive 1/4 record is 6.76 seconds. Little more than a 1/10 of a second seperates a "ricer" from a speed record that's been in the pushrod's territory since the sport was invented.

Gives you something to think about...

-Passover_{DRC}
"Don't Fear the Reaper, fear ME."
(The poster previously known as Ronin)

And oh yeah, did anyone else actually laugh out loud at the 350Z you drive? I swear I started cracking up when I saw the sticker and body kit crap they put on it, I wouldn't be caught dead driving something like that. I'll take my cars tasteful, thanks.

I don't know if you noticed it or not, but there are at least 4 different variants of the 350Z in the demo.. and you choose your own stickers and body kits in the retail version. What do you expect? ..it's a ricer.

I thought Midnight Club 2 was entertaining. It was significantly better on the PS2 though.

"also isnt there already a the fast and furious game out?"

Well, there's Street Legal and Street Legal Redline, which need (I kid you not) about 130 megs of patches EACH to be playable and still are more along the lines of Gearhead Garage than a racer (IE, you'll spend most of your time in the garage and looking through parts catalogs)

Then there's stuff like Hot Rod: American Street Drag (?) which, while nice-sounding, nice-looking, and with a decent blend of arcade/simulation, has nothing more by way of content than quarter-mile races.

Then there's Midnight Outlaw: Illegal Street Drag which is Valusoft and not even worthy of a $20 price tag. It's awful, awful, awful.

Then there's NHRA Drag Racing 2. *Shudder* Bought that for $1.30 and I want my money back.

So...basically...no, there's no really decent tuning/racing half-arcade half-sim game out there yet. Ford Racing 2 is a nice play, if you're looking for well-done arcadey action. But nothing with tuned import cars save, say, Tokyo Xtreme Racer 1 and 2 for the Dreamcast. =)

Athlon64 3200+/MSI K8T Neo/1 GB DDR-400 Corsair TwinX LL-PT/Radeon 9700 Pro/160 Gb SATA Seagate Barracuda/Playing X-Com and Commander Keen =)

nfs was never about muscle cars. you must be thinking of test drive 4 onwards

NFS was about the exotics.

also isnt there already a the fast and furious game out?

Supporter of the "A happy fredster is a muted fredster" fanclub.

yet some smartass who thinks some statement will make him look even smarter fails to see that everyone has the right to complain about things that could have been made better. as someone already said. EAs strategy right now is to rather make quantity than quality.
FOR THAT PRICE IT SUCKS BAD. There were hundreds of games in that style already. yet they just implement some wannabe tuning and sell it as a new game. at least they should name it "Need for Unrealism II" or some shit like that. but not need for speed that was once a very nice game AND ABSOLUTELY DIFFERENT. did you ever see a game series that changed that much from title to title? no, they used the good name to catch/fool customers.

do you call all people whiners who expect to find beer in a bottle of beer? you should grow up if you cant tolerate peoples opinions... of a computer game... lol pathetic, isnt it?

Reply to #18

You hit the nail on the head Cpt. Piloter. I was actually looking forward to this game until I played the demo, ricers or not, if its fun its fun "this one just happens to suck". As for the body kits and fart pipes I have to agree with Cpt. Piloter on this one, give us a damn game to tune the engine and suspension with a mix of both ricers and muscle cars to appease both audiences.

Getting relistic damage or physics is hard because car companies will say "Our car wont fall apart like that at that speed with that type of impact" and sue the game company.

~Halo

My all-time favorite NFS game was the very first one, which I played for endless hours on my 3DO console with a special analog joystick. At the time, it was pretty much the best racing game made, and with the best graphics available. The crashes were so realistic (except no damage of course). The only other racing game at the time that I enjoyed as much (possibly more) was Road Rash, also on the 3DO. Those were the days. Heck, I still have the 3DO sitting in a closet...maybe it's time to dust it off and give it a go...

Over the years since, NFS has greatly improved graphically but gone downhill gameplay-wise. I did like Porche Unleashed, but the others are basically crap. Sure there's a market for more arcadeish racing games, but I don't think EA can make an arcadish racer thats also FUN! They've yet to come close to Grand Turismo or other popular racers.

I tried the demo and was really unimpressed. Which was upsetting, because I was really looking forward to it. Nothing has beat NFS: Porche Unleashed for me yet.

And oh yeah, did anyone else actually laugh out loud at the 350Z you drive? I swear I started cracking up when I saw the sticker and body kit crap they put on it, I wouldn't be caught dead driving something like that. I'll take my cars tasteful, thanks.


This comment was edited on Nov 17, 17:35.

"because NFS went from almost simulation to a arcade for the youngest kids..."

yet the diehard sim fans who are supposed to be so mature and so sophisticated are the biggest WHINERS and COMPLAINERS of them all. They are in business to make the most money they can. Not to appease the over-zealous minority. GET OVER IT!! All of you. the game does not suck, it just does not meet YOUR expectations. So once again, GET OVER IT. Better yet, grow up.

hmm, am I the only one that thought the demo rocked? I can't wait to buy it!

haha funny. german cars are crap. they are far too heavy and despite what most people say, who dont know them, they are pretty unreliable. M-series suck too. they are sooo slow compared to real sports cars like a viper or a Z06 or a Supra, even if they have 80 HP more (the M5 i.e.).
or take that 1060nm, 600HP AMG benz, it should have far better acceleration and top speed. but it doesnt. but it costs as much as a plane. the only cars that are a little better than the rest of the german cars is Audi. but they are too slow aswell to compete with sportscars. well... if you take an lamborghini as an audi, possibly not. lol

In Ralph Wiggum voice, "Me fail English, that's unpossible."

I found the PC demo to be rather fun, but I'm not going to buy it because EA's lame by not working out their difference with Microsoft, and having a version of this for Xbox Live. They're losing their whole Xbox audience to Project Gotham 2 because of this.