Wow, so after naysaying this game pretty much since it was announced, I downloaded the demo on 360 and have to say, it play a lot like Hot Pursuit mixed with Split/Second. The Frostbite engine makes it look great, and I can't wait for this to come out now!

Well I may have to check it out now...

I wasn't terribly excited about it. I thought it tried too hard to have more "realistic" handling- not completely, like Forza, mind you, just less arcadey- and I didn't think it really gelled with the tone of the game. And drifting really didn't have much use, so that was weird, and especially weird that it was on the e-brake rather than just breaking.

And the avalanche stuff was cool, sure, but it loses a lot the second time you play through- especially because you're racing ONE GUY at the time. It doesn't even get chaotic, it just gets to the point where there are rocks on the ground and... you have to avoid them as they all fall on basically the same spot.

It seems like it'll be fun to blow through, just very short and with hugely diminishing returns.

@Romination said:

I wasn't terribly excited about it. I thought it tried too hard to have more "realistic" handling- not completely, like Forza, mind you, just less arcadey- and I didn't think it really gelled with the tone of the game. And drifting really didn't have much use, so that was weird, and especially weird that it was on the e-brake rather than just breaking.

And the avalanche stuff was cool, sure, but it loses a lot the second time you play through- especially because you're racing ONE GUY at the time. It doesn't even get chaotic, it just gets to the point where there are rocks on the ground and... you have to avoid them as they all fall on basically the same spot.

It seems like it'll be fun to blow through, just very short and with hugely diminishing returns.

Yeah i felt the avalanche was cool the first time, and even the second time, but after the third and fourth time it got kinda old. Game looks pretty good graphics wise, and i like the frantic last 10 seconds of the avalanche were pretty great.

Yeah, the avalanche part was great. Nothing was impressive enough to make me really want it though.

Does this star Christina "The Ship" Hendricks?

I thought the demo was ok. I'll probably pick it up when it's on sale for like $30.

Given that this game is going to be releasing in the Black Friday sweet spot time frame, I can guarantee that the same thing happens to this that happened with Hot Pursuit last year and it's down to $40 for sales the week after it gets released.

As for the demo, I considered downloading it...but then I realized how much I like Need For Speed games. I love the shit out of them, and in turn, I would've been pissed that I wasn't getting to continue playing further into the game. Therefore, I'll wait for it to get released...and I'll also wait until it hits that $40 sweet spot.

@skyline7284: Plus I never felt threatened by it. I did once, but then I noticed that it seemed like it was very nice and waited for me.

I'm not a driving/racing game type of person. I tried out the demo because I thought the stuff they showed back at E3 seemed kinda cool, but holy shit did I love the demo. Just an awesome sense of speed and action movie-ness to it. Infact I thought that it felt kinda similar to some of the driving sequences in that last James Bond Bloodstone game. I could definately see this as the kind of game I'd consider buying even though it's way out of my comfort zone.

I tried the first race of the demo tonight. It wasn't bad, but I wasn't overly impressed. I remember playing the Hot Pursuit demo last year around this time and being super psyched for the game. Not so much with this one, but maybe that'll change with a few more runs through the demo.

@Romination said:

@skyline7284: Plus I never felt threatened by it. I did once, but then I noticed that it seemed like it was very nice and waited for me.

I set the demo on extreme difficulty before 'signing off'. It's a lot more exciting and dangerous against aggressive AI, on normal settings it's pretty easy to be ahead during the hardcore avalanche with all the rocks blocking the road. Evade those whilst trying to overtake the AI and things get a lot harder.

I agree that these gimmick races do have some harsh diminishing returns on their 'wow-factor', but the whole 'cinematic Smokey & the Bandit' angle is captured well. If these tracks are playable in regular head-to-head online multiplayer (not just autolog leaderboards), that'd add a whole other dimension and value to these special events.

Mostly pissed that it doesn't handle like Hot Pursuit, which pretty much handled like Ridge Racer (of my Dreams). Other than that - it looks very pretty and sounds awesome and definitely will be a fun cinematic SP experience. I might give the PC version a go at launch, since it's quite cheap around my parts. Otherwise I'll wait for a pricedrop. I'll be ballsdeep in BF3 MP anyways. Who knows, there's just so many tempting games out there, I might take a break for some of them regardless.

I gave the demo another try today and definitely enjoyed it more this time. The avalanche race was a really neat idea. Is it Hot Pursuit? No, unfortunately not, however, I could see myself picking this one up when it hits the $30 price point.

I enjoyed the demo a lot too. I feel bad for saying this, but my enjoyment was in great part due to the graphics.

I stopped playing cause the demo kept crashing on my PS3 for some reason. Does something cool happen after the race? I might give it another go given that it doesn't go crazy again.