| Need for Speed III by Bubba "Masterfung" Wolford |
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As a Pursuit player in Hot Pursuit you will attempt to pull over 6 other cars. Each car has a limit of tickets, which is set upon the number of laps driven around the track. For 2 laps, each car gets 3 tickets before the player is arrested. For 4 laps, each car can gets 5 tickets before arrested. The object of single player versus Pursuit AI is not to get more tickets than allowed (before being arrested) and still beat your competitor around the track. Of course, your competitor is also being chased constantly by the cops. I found that playing versus the computer was not challenging enough even when setting the difficulty (2 levels: Normal and Aggressive) to Aggressive. The cops simply don't seem to be able to keep up most of the time. They do work together somewhat by laying down road blocks (2 cop cars only) and tire spikes to try and stop you but it's often too far and few between. I would really like to see EA give the Pursuit AI a good tweak to make them even more aggressive. They will chase you (getting 3 or more cops after you at once is common) but often times fall behind and give up.
The Pursuit cop cars need more speed to keep up with the faster cars (Pursuit Corvette is no faster than stock Corvette). The object is to beat them and if you can master even the Corvette, beating them regularly gets boring. They will attempt tailslids to stop you and even hit you head-on. Often that was the only way they would stop me. If they missed me on the slip or head-on, I was going to just keep cruising past them and they would often never catch up. They will radio ahead for other cars to lookout for you but still they often cannot keep up. As a Pursuit vehicle, the intention is to chase the other 6 cars around the track and try to pull them over (or force them off the road). However, in single player pursuit mode, you need only pull each car over once before they are arrested. Using the tire spike is a blast. Often I would drop it in the road, continue ahead for a bit, and keep watch for an AI car. Then I would pull along ide him, force him into hitting my spikes, watch his tire blowup, and pull him over. Very cool! Cars These are the following cars NFS3 simulates. The ones with * next to them indicate cars you can download from the EA website and the ones with ~ indicate they can double as Pursuit vehicles.
EA will continue putting new cars for players to download in addition to the Bonus cars you can win in the game. One of the bonus cars is the EL Nino which has incredible speed and can also double as a Pursuit Car.
Multiplayer My initial goal was to get this review out earlier but with the opportunity to play this game last weekend with my local LAN group, I decided to wait and test multiplayer. We run a 100mbs switched 8 port hub and 3COM 10/100 Fast RJ-45 network cards. I had 4 of my friends present for the action. NFS3 requires the disk in the computer for it to run effectively but allows others to play LAN with only one CD. One of the install options for NFS3 is the "Remote" option which allows other computers to attach to the server (or host who has the CD in his computer) and run multiplayer ONLY. With the Remote option installed single player action is not possible. LAN connection can be with either IPX or TCP/IP. My friends and I played this game for many hours while switching between racing each other, to playing Hot Pursuit. Here are some of the differences between running Multiplayer and Single player using each option: |
Single Race (players versus each other and no cops): Players race versus themselves with no computer AI in the game (unless you turn the traffic option ON). Players can choose which cars to race and the color. The server (in any race whether Hot pursuit or Single) can choose weather conditions, which track, night driving, and how many laps the player will race. Hot Pursuit (players are either the Cop cars themselves or play versus the cops): Here is where we found the most fun in NFS3. EA has done a great job in multiplayer. We raced three different ways: Player vs Player: This is where some players can be Pursuit cars and other cars normal "racing" cars. The idea is of course for the cop cars to issue tickets to the other drivers. The number of tickets before being arrested (and removed from the game) is again based on the number of laps. This was a lot of fun and we played this option quite a bit while switching sides from Pursuit to normal. Players vs Computer: Here we took the Pursuit vehicles and raced versus computer AI while they were in normal race cars. This was a lot of fun but we were disappointed that there were only 3 computer cars for us to chase. With so many Pursuit vehicles chasing only 3 computer cars, we got bored quickly. This could have been A LOT more fun with more computer players but lacked the intensity of the other modes. Again, maximum tickets were issued based on the amount of laps driven. Computer vs Players: This is the mode where we spent most of our time. We had a BLAST here! Computer AI had the Pursuit vehicles and we drove the racecars. We preferred to drive 4 laps so we could accumulate 5 tickets before being arrested. However, I still have to go back to my earlier complaint of the Pursuit AI being not aggressive enough. There never seemed to be enough of them to keep up with us and after a while we began doing circles around some of the straight-aways on the tracks to keep the Pursuit vehicles chasing us. I'd love to see an option for "extra" police cars and a higher level of aggression so they would put up multiple roadblocks and tire spikes. On one occasion I did see 2 Pursuit vehicles together with 2 road spikes. That was pretty neat and they got me! More cooperation between the Pursuit cars would bring this game exploding out! Other muliplayer modes offered are Modem, Split-screen, or Serial link. No Internet racing! That's kind of a bummer for those who don't have LAN groups. Overall This game is a great value! I love playing this game and if offers a tremendous amount of fun. I would encourage everyone to give it a go. There is a demo on the NFS EA website for trial and I've seen it as low as $29.95! Multiplayer was stable as a horse! We had no issues with lockups or players getting bumped out due to packet loss or game issues. A plethura of options will keep you refreshed for a long time. EA markets this game as an exciting and fun racing game and it delivers right on the money! My only complaints are that night driving is near impossible due to poor projection of the headlights. Even at dusk my headlights were not even visible. Switching them to "bright" had minimal effect. I saw a hacked demo that had SPECTAULAR headlight effects. I'd like to see them tweak this a great deal. In addition, Pursuit AI needs more aggression. Make it harder! Overall the game is a FANTASTIC and one of my current favorites. Actually, I find that before I get serious with Falcon 4, I enjoy a good game of NFS3. It really seems to compliment my serious/fun moods. Ratings (NFS3 from EA):
Minimum Recommended Configuration: P200, 32 meg Voodoo 1
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