need-for-speed-undercover posts

With the driving-themed MMO Need For Speed World scheduled for its official launch next week, the folks at Stardock have put several of the previous Need For Speed PC games from publisher Electronic Arts on sale via its Impulse PC game download service this weekend.

The most recent game in the series, Need For Speed Shift, is now on sale for just $14.99. Two more games, Need for Speed Undercover and Need For Speed ProStreet, are on sale this weekend on Impulse for just $4.99 each. Other games on sale via Impulse this weekend include Timeshift for $9.99 and Age of Booty for $4.99.

Thursday must be a day for gearheads at Steam. The PC game download service continues its EA week of sales with a trio of racing games that have had their prices cut for today only. From now until 1 pm Eastern time on Friday you can get two of the Need For Speed titles plus a Burnout game at low prices.

The most recent game, Need For Speed Shift, gets a 25 percent price cut today to $22.49 while the previous game, Need For Speed Undercover, is on sale for 50 percent off at $4.99. Burnout Paradise is also on sale for 75 percent off at $7.49.

"This patch [for Need for Speed Undercover] introduces the new Challenge Mode. Compete in 60 new unique events spread across ten game modes including favourites such as Sprint, Outrun, Circuit and some new game modes including Highway Wars and Highway Checkpoint.

Challenge Mode includes the chance to win and race three new Reward Cars particularly the Battle Machine from Pro Street. These Reward Cars can be used online or offline so are great for showing just how good you are at Undercover."

Download Need for Speed Undercover v1.0.1.18 Patch [US] (39 MB)
Download Need for Speed Undercover v1.0.1.18 EU Patch [FR/GR/IT] (39 MB)
Download Need for Speed Undercover v1.0.1.18 EU Patch [UK/RU/DK/SP/FIN/CZ/HUN] (40 MB)
Check out all Need for Speed Undercover downloads

The latest game in the Need for Speed series from Electronic Arts was a dissapointment, both in reviews and in sales. However EA is still planning to continue post-release support for Need For Speed Undercover and today they revealed new downloadable add-ons that will be released for the PC version.

One add-on is the Challenge Series, which brings two new gameplay modes and 60 new events to the racing game. The Highway Wars mode has players " . . . race at top speeds through traffic filled highways against three AI opponents in a winner take all battle to the finish line" Also the Highway Checkpoint mode " . . . forces the player to push their car to the limit as they weave through traffic in an attempt to make it to the next checkpoint before time expires." Three new cars (Battle Machine Mazda RX-7, Speed Machine Porsche 911 GT2 and the Dominator Corvette Z06) can be unlocked as players go through the Challenge series.

While the Challenge Series will be free to download, EA will also offer the Boss Car Pack which allows players to access the vehicles driven by the bosses in the full game. That download will cost $5. There no word yet on when the two add-ons will be released.

Electronic Arts released a Edsel of a game last fall with the release of Need For Speed Undercover. However the publisher is switching from arcade racing to a sim-style game for its next release Need For Speed Shift. Today EA revealed that the game is due for release on Sept. 22 in the US. Europeans get the game a few days earlier on Sept. 17.

Developed by the newly launched UK-based Slightly Mad Studios, Need For Speed Shift is said to concentrate on a first person percepetive for the driver and will feature some of the more well known real life racing tracks in the world. Cars like the Pagani Zonda F, Porsche 911 GT2 and Lotus Elise will be featured.

After the critical and sales failure of Need For Speed Undercover there were rumors that Electronic Arts was thinking about dumping their long running action-driving game series for good. So it was a bit of a surprise when word came out earlier this year that EA was launching not one but three all new Need For Speed games, two of which would appear for the PC.

One of those games is Need For Speed World Online, designed as a free-to-play online game that will launch in Asia first before coming to the US in late 2009. The Need For Speed web site has some more info about the title vis a chat with the game's producer Scott Henshaw. He reveals that the new game will be an open world enviroment that takes elements from the two fictional cities in two previous games; Need For Speed Most Wanted and Need For Speed Carbon. You can also expect to see the pursuit gameplay modes (in other words being chased by "the man") as well as other co-op and team modes.

A new screenshot showing an early look at the game's user interface was also released on the site. Henshaw states, "Instead of a traditional console view of a game, we're using a user-selectable gadget interface designed specifically for the PC." He added, "A lot of gamers now have more than one monitor so you could keep the game window entirely clean and then have all the gadgets sit in the other monitor." Sounds promising.

This patch for Need for Speed Undercover updates the game to v1.0.1.17. It features performance optimizations to address frame rate inconsistencies and enhancements to the adaptive difficulty logic to accelerate the difficulty curve for the expert players.

Download Need for Speed Undercover v1.0.1.17 Patch [US] (9 MB)
Download Need for Speed Undercover v1.0.1.17 EU Patch [FR/GR/IT] (9 MB)
Download Need for Speed Undercover v1.0.1.17 EU Patch [UK/RU/DK/SP/FIN/CZ/HUN] (9 MB)
Check out all Need for Speed Undercover downloads

Remember those rumors earlier this year that EA might shut down the Need For Speed franchise? Yeah, those were way off the mark. In a bit of a surprise, Electronic Arts has announced their plans to release not one but three upcoming games in their Need For Speed driving series for 2009, including two for the PC. The last entry in the series, Need For Speed Undercover, got slammed by critics and was not a sales success when it was released last fall. This fall EA will release Need For Speed: Shift for the PC and other platforms and the PC-only game Need For Speed World Online.

Need For Speed: Shift is being developed by a new UK company called Slightly Mad Studios (with help from EA Black Box) Its team helped to develop the racing sim games GTR and GTR 2 for SimBin. With that background you can expect Need For Speed: Shift to be more of a simulation game than an arcade racer. According to EA's press release, "Players are thrust into the heart of the action with immersive and exciting features including a stunningly realistic first-person cockpit view camera and an all-new crash mechanic, providing an unrivaled sensation of the speed and feeling of racing a car on the extreme edge of control." The above early screenshot gives you an idea of the visual style they are trying to create.

The hammer appears to be finally falling over at the Vancouver based EA Black Box dev studio. After published rumors a few weeks ago suggested that the Need For Speed studio would consolidate with Electronic Arts' other Vancouver based studio, Gamasutra is reporting through unnamed sources that EA has now let go of up to 200 people at Black Box.

That means the studio has less than half of its team left (it had had 350 people at last count). While it has developed other games for EA, the studio's big franchise was the Need For Speed racing series. The latest installment, Need For Speed Undercover, got slammed by critics and apparently was not a sales success. EA planned to reveal more details on its planned job cuts at its next scheduled quarterly financial results in early February.

Last week the Writers Guild of America nominated several games, mostly PC titles, for the game writing category in their annual awards. This week its the members of the Visual Effects Society who are handing out nominations for two game related categories in their annual awards.

The categories are for best real time effects and also for best pre-rendered effects. Five out of the six spots in the categories went to games published by Electronic Arts although we have to think Blizzard is the front runner for the pre-rendered cinematic award for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. The awards ceremony will be held on Feb. 21.

Outstanding Real Time Visuals in a Video Game
Crysis Warhead
Zoltan Pocza, Gabor Mogyorosi, Tamas Schlagl
Dead Space
Ian Milham, Ben Wanat, Christopher Stone
Need For Speed Undercover
Henry LaBounta, Steve Barcia, Dave Taylor, Carl Jarrett

Outstanding Pre-Rendered Visuals in a Video Game
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Chrono-Lab, Empire and Allied Scenes
Richard Taylor, Benjamin Hopkins, KaTai Tang, Mical Pedriana
Need For Speed Undercover - Cinematics
Henry LaBounta, Steve Barcia, Dave Taylor, Mark Raham
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Intro Cinematic
Jeff Chamberlain, Phillip Hillenbrand