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EA-backed car culture site winds down, as Need for Speed series is ‘shelved’ | VGC
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) was such a banger.
this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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I've been looking for a copy locally for years. I feel like I gotta just grab a copy off ebay at this point
One of our first games for the original xbox was NFSU2. On so many Saturday morning’s I’d wake up revving engines from the other room as a friend played through the campaign
Playing the original hot pursuit on my friend's family's Gateway PC, is a true core memory.
The spirit continued with Burnout 2 & 3 before ultimately dying. Racing games need to focus more on destruction and less on licensing real world cars.
I don't think "destruction vs. licensed cars" is the binary in racing games. NFS3 Hot Pursuit had licensed cars, and that probably added to the fun of the game. I think we def need more games with destructible cars and destruction-focused racing, and I agree that you need unlicensed cars to get the most out of that these days, but there are plenty of other ways to make a fun car game. Beam.NG is there for the people that want truly next-level destruction simulation, and it has multiplayer support via mods but we could use a more mainstream version of that. Wreckfest is out there, but maybe that is too "demo derby" for die-hard burnout fans. We had games like OnRush and NFS Unbound come and go, and those games were probably the closest we got to Burnout in recent times, but audiences didn't show up for those games so they have all but died.
Forza Horizon (which I mention all the time bc it is the only modern car game I have played) is plenty fun and arcadey with a whole smorgasbord of licensed cars. The cars get smashed up a decent amount, though it obviously isn't quite like a Burnout game. Tweaking the driving settings can make the game feel even more arcadey, if that is your style. If you want the destruction to affect how your car handles, that is a setting you can turn on. If you want a more simulationy driving experience, you can tweak the settings to turn that on, too. It isn't Burnout exactly, but something about it scratches a similar itch for me. I know the Horizon series is one of the most popular racing series in the current scene, I wonder sometimes if its popularity and live service model are eating the lunch of those other, smaller arcade racers.
Oh man. We had just gotten a PS1 and Need for Speed. We lived in a little apartment over a beer store. Friday night would come and we'd spend the entire weekend racing each other and drinking way too much. We'd let the loser of the race stay on and the winner would sit out. That way we all got practice and got really, really good. Good times.
I love this. Out of curiosity, do you play any modern racing games, like maybe the Forza Horizon series? If you're still buds with those buds, no reason you couldn't be having this kind of experience online (assuming y'all can find the time). I am curious what all the former NFS fans play these days. There isn't anything QUITE like it but a few modern games get close.
I don't have the time to play many games now but I recently bought Dirt 5 for my arcade fix and Dirt Rally 2 for my sim fix. I've always loved rally games.
And yeah, still super close with one of those guys. When I can find the time, we spend our time playing Day Z, Arma Reforger, Sea of Thieves. He plays Forza, but I'm trying to get gud at DR2 before getting him into it so I can win at least a handful of games first.