Need for Speed Special Edition

Publisher: Electronic Arts. Developer: Electronic Arts


no, it's not supposed to look like this

The Need for Speed is a driving simulation presented by Road and Track magazine, and provides an accurate simulation of 8 'purebred exotics' (fast cars) over a mixture of closed circuit and open road racetracks.

You'll notice a distinct lack of original screenshots on this page, since all mine end up like the one above. Instead, I've had to substitute scannings of the back of the box.
The sound, music and video clips in this game are very good, and the graphics and frame rate are impressive in both 320x200 and 640x480 resolution modes.

'Detail and Realism'
The Need for Speed's designers obviously intended to use the accurate simulation of the driving of a car as a major selling point of their game, as this quote from the manual shows:
"As you race down an alpine road in your choice of eight high performance cars, you'll be amazed by the detail and realism. The sophisticated physics model recreates the feel of the cars themselves; you'll notice the difference in handling, braking, and raw power..."
YOUR car behaves like it should..

To their credit, they have achieved a good level of realism in the handling of the cars. Unfortunately, in this case a good driving simulation translates into a bad racing game. All cars aren't created equal, and so if you play NFS and you pick the Acura NSX, you're going to lose. A Ferrari or a Lamborghini is going to beat you every time, no matter how well you drive.
Although the realism initially makes the game..well... realistic, you may soon find it irritating you. If you have an accident, you're playing a driving simulator so it will take you a frustratingly long time to build up speed again. By this time, of course, all the other cars are long gone and the race is likely to be unsalvageable.
Electronic Arts must have realised this to some degree, as they opted to secretly incorporate measures to counter these problems. If you go slowly or crash, the computer cars will also drive slower and occasionally drive off the road on corners to make it easier for you to catch up again. At the end of the race, the time of the winning car is quite slow and looks beatable. So you get back in your car and have another race, this time driving fast.
Although you may initially gain on the leaders quite easily, as you start to approach about third position they start to drive faster. The cars behind you which you passed easily will now keep pace with you, and the race leaders will become very hard to beat. You can check their laptimes and find them considerably faster than when you drove slowly. This is annoying, and does not adequately replace more traditional skill level selection.
Furthermore, it seems during the race that you are the only car on the track to have to obey the 'sophisticated physics model' the game uses. Your opponents will accelerate unrealistically, often corner impossibly well, lose no speed when crashing into the walls, slow down for no reason on certain stretches of road, shift all over the track jerkily, bounce up and down where your car does not, never attract the attention of a cop or get pulled over by one, drive without using gears or brakes, and never get pushed around as much by your car as you are by theirs.
Also, if one of the computer cars crashes and loses its 'rightful' position in the race, it will drive like a bat out of hell until the situation is corrected, then return to its former racing ability.
These innacuracies make Need for Speed quickly become a frustrating game.
replays - download at bottom of this page

Compatibility
I tried installing Need for Speed SE on 4 different computers.
Two were DOS-based 486s. Of these, The other two computers were Pentiums running Windows '95. Of these, The reason I am using box scannings instead of screenshots on this page is that screenshot programs give false colours when capturing the Windows '95 version of Need for Speed, and using Alt-Tab switching while this particular game is running is almost certain to crash your computer. The DOS version of NFS will crash Win '95. I consider all these problems with getting NFS to work correctly to be particularly poor of the game's programmers.

Overall
A game that, if it works, is playable for a while but too difficult and very frustrating. Network games, however, are great fun. The three open road courses are split up into three sections each, and can have other road traffic and police cops if head-to-head mode is selected. Modem and 8-player network options are included. Network play is Win '95 only. The box sets the minimum system at a Pentium 75 with a double speed CD-ROM drive, but I would amend this to a 486dx2/50 provided the game's music is turned off.
  • pros
  • cons
    Try these clips of (these should have downloaded with the page - simply click the play button)

    I used to have some replays for download, but I lost them when the site got deleted from its previous location. More when they happen.

    2001 Look Back at The Need For Speed SE

    I still play this game sometimes, because even though there's lots wrong with it, it can still be a good challenge. You know you're not playing against anything resembling a realistic opponent, but your car still handles right and you've got something to try and beat. I only find the three open road tracks enjoyable - the circuit tracks are harder and less interesting.
    This game has the best music of all the NFS games I've tried, and the video and car data is pretty cool. Network games are good, but they tend to make the computer cars drive even faster than usual.
    If you beat the tournament, the first time unlocks the 'Warrior' car, the second time gets mirror tracks, and the third time gets 'rally' versions of the tracks. The rally tracks just highlight the differences between your car and the computer drivers.

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