#criterion games

[blazehedgehog]

I Love To Shoot At Trouble

During the Steam Christmas Sale I ended up buying Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2012 because it was like $6 or $7 and I'm in the mood for a new racing game to chew up. EA already gave the game away for free in like 2015, but that meant installing "The EA App". I figured having it on Steam would be more convenient.

You'd think so.

It's not! As part of the first time launch, it installs "The EA App" anyway, which also means it found and uninstalled whatever version of Origin I still had (I wasn't aware I'd ever reinstalled Origin since my HDD crash). As part of this process, it also asked me for my EA password, I misread Firefox's stored password incorrectly, and went through the trouble of resetting my EA account with a new password before linking it to Steam. To my surprise, EA's been sitting on my seven year old cloud save from the few minutes I played of this on Origin in 2017, and asks if I want to import it. Sure, I guess.

So that's ten minutes down the drain before I can even boot up the game. Okay, fine, the game finally launches. Gotta wait while it boots up The EA App each time before it boots into the game, gotta wait for the title screen logo animation, gotta wait for a 10-15 second load screen because even though this game came out in 2012 it's gotta ping some always-online "Autolog" leaderboard whatever. Once it connects, it has to do a slow cinematic pan across your car, telling you what your online rivals have done since the last time you connected, and what kind of equipment you have on your car.

All told, every time you boot up Most Wanted 2012, you're looking at a 30-45 second wait before the game actually hands over control and lets you start driving.

Pull the accelerator and instantly Most Wanted SCREAMS at me:

Fair enough. I'm using a Dualshock 4, and the Playstation 4 did not release until over a full year after this game. Click to the menu it's asking of me and see that the control binding menu is awful -- it's one of those super oldschool ones, like binding keys one by one in Doom 2. I have no idea what these buttons are supposed to be in terms of Xbox equivalents, and I realize that Steam has this thing called "Steam Input" that's supposed to be handling all of this anyway. Steam Input generally makes my Dualshock 4 look like an Xbox controller to most games.

I exit out of Most Wanted, force Steam Input to "on" (I was messing with its settings recently, so I thought maybe it was disabled), and relaunch the game again. Wait for the EA App to boot up, gotta wait through the title screen logos, gotta wait 10-15 seconds on a loading screen, gotta wait another 5-10 on the cinematic pan across my car. I have now spent a minute and a half total waiting for this game to boot while I troubleshoot this.

Pull the accelerator. Instead of it complaining about my controller, straight up nothing happens. That's weird. The Start button works, the analog stick seems to work in the pause menu, but the triggers do not. The face buttons also do nothing. Upon checking the settings, that's because Most Wanted has settled on keyboard mode, even though it's clearly accepting some controller input. After poking at it, it does not seem like there's any way to get it to see my controller.

This makes Most Wanted a special game, because a lot of games I play will happily accept that Steam Input is telling it I have an Xbox controller connected even when I absolutely do not. But this is the rare 1% that seems to be incompatible. It's time to bring in the big guns.

Mayflash makes a terrific little passthrough device called the Magic NS, and the general purpose of this device is that it lets you use any controller on any other platform. An Xbox controller on a Playstation? No sweat. A Playstation controller on the Switch? It'll handle it. If you upgrade to the Magic NS2, you even get full gyro support. Every NS device also doubles as a Bluetooth dongle, so you can stay wireless if that's your thing. I love it so much I bought two, because generally they're only about $20.

A Magic NS2 for my Switch... and Magic NS1 for my PC. Strictly for scenarios like this, where a game expects an Xbox controller and Steam Input fails its camouflage.

Plug the NS1 in, connect my Dualshock 4, and once again boot up Most Wanted and wait the 45 seconds to get through the EA app, logos, loading, and the cinematic pan across my car. More than two full minutes now looking at this junk, and that's not counting the time spent outside of the game troubleshooting this in menus or digging out dongles or whatever.

Pull the accelerator... and my car starts to drive! I can steer! It works! Of course it works. The Magic NS never lets me down. I pull up to the first race event...

Press J and K to start the event.

Those are, uh. Those are keyboard keys. I'm using a controller. The controller is fully functional. You don't need to tell me this in keyboard controls. This isn't going to be one of those games, is it? The kind that still tells you everything in the keyboard shortcuts no matter what?

I drop into the menus again and see Most Wanted is still stuck on Keyboard mode and won't let me switch to anything else, even though I'm clearly using a fully functional controller now. This can't be right. But then I remember: Steam Input is still turned on, and when I forced Steam Input to be on, Most Wanted got stuck in this keyboard mode.

Exit out of the game, tell Steam to turn off Steam Input for this specific game only, and relaunch. Wait through all that crap again. We're up to three minutes just waiting for the game to start, and probably closing in on 20 minutes since I first decided I wanted to try Most Wanted.

Pull the accelerator, it works, drive up to the first event, and...

Pull LT and RT to start the event.

FINALLY. HOLY SHIT.

On the plus side: this game controls a lot better than I remember. It's a decent middleground between Criterion's heavier-feeling Hot Pursuit (2011) and the snappier Burnout Paradise. Though I could do with a lot less full screen flashing or the fact that Autolog alerts hide the minimap for some reason.

Not pictured, but the "always online" nature can also be frustrating if you pause, unpause, and find you have to quickly re-pause again a second time. That second pause will actually incur a loading spinner because it hasn't finished syncing with the server from the first pause, apparently. This game is going on 12 years old.

Anyway. This was a nightmare.

HOT BONUS

"The EA App" now starts up with Windows and is nagging me to enter the login credentials I already entered last night. I have to go through extra steps to get it to leave me alone and not do this

THE RIDE NEVER ENDS

[found-in-retro-game-mags]

Airblade

“Anti-Establishment. Anti-Corporate. Anti-Gravity.” (GameNow #5, Mar. 2002)

[pukcomics]

Guys I miss burnout ;-;

Criterion Games should remaster the first three games. Revenge would also be sweet.

[tr0ves]

digital cars 🏎️💨

[road-breakin-slasher]

"For an entire console generation, people have experience Burnout the only way it's been possible. But if you only played it this way, you haven't experienced it at all. Burnout has now entered the era of...HIGH DEFINITION. So buckle up... Get ready for revenge. (echo)

It's taking event organizers over a year to find the ultimate locations to fight and crash. Competitors are charging hard through alternate routes, finding shortcuts, and taking big air opportunities.

We'll be going coast to coast in North America on the Revenge World Tour, ripping through the heart of Europe, and, of course, we're going long haul where the right side of the road...is the WRONG side of the road in Asia. Start your engines...

For the first time in competition, same way traffic is there to be nailed. We call it: Checking Traffic. We made an all new competition at it in the traffic filled streets of the World Tour.

Smash through rush hour traffic in Traffic Attack. But just remember: the clock is ticking... Also brand new to the racing action this year are the destructive Crashbreaker events. If you got taken out, detonate your vehicle for explosive revenge. There's also fresh new Eliminator format, just don't get caught in last place when timer gets to zero.

Road Rage, the crowd favorite, is back, and even better than before. And for your destructive pleasure, check out our one of a kind, custom-designed Crash courses. Drivers are going to have to blow up huge to win these new events. Survey the landscape, master the Launch Control, conquer the wind, and power up your Crashbreaker! If you're lucky, you'll take down the bonus target car into devastation!

As an added bonus, we've created 10 all-new crash event for you to master in this all-new revenge edition. Be sure to try them out on the tour.

Total devastation... You gotta love it.

With all of this Burnout action going on, we've made it possible for you to save your wildest moments and share them with other burners worldwide. And when you tossle with another burner online, we'll tell you exactly who came better off when you last wrangled. Welcome to takedown heaven.

Enough talk, time to drive, keep it locked to Crash FM..."

Umm, isn't it funny that the reprisal of Janet De Jongh's introduction mentioned Launch Control...a feature that was removed on the 360 port?

[100s-of-random-things]

I was bored, so I made this fan-made Need For Speed box art.

[frankensama]

It feels so nice to love another Need for Speed game, and it's been awhile since I obsessed as much as with NFS 2015.

The visual aesthetics are so expressive and experimental just like Spider-verse, the killer soundtrack is chock full of features and genres like hip hop and you rarely see that in games, but I love that they did, and the improved AI now mitigates the rubberbanding from previous games and now it feels rewarding racing against oponents.

A match made in heaven for my tastes fr

[numberxxisora]

Also yesterday, we took a couple of looks at a crazy, arcade-like baseball game with a ruthless outfield gameplay.

[savingcontent]

It's cops vs racers in Volume 8 of Need for Speed Unbound today

Continue reading It’s cops vs racers in Volume 8 of Need for Speed Unbound today

[andreaskorn]

Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2012)

Nach ca. 12 Stunden Fun auf Position 01

Ohne alle Autos getestet und erst 4/14 Most Wanted Cars freigeschaltet, habe ich im Test über 1 Millionen SP erworben, 320 km gefahren und mich auf die erste Position hochgearbeitet. Aber es sind ja noch einige Meilensteine und Aufgaben zu erledigen.

Manche Rennen sind einfach, andere schwer

Gerade bei einigen Rennen um ein Most Wanted Car ist allerdings die gegnerische K.I. echt schwer. Das zu überholende Fahrzeug kollidiert nie mit anderen Fahrzeugen und kann alle Straßenetappen mit max. Speed bewältigen. Besonders im Dunkeln ist ein solches Rennen ziemlich schwer. Man muss auf andere Fahrzeuge im Verkehr achten, manche unerwartete Abbiegungen auf dem kleinen Kartenausschnitt mit der grünen Strecke rechtzeitig identifizieren, um auch nicht an der Streckenmarkierung vorbeizufahren. Alle Fahrfehler werfen den Spieler zurück. Zudem wird man von vielen Polizeiautos verfolgt, die das eigene Fahrzeug rammen und mit Nagelbändern extrem ausbremsen und schwächen. Da ist dann eine Reparatur an einer Tankstelle dringend erforderlich.

Wenn auch das Entwischen von der Polizeiverfolgung gelingt, habe ich ein gutes Gefühl und Fun besonders beim Fahren im und durch den Airport. Im fiktiven Set wird deutlich von der Realität abgewichen, aber das ermöglicht das Betreten von "Neuland im Unmöglichen". Das ist aus meiner Sicht ein besonderer Reiz: Eintauchen (Immersion) in die virtuelle Welt des Computerspiels.

Hier völlig unrealistisch: Autos sind nahezu unkaputtbar: Stürze aus großer Höhe, Frontalcrash und alle weiteren erdenklichen Kollisionen erlauben trotzdem das Weiterfahren. Nichts davon ist in der Realität im Straßenverkehr nachzuahmen und umzusetzen. Alles sieht "realistisch" aus, aber alles ist Konstruktion und Inszenierung, keine "wirkliche Wirklichkeit", wie der bekannte Medienwissenschaftler Norbert Bolz mal zum Medium Computerspiel konstatiert hatte.

Wann ist das Spielende von "Most Wanted" erreicht?

Das es keine Story gibt, spielen andere Faktoren eine Rolle. Man kann sich auf die erste Position hocharbeiten, damit bleiben aber noch der potentielle Fuhrpark und das potentielle "Tuning" der Autos übrig. Will man jeden Wagen maximal aufbereiten, so muß man kleinteilige Aufgaben erledigen (Drift, Beinahunfälle, Nagelbänder, Cops ausschalten usw.). Auskunft gibt die abrufbare Statistik im Game (Driver Details), wieviel Prozente für welchen Aspekt noch nicht bis 100% absolviert sind.

Und das mag noch manche Spielstunden benötigen, wenn man noch weiter Lust verspürt, dies erreichen zu wollen. Aber nur Statistik zu optimieren, reicht mir als "Gratifikation" - oder anders formuliert als motivierter Antrieb - nicht wirklich aus. Hier hätte das Entwicklerteam sicherlich etwas mehr Mühen aufbringen können.

Dr. Andreas Korn, 08.06.2024

+ + +

[heronetworkgg]

Battlefield 2042 anuncia su fin para nuevo contenido mientras EA se enfoca en la próxima entrega

Electronic Arts ha dado por finalizada la saga de Battlefield 2042, la última entrega de su famosa serie de disparos, anunciando que ya no recibirá más actualizaciones ni temporadas. En lugar de ello, la compañía ha decidido concentrar sus esfuerzos en el desarrollo de la próxima entrega de la franquicia. Battlefield 2042, lanzado hace algo […]

Ir a la noticia completa

[born4playde]

NEED FOR SPEED - HOT PURSUIT REMASTERED | Headbanner & Spielprofil

Was 2010 auf der PS3 schon gut war, kann doch nicht ein Jahrzehnt später auf der PS4 schlecht sein, oder? Hot Pursuit Remastered! Verbotene Straßenrennen im Deja vu Modus. Continue reading NEED FOR SPEED – HOT PURSUIT REMASTERED | Headbanner & Spielprofil

[bangpuddingmuffin]

Burnout Revenge

Burnout Revenge is still fantastic. The racing feels fun, the tracks exciting, and the gameplay fresh. It could use a few more tracks, some wider variety in crash setup, and something to distinguish the cars, which seemed mostly the same, but I still had a great time replaying it.

[beastgamerkuma]

Final Race for Week 3 with Beast NFS Unbound

[cinematografieliebhaber]

Wer das ultimative Fahrerlebnis sucht, welches mit modischem Style und vielen Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten überzeugt, findet in Need for Speed Unbound ein cooles Game. Es bietet die Möglichkeit, in der fiktiven Stadt Lakeshore, mit atemberaubendem Tempo und kühner Fahrkunst zu überzeugen. Unzählige Herausforderungen schalten neue Autos frei, während die Gamer*innen ihr Bestes geben, um der neue König, die neue Königin der Straße zu werden.