Retro "Need for Speed" pleasant pastime decades later

Retro racing games can be a harmless pastime

February 2017

            You can learn a lot from retro, cheap, and forgotten racing games. For me, I have learned they have cars, toys, and a fun time burning off some steam from an otherwise long month in the life of this blogger.

            I traded the cute but glitzy Need for Speed: Underground 2 for one of its predecessors, Need for Speed: High Stakes. The fourth road racing game from EA, my copy has the green “Greatest Hits” signification on the side; denoting one million or more sales.

            I found myself thinking of the game for months beforehand, even requesting it at my local retro game store.

            Since I have loaded into my PlayStation 2, I have found myself falling in love with those sports cars from the 1990s, which reads like a modern cast of “The Cannonball Run”: Porsche 911 Turbo, Lamborghini Diablo SV, McLaren F1 GTR, Ferrari F50, . . . the list goes on for a total of eighteen. That may be less than some other games, but it’s enough to get your gears going.

                                                           Pic credit: Wikimedia commons

            Starting the game up in test drive mode, the cars accurately reflect real-life features. Neither Diablo nor the F50 have traction, braking, or stability systems to keep them on the road (the other cars have such systems). The F50 zings and misbehaves a lot an old PS1 game; oversteering at will as if to anger the player.

            After watching some videos of the previous (but not immediate predecessor) Need for Speed II, I can say that this iteration portrayed itself as a fine balance of simulation and classic arcade game. The cars of the late 90s are all here, and while some of them handle pretty much identically, some of them oversteer strongly. The engines snarl, whine, growl, shriek, bark, and dance to redline; cars roll and crash in spectacular wrecks, other traffic cars honk at you, and the player can even see the driver's avatar move the steering wheel turn in accord with the player’s steering input. It’s these small details that make up a crescendo of a driving experience.

            At the end, I’m energized to go about the next day. Sliding this game into the disc tray and playing it is very much participating in a retro digitization of seeing people do the very things that young men dream of doing with beautiful sports cars. Those things are speed and dance through corners. 
            Thanks for the retro ride, High Stakes. It was nice meeting you again.

Discovering a car that I had never heard of--My first look at a 928

I have recently discovered a car in the last month or so at a car show that I had not previously heard of. It is not very famous, but it is made by a famous manufacturer. Most versions of it were not very fast, and they didn’t have very many gears, either. I discovered an old, slightly beat up Porsche 928. That is, a heavy, probably expensive car that apparently was supposed to replace the aging (at the time) 911. Good thing they did not, because Porsche is still very famous for their very fast and exotic 911 sports car.

The 928 really seemed like a Porsche in almost a Volkswagen sort of way--roundish looking, heavier, and what sounded like a American V-8 pumping under the hood (it was a German engine of course). It was kinda pleasant, and I almost immediately knew I would write about it after a few weeks, since it was Porsche that really didn’t feel or look like it. Pop-up headlights, a very lazy 200 or something horsepower, and most appeared to be automatics, too (the gentleman I looked at definitely had an automatic). I feel like it was Porsche’s answer to the Corvette, in like I said, a VW sort of way. Listening to its engine for a second or two was also really strange--as I have never heard of the car before, it almost sounded like a V8 from a not so recent Ford F-150. Porsche quite literally attempted to build an American car for I guess what were the 911-haters--people that liked Corvettes but really wanted something more unique and...classy? Artful? I forgot to take pictures of the car, so I will include pictures from Google images.

What shocked me the most was the car’s Chevy price tag--the guy said he bought it for $7000 or something, maybe $6k. I don’t remember exactly what he paid for it, but he did not appear to be fibbin’--it was repainted, the inside was not very clean, and the rear end of the car looked like it had seen better days. In any event, that is significantly less than what I believe those cars cost new. 
Long story short: the 928 appears to be a very affordable way to behind the wheel of one of the most exotic and very German carmakers of all time, and that would be Porsche. There is no substitute.