Need for Speed : Road Challenge

Need for Speed : Road Challenge for the PlayStation. Also known as Need for Speed : High Stakes.

This is quite a late game for the PS1 released in 1999, but it is not the last. The nfs game engine has evolved a lot up to this point and look technically great for the ps1 hardware, up there with Gt2 and Ridge Racer 4. However its frame rate can be pretty awful. Especially with the slower races at the start, there is no sense of speed.

I play through the main Tournament mode and mix it up with special events. I should have planned this a lot better in order to avoid spending to much in game cash. I also wanted to show what cars I could and this conflicted with the winnings so I had to pretty much sell all the cars I bought in order to pay for the next vehicle and race so I don't have a large garage at the end. I do keep the special unlock cars though. I did want to show of the phantom car in the last endurance race, but it handles far to slowly for me to get through those races comfortably so I saved it for the Hot pursuit mode. I show the car showroom before each tournament with the cars offered at that time.

The difficulty of this game is mixed. The ai can be pretty tough with its rubber banding and especially towards the end of a race they will creep up and go for the win. Interestingly this is still the staple of the NFS series and the Ai can be equally cruel with its rubber banding in the latest 2015 game. It does feel like it was modelled on the this game.

Part 2 of this video is the hot pursuit mode. Its not particularly great, but I do show beating the mode with the various cars to unlock all the pursuit cars and helicopter. The helicopter is test Drive only unfortunately. In this mode I first play as the escapee showing of the Phantom car and the Titan as I didn't get to do it as part of the main races. Then I play as the police and have to arrest 10 racers. What I don't like is that in this mode I can not call upon backup or roadblocks. That is reserved for 2 player mode only.

Towards the end of the video I enable the Dashboard Cheat. For some reason I couldn't get it to work at the start of the game. It is probably only a placeholder for a proper dashboard which never made it into the game due to memory restraints but I though it would be interesting to see the different dashboards for the different cars. Only the titan looks anything special though.

Part 1:

00:00:00 - Intro
00:04:06 - Worldwide Roadster Classic Tournament (SLK 230)
00:28:21 - Twilight Open Season Special Event (BMW Z3)
00:48:30 - Weekend Road Racing Classic Special Event (Fully upgraded Z3)
01:02:31 - Regional Club Circuit Tournament (Camaro Z28)
01:31:00 - International Open Road Tour Special event (Camaro Z28 - Fully upgraded)
01:55:40 - Super Sedan Challenge Tournament (BMW M5)
02:32:15 - Knockout Challenge Special Event (Fully Upgraded M5)
03:00:30 - Grand Touring Competition Tournament (Corvette)
03:38:40 - Corvette Pro Cup Special Event (Fully Upgraded Corvette)
04:01:00 - International Supercar Series Tournament (Porsche 911)
04:46:05 - Porsche pro Cup Special Event (Fully upgraded Porsche 911)
05:08:09 - Open Road Knockout Challenge Special Event (Unlocked Porsche 911)
05:24:25 - GT Racing Championship Tournament (McLaren F1 GTR)
05:54:10 - Endurance Racing Competition (McLaren F1 GTR)

Part 2:
The fun part of the game. I play these all at night to enhance the lighting effects and a dramatic change from the driving in the first part.

00:00:00 Hot Pursuit Phantom Chase
00:05:05 - Hot pursuit - Titan Chase
00:12:40 - Hot pursuit - BMW M5 Police
00:25:55 - Hot Pursuit - Porsche 911 Police
00:36:25 - Hot Pursuit - Diablo SV Police
00:47:35 - Test Drive - Police Helicopter
00:52:11 - Hot Pursuit - Caprice Police
01:04:05 - Hot Pursuit - Corvette police
01:13:05 - Hot Pursuit - Jaguar (Just to show getting arrested)