Need for Speed

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Long running series of racing games focusing on street racing, initially with exotic supercars and then moving to tuner car racing, probably as a result of the latter coming into fashion with the release of the The Fast and the Furious in 2001. Notable for being available for PC as well as consoles throughout its run. Published by Electronic Arts.

Games in the series include:

  • Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed (1994): Contained point-to-point open road tracks and several closed racetracks. The open roads featured AI traffic and police cars that chased the player. Was originally released on the 3DO console, and was later ported to the PlayStation, Saturn and DOS PC in 1996 when the 3DO flopped. The PC version of the game, Need for Speed SE (the "SE" meaning Special Edition), added a few new cars and tracks as well. Developed by EA Canada who would develop all of the ensuing games till Motor City.
  • Need For Speed II (1997): Expanded on the car selection of the original with several contemporary concept cars, like the Ford Indigo and Ford GT90. The game abandoned open road courses for arcade circuits. PC Gamer magazine criticized many of the tracks extravagant and unrealistic scenery -- comparing many of them to being akin to driving on magic mushrooms. NFS II also had a special edition release for the PC, which added some new cars, a new track and 3Dfx Glide support.
  • Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit (1998): Re-introduced the police chases from the first game, and improved the AI system, with each racer having different driving habits. The PC version provided the option to play as the police and catch speeders. Also the first NFS that was easily modded with add-on cars. One of the highlights of the series, according to fans.
  • Need For Speed: High Stakes (1999): Similar to Hot Pursuit, but with a career mode. The High Stakes name referred to sudden death races where the winner wins the losers car. The PC version is basically an Mission Pack Sequel to Hot Pursuit, because it also included all the tracks from the previous game. The PlayStation version didn't have the Hot Pursuit tracks. Known as Need For Speed: Road Challenge in Europe.
  • Need For Speed: Porsche Unleashed (2000): Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Consisted purely of Porsche road cars, from 1948 to 2000. Featured more realistic physics than previous games. Another shining moment from the series. Notable for being the last game in the series developed by EA Canada.
  • Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit II (2002): Similar to the original Hot Pursuit, but with more and bigger tracks, more cars, and more race types. Was the last game in the series to focus on exotic cars for nearly a decade. Also, until a 2010 content download (see Cool Car, below), it was the last game in the series to have cars from Ferrari. Most of the other games up to this point, except for MCO and Porsche Unleashed, had at least one Ferrari. It was also the first game by EA Black Box, who would become the new Need for Speed Developer for the next several years.
  • Need For Speed: Underground (2003): Changed the format of the series from exotic cars on open road tracks to street racing with tuner cars. It also introduced a storyline and car customization.
  • Need For Speed: Underground II (2004): Similar to the original Underground, but with a free roaming city, as in Grand Theft Auto.
  • Need For Speed: Underground Rivals (2005): A version of Underground II for PSP. Introduced muscle cars to the vehicle lineup.
  • Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2005): Similar to Underground II, featuring muscle cars and exotics in addition to tuner cars while focusing on the re-introduced staple of the series: The Police Chases. Due to being thematically a lot less flashy than the Underground games, the visual customization for the cars is limited, dropping the pure eye-candy options like the neon lights.
  • Need For Speed: Carbon (2006): A more story-driven street racing game, with the player recruiting drivers to their 'crew'. The highlight feature was the canyon races, which wound down narrow, twisting mountain roads, and the greatest danger was often driving off a cliff.
    • Need For Speed: Carbon - Own The City: A separate version of Carbon for portable consoles, the player recruits a different set of crew members, places even less emphasis on police chases and omits canyon racing entirely. It also features a vastly different storyline, revolving around a street racing accident occurring prior to the events of the game which led to the amnesiac player character piecing together the truth.
  • Need For Speed: ProStreet (2007): Themed around organized race days with no illegal street racing. Switched to a more realistic handling model, and was widely criticized for it - even EA admitted that this one is "not good".
  • Need For Speed: Undercover (2008): Returned to the Most Wanted model of focusing on illegal street racing, with an attempt at an action movie-esque narrative about the titular undercover cop infiltrating an organised crime ring as a street racer, complete with notable actors in supporting roles most especially Maggie Q as Chase Linh. Was trashed by critics for its bad framerate, its cheesy storyline, and for being not as good as Rockstar Games' Midnight Club: Los Angeles and EA's other arcade-style racing game from 2008, Burnout Paradise. Pretty much sullied EA Black Box's reputation with the series.
  • Need For Speed: Shift (2009): Another crack at realistic racing, from Slightly Mad Studios (then known as an independent development team composed of people who worked on GTR, GTR2, and GT Legends, a trio of well-received PC sim racers. Slightly Mad was acquired by Codemasters in 2019, and was itself acquired by EA in 2021), with help from EA Black Box. Much better received than Undercover.
  • Need For Speed: Nitro (2009): An arcade-like racer for the Wii and DS, taking on a more cartoony art style and a generous dose of National Stereotypes whilst they're at it. Developed by EA Montreal.
  • Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010): Was accidentally revealed by GameTrailers TV in a quick look at EA's E3 2010 booth, and was confirmed at EA's press conference a few days later. This is the first game in the series developed by Criterion Games, the EA studio behind the Burnout franchise, is a Spiritual Successor to Hot Pursuit 2 (of course), and features some online-centric "race and chase" gameplay, either through multi-player or the "Autolog" system that continuously compares your best times to those of your friends and challenges you to beat your friends' times. A remaster of the game with all previously-released DLC was developed by Stellar Entertainment and released in 2020 for Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, though it also omits the 722 Edition and Stirling Moss models of the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, and the Carbon Motors E7 Concept due to licensing reasons (the latter car never entered real-world production; Carbon Motors went defunct in 2013, just three years after the game's release). Separate versions of the game were developed for mobile phones as well as the Wii, the latter being essentially a reskin of Nitro sans the cartoony art style.
  • Shift 2: Unleashed (2011): After the success of Need for Speed: Shift, it's not too surprising to learn that EA gave Slightly Mad Studios another go-around and green-lit Shift 2 this time without input from Black Box. The handling model is massively improved from Shift, and the Autolog feature from Hot Pursuit returns, as well.
  • Need for Speed: The Run (2011): Featuring the Cannonball Run-style coast-to-coast Epic Race across the USA with a heavy emphasis on story and cinematic action. The plot's kind of Excuse-y but just know Sean Faris gets some advice from Christina Hendricks about a 3000 mile race that he can use to win $25 million, enough to pay back a crime syndicate he had a bad run-in with. Was meant to be EA Black Box's redemption after losing control over the series post Undercover, but with less than stellar reviews, this looks to not be the case. Also the first in the series to utilise DICE's Frostbite engine, which had previously been used for Battlefield games such as Bad Company and Battlefield 3.
  • Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012): Criterion's next game in the series, a reimagining of 2005's Most Wanted. Kotaku described the game as "Burnout Paradise with cops", which long-time fans of the series generally agree on, leading to the somewhat derisive Fan Nickname "Burnout Fairheaven". A separate version of the game for iOS and Android devices was developed and released by Firemonkeys Studios, a company formed from a merger between Firemint and IronMonkey Studios. EA would also release versions for the Wii U with improved graphics and a bunch of Nintendo-themed Easter Eggs, as well as a version for the PlayStation Vita which was graphically cut-down but is otherwise identical to the main console and PC releases to the point of incorporating cross-platform save transfers between the Vita and PS3, an impressive feat considering the Vita's weaker hardware.
  • Need for Speed Rivals (2013): Basically Hot Pursuit with an attempt at a Darker and Edgier story, the second game to utilise Frostbite after The Run and the first game to be developed with eighth-generation consoles in mind, though versions for previous-gen consoles were also available. Players take the role of either a racer or a cop, with their respective storylines under an overarching plot revolving around a rivalry between the Redview County Police Department (RCPD) and the street racing community. The game was also the first in four years to receive Ferrari-related content (especially given the Prancing Horse being notoriously zealous of their intellectual property).
  • Need for Speed (2015): Another full reboot of the franchise, this time about a ragtag group of street racers who seek to get noticed by a bunch of notable car culture celebrities appearing as themselves but otherwise just want to have fun. It is also notable for its extensive use of Full Motion Video cutscenes seamlessly integrated to in-game visuals, its always-online nature (as in there is no pause button at all) and the first NFS to break from the series' infamous yearly release cycle since Hot Pursuit II, EA having been busy co-producing the film adaptation in 2014.
  • Need for Speed: Payback (2017): Focusing on a trio of protagonists, each having their respective skills as they take on a crime syndicate. Unlike the 2015 Need for Speed reboot, Payback includes an offline single-player mode, though it was also criticised for its use of loot boxes (something which Star Wars Battlefront II would take more of the heat from) and heavily-scripted police chases instead of the spontaneous pursuits the series is known for.
  • Need for Speed Heat (2019): Ghost's fourth entry in the series marks the 25th anniversary of NFS and continues the gameplay style from Payback. Set in Palm City (which is quite obviously Miami), the game also features sanctioned races a la Shift and ProStreet but lacks a continuous day-and-night cycle.
  • Need for Speed Unbound (2022): The first ninth-gen exclusive title, initially planned to be released in 2021 if not for the COVID-19 pandemic complicating production. The game uses cel-shaded graphics for its particle effects and characters as made popular by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Wangan Midnight but still takes place in a relatively photorealistic Lakeshore City. Also prominently features rapper A$AP Rocky who appears As Himself with his own custom Mercedes-Benz 190E.

Other games in the series include:

  • Need For Speed V-Rally (1997) & Need For Speed V-Rally II (1999): The American market branding of V-Rally, an unrelated rally racing title made by the French developer Eden Studios and published overseas by Infogrames, released under the NFS banner in an attempt to increase brand recognition as rally racing isn't as popular in America as it is in Europe. V-Rally 3 would be published without the NFS branding in 2002. Eden Studios would also develop the PlayStation version of Porsche Unleashed and the very old-school-NFS-like Test Drive Unlimited.
  • Motor City Online (2001): An attempt at a driving MMOG, developed in house by EA, and first game not developed by EA Canada. This game focused entirely on American cars, particularly muscle cars, from The Thirties through The Seventies (until the very end, when the Toyota Supra and the Mitsubishi Eclipse were added, presumably to broaden appeal). Despite not having the NFS branding, it is considered to be a NFS game by EA and fans of the series, and was even originally planned as Need For Speed: Motor City. It was largely unsuccessful, and was shut down in 2004.
  • Need for Speed World (2010-2015): A free-to-play MMOG developed by Black Box, it was notable for featuring both Rockport and Palmont from Most Wanted and Carbon. EA later pulled the plug on the game in 2015 alongside some of their other F2P titles, though it soon gained a new lease of life through dedicated fan preservation efforts where they reverse-engineered the game and implemented unofficial servers in place of the now-shut down service.
  • Need for Speed: No Limits (2015): A mobile-only instalment of the franchise, developed by Firemonkeys Studios for iOS and Android. It is a free-to-play title, with the requisite litany of microtransactions and pay-to-win mechanics to the point that most if not all race events in No Limits are comically short.
  • Need for Speed Edge (2017): A short-lived, Asia-exclusive MMOG released in China and South Korea. It reuses the map from Rivals but with power-ups in place of pursuit tech used in the game it was based on. Just like World before it, there also exists an unofficial server implementation made to render the game playable again.
  • Need for Speed Mobile: Another mobile-only instalment, developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group using the Unreal Engine and will be released in 2023 for the Chinese market. It is based off the map from Heat with significant alterations.

The series also spawned a film adaptation starring Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame which was released in 2014, produced by DreamWorks and distributed by Disney under the Touchstone Pictures label. The film predictably was critically panned though it did perform well at the box office. A sequel was reportedly in the works but was quietly cancelled not long after.

The Need for Speed page now features WMG, YMMV and Crowning Music pages.

Tropes used in Need for Speed include:
  • Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Inverted in Porsche Unleashed. If you bought a used car, repaired it, and sold it, you would make a profit every single time. There was also an infinite supply of used Porsches as well, meaning that you could have all the money you wanted for the price of grinding the menus.
  • Aluminum Christmas Trees: Sure that light blue police Gallardo 560-4 in HP2010 is cool and all but that car actually exists in Italy as an interceptor unit, donated by Lamborghini themselves. To be completely fair, the Gallardo does serve some practical use as an organ transport vehicle where time is of the essence. Furthermore, there exists a fleet of high-end luxury sports cars used as police vehicles in Dubai, though contrary to expectations by foreigners they are actually limited to traffic enforcement in tourist spots and perhaps for publicity's sake.
  • Anachronism Stew: A subtle but noticeable one in Hot Pursuit 2010 is an F-14 Tomcat that likes to fly-by every now and then near Memorial Highway. Though not a particular source of frustration, it's still has some of the fans that are well-versed in aviation crying afoul because the game more or less takes place Twenty Minutes Into the Future and that the plane in question has been out of service since 2006.
  • Announcer Chatter: And police chatter in the games that have them. Very much a necessity in Most Wanted where you can keep track of their movements.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: In The Run, you can restart from the latest checkpoint if/when you either wreck your car, or you've lost that particular segment of the race. You can do this at will, too, up to certain times depending on the difficulty. Insert jokes about certain groundhog-day-looper-that-signed-an-unfair-contract here.
  • Ascended Extra: Somewhat of an example, as prior to the Mazda Miata being drivable in Underground, Bland Name Products of the car could be seen as traffic in earlier games.
  • Beat: In Hot Pursuit 2010, the police dialogue on screen literally says {BEAT} whenever there's a pause between sentences during the same dialogue clip.
  • Benevolent Architecture: Some of those cities look like racetracks with houses.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Road Challenge Hot Pursuit mode (the police chase mode) had an option to use 'local police'. This gave full localized voices for the dispatch and driver voice-overs. On the British circuit, the British Police talk with English accents. The French and German circuits go one step further - they even talk in the right language, not just a faux accent.
    • Averted for the English police, driving a Victoria police Holden has the police sound more like they're from Heartbeat than Blue Heelers.
  • Bowdlerize: The songs by Hot Action Cop which were featured in Hot Pursuit 2 had their lyrics changed so they're racing-themed rather than sex-themed.
  • Bragging Rights Reward: Underground had the Bonus Cars, untuned cars with awesome vinyls.
  • Bribing Your Way to Victory: Some versions of Carbon, ProStreet and Undercover all let you unlock cars and parts early by paying real money.
  • Broken Bridge: All the boroughs start out locked by an Invisible Wall.
    • Construction equipment and fortified barricades block off the road which leads to (coincidentally) the broken bridge used in the final pursuit of Most Wanted.
  • Bullet Time: The Speedbreaker from Most Wanted and Carbon. Also counts as Game Breaker.
  • Call Back: The Run allows players to access challenges which would unlock cars from Underground (Eddie's Skyline GTR from the first Underground and Rachel's 350Z from Underground 2), Most Wanted (the player's M3 GTR and Razor's Mustang), and Carbon (Cross' Corvette Z06 C6 and Darius' Le Mans Quattro). (Note that the challenges are inspired by the games themselves.)
  • Captain Obvious: In the opening pursuit of The Run captions pop up helpfully telling you to avoid gunfire and explosions.
  • Character Tiers: Car-based example: The series as a whole tends to divide cars into "Classes," putting similar cars into different classes (for example, putting high-performance sports cars like the Lamborghini Diablo VT and the Ferrari 512TR in their own Class) based on performance. Each game has it's own system of organization.
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
    • On many occasions, you'll be surprised to discover that the police SUV, is in fact much faster than your tricked out McLaren F1 running at top speed.
      • Those police SUVs are especially annoying in World; after an update was added to the game to make pursuits in higher Heat Levels tougher, it seems that in every Heat Level 5 pursuit there are always two more Rhinos coming at you every ten seconds.
      • Ironically, in the original Hot Pursuit, the Police AI was a lot dumber, making the very hook of the game much easier than its single-player!
  • Cool Car: Koenigsegg CCX with modifications. You can't get any more awesome than that!
  • Cowboy Cop: This is how you get anything done in the Hot Pursuit 2k10. Road Blocks, Spike Strips, EMP, and Helicopter at your disposal, officer. Justified in that the racers are really dangerous.
    • The original Hot Pursuit was somewhat more sedate, in that you only got spike strips. The rest you had to do yourself, via takedowns.
  • Crapsack World: Implied in the first Hot Pursuit with Empire City, the track narrator goes so far to say: "Metropolis gone bad..." when listening on the description in the menu.
  • Crazy Awesome: In-universe, You (well, Ryan Cooper) are considered to be this by the DJs if you perform good enough. They insist a lot on this at the beginning of drag races.

DJ: "Did you see this guy? He's completely bananas!"

  • Curb Stomp Battle: A lot of the Duel Events in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2010 can fall into this, particularly the Power Trip, Twin Turbo, Racing Stripes and Title Fight Duels.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!
  • Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Turbo in Hot Pursuit 2k10. Like the game says, "it's hard to evade spike strips when you're going at 200mph". Especially when you're out of Jammers and can't prevent the cops from dropping spike strips in front of you...
  • Death From Above: One of the levels in The Run has Jack avoiding an attacking helicopter as he attempts to escape Chicago. Appropriately enough, the trailer it's featured in is called "Death From Above".
  • Difficult but Awesome: Mastering the Bugatti Veyron and it's faster version, the Super Sport definitely qualifies, these are 2 of the fastest cars in the world but they're very difficult to handle, but with some skill and a bit of practice you can makes these cars almost game-breaking.
  • Difficulty Spike: Quite common since Underground.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: The premise of Hot Pursuit. "Hey, that guy is speeding! Quickly, lets lay down spike strips, use electromagnetic pulses, call in the helicopters, and ram them off the road! Hopefully off the side of a cliff! That'll teach them a lesson about speeding!"
  • Dolled-Up Installment: V-Rally and V-Rally 2.
  • Dramatic Landfall Shot: The opening of Undercover.
  • Drives Like Crazy: You in almost all Need for Speed games. Of note are the beautiful, treacherous tracks in Hot Pursuit 2K10. When you get to, or have to, drive a Corvette ZR1 through hairpins at 200mph, you have to learn to drift well fast.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: Played straight in Underground 1 & 2, where almost all race givers will treat your car as a wreck, and expect you to be lapped five times by the end of the race. Averted in Pro Street where, if you perform good enough, the DJs will constantly praise you.
  • Every Car Is Rear Wheel Drive: In earlier installments, the only options for vehicles were rear-wheel drive and four-wheel drive, which made this almost literally true. Hot Pursuit 2K10 has only two types: Rear Wheel Drive and All Wheel Drive.
  • Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: NFS II had an unlockable Hollywood track, with movie sets and dinosaurs (indeed, a cheat code allowed you to turn your car into a dinosaur, as well as other silly things like a log).
  • Getting Arrested Is A Slap On The Wrist: The ultimate goal of the Pursuit races in Need For Speed World is to keep going for as long as you possible can (or want) while causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to the state. It's up to you to keep the event going if you lose the police, by actively seeking them back out again. If you happen to get arrested though, all you suffer is a loss of a couple hundred dollars.
  • Hammerspace Police Force: Especially in Most Wanted where the Rockport police force would throw in the bulk of their patrol and pursuit fleet at you.
  • Hollywood California
  • Hood Ornament Hottie: Brooke Burke and Kelly Brook in Underground II, Josie Maran in Most Wanted, Emmanuelle Vaugier in Carbon, Krystal Forscutt in ProStreet, and Maggie Q in Undercover. None of them were hired for their acting ability, as the in-game cutscenes show quite clearly.
  • Improbably Cool Car: Too many kids with Lamborghini Gallardos (especially the 550-4 Valvetino Balboni)!
    • COPS WITH REVENTONS!
    • The Pagani Zonda Cinque's (Technically: there are ten, just five coupes and five roadster versions)
      • Similar to that, the McLaren F1 LM in Hot Pursuit 2
    • The Koenigsegg CCXR which there are only four of them made! Yet there is a police version with blue carbon fiber.
    • NFS II was even worse with Ford GT90's, Indigos, Mustang Mach III's, Italdesign (BMW) Nazca C2's and (Lamborghini) Calas (all of which, for those who are confused, never went into production)!
      • NFS III then had the Italdesign (Alfa Romeo) Scighera (which had only been available in the PC version, the PSX version had the aforementioned Nazca C2).
  • Infinity Minus One Car: In Most Wanted, if you win Blacklist #6 Ming's Lamborghini Gallardo, it comes with most of all of the final performance upgrades available for cars that aren't supposed to be unlocked until after you beat #3 Ronnie. The car unmodified from its initial setup is enough to get you through the next few Blacklist targets easy, and it saves you money so you can buy one of the final cars when you need to. You will definitely want to Save Scum for this one.
  • Ink Suit Actor: Sean Faris and Christina Hendricks lent their likenesses to Jack Rourke and Sam Harper in The Run, respectively.
  • In Medias Res: Underground, Most Wanted and Carbon start like this.
  • In Vehicle Invulnerability: If you knock out a car in Hot Pursuit 2k10, the most you might see the driver do inside is just shake his head in disappointment. No fear. This happens even if the racer in question uses a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss edition, which has no windshield or roof.
    • Averted in that if you wreck a cop, they sometimes request EMS.
  • Joke Character: The police helicopter in High Stakes.
  • The Killer in Me: The player character in Need for Speed: Carbon - Own The City gets amnesia from a street racing accident which also claimed the life of their brother Michael "Mick" Rogers, making their move throughout the city in order to find who is responsible. It turns out that it was the player who orchestrated the crash all along, due to how much of a toxic person Mick was to the player and their former girlfriend Sara.
    • Lethal Joke Character: The Toyota Corolla from Underground I onward. Despite its rather dowdy appearance compared to other cars, it has fantastic handling and, in the right hands, beat much faster cars. This video pretty much sums it up.
  • Land Down Under: Australian tracks that run from Sydney to the outback and back again.
    • High Stakes also gives us Fords and Holdens, as well as a Victoria police unit.
  • Limit Break: The nitrous in Underground 2 is refilled with stunts. This mechanic returns in Hot Pursuit 2k10. In fact, it's about the only way to win in Exotic or Hyper series when you're a Racer. The fact that the cops' cars are significantly better than yours doesn't help. The nitrous system in The Run is a combination of the self-regenerating nitrous from Most Wanted, Carbon, and Undercover, with the option to accelerate the regeneration with stunts a la Hot Pursuit 2k10.
  • MacGuffin: The BMW M3 GTR in Most Wanted.
  • Marathon Level: Event 30 of Championship mode in Hot Pursuit 2. 10 laps on Palm City Island. Takes about half an hour to complete.
  • Market-Based Title: There's quite a few, so take a seat.
    • European versions keep the Need For Speed name, but usually had a different subtitle. For example, Porsche Unleashed's subtitle was simply 2000 for the German edition. This practice ended with the release of Hot Pursuit 2.
    • The Japanese versions were sold as the Over Drivin' series until the release of Porsche Unleashed. There were also a few Japanese-exclusive editions of the first game, including an all-Nissan edition (Over Drivin': Skyline Memorial). Despite the name, it featured more than the company Skyline series of sports cars, and it included various Z-cars and the R390 Le Mans racer.
    • Hot Pursuit 2 had "both" the Opel Speedster and Vauxhaul VX 220 the only difference is the lack of roof on the VX 220 while the Speedster had a slightly higher acceleration.
  • Money for Nothing: A problem in any game that lets you customize by using cash. You'll end up with a big bank account from winning races yet none of the higher level part tiers will open up so you can buy new swag with your loot. By the time you have the option of buying new parts, very often they won't dent your funds enough that you'll care.
  • Mood Lighting
  • Multi Platform: Especially in the 2000s when the Black Box era games got ports and adaptations for every single platform available at the time.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: 'Wolf' (It'd be more scary squaring up to 'Michael Schumacher').
  • Nitro Boost
  • No One Could Survive That: Most of the wrecks, takedowns, busts and crashes in Hot Pursuit 2k10 that involve rolling the car multiple times, launching cars off of cliffs, brutal head-on collisions with traffic and sending supercars into walls while going at speeds climbing over 240+ MPH.
    • Especially in a Mercedes-Benz SLR Stirling Moss. The car literally has no roof and no windshield! A roll-over in that car would clearly kill the driver.
  • Obvious Beta: Undercover shipped with severe framerate issues. Absolute death in a high-speed racing game.
    • The PS3, PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game at least got a patch that (mostly) fixes the framerate issues.
    • ProStreet had some framerate issues, too, but it didn't make the game unplayable.
    • The XBOX 360 version of Shift tries to access the Playstation Store.
  • Old Save Bonus: Some versions of Most Wanted gave you an extra $5000 for having an Underground 2 saved game.
    • Hot Pursuit 2010 and Shift 2 Unleashed offer "loyalty bonuses" if you played a previous game in the series, usually in the form of additional experience points. Playing Hot Pursuit 2010 also unlocks two additional cars in Shift 2 Unleashed: a Pagani Zonda Cinque Roadster in "NFS Edition" colors, and a Lamborghini Reventon in a Seacrest County PD livery.
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: In Hot Pursuit 2010, listen to the woman who reads off each car's description in the vehicle selection menu. She frequently slips between an American accent and a British one, especially on words like "dollars" and "goggles" (for example: The SLR Stirling Moss).
  • Penultimate Weapon
  • Press X to Not Die: The Run uses this trope for moments where you're out of the car. In the Xbox version this is literally the case in the opening cutscene where the first button you need to press is X
  • Product Placement: Underground 2 was the winner of Gamespot's "Most Despicable Product Placement" award in 2004. After all, this was the game that had a Burger King and/or a Best Buy every couple of blocks and the Cingular logo on the HUD at all times.
    • The Run has the K&N challenge series and every petrol station is a Shell one with their premium brand fuels clearly shown.
  • Rare Vehicles:
    • Carbon was released in 2006 and features the concept versions of the 2008 Dodge Challenger, 2010 Chevrolet Camaro and Audi R8 ("Le Mans"); Hot Pursuit 2 also features the McLaren F1 LM, of which only 5 were produced. NFSII also featured one-offs like the Ford GT90, Indigo and Mustang Mach III, Lamborghini Italdesign Cala, BMW Italdesign Nazca C2, and the super-rare Isdera Commendatore 112i.
    • The two cover cars for Hot Pursuit 2k10 title are the Lamborghini Reventon (total production: 20 cars, plus one for display in the Lamborghini Museum.) and the Pagani Zonda Cinque (total production: five cars, all going to an exotic car showroom in Hong Kong. "Cinque" is the Italian term for the number five, hence the production number and name.).
    • The Carbon Motors E7 in Hot Pursuit 2k10 which was to be sold exclusively to Real Life law enforcement agencies as a purpose-built police cruiser but was never put into production after a failed government loan request. The E7 was then omitted in the remaster after EA's license with Carbon Motors lapsed as the automaker went defunct in 2013.
  • Rashomon Style: This is how the story in Carbon is told.
  • Real Is Brown: Most Wanted paints the whole scene brown and orange with the Visual Treatment set on full; Carbon later replaced it with high-tech blue. Undercover goes back to brown.
  • Real Song Theme Tune: Thanks to the "Grand Theft Auto" Effect.
  • Road Block: Used in Hot Pursuit, Hot Pursuit 2, Most Wanted and Carbon; the usual way to clear them is by either squeezing through or hammering your way through
    • They return as a cop-deployable obstacle in Hot Pursuit 2010. The correct way to get through them is to shoot a gap just a little larger than your car (earning a dodged roadblock bonus). The computer regularly aims for them, but they do clip a cop car from time to time, which can lead to an easy takedown or bust.
  • Rubber Band AI: Infamously used since Underground.
  • Rule of Three: Every 3rd game seems to be centered about cop chases. The 3rd game was Hot Pursuit, the 6th game was Hot Pursuit 2, the 9th game was Most Wanted, the 12th game was Undercover, and the 15th game (after Shift and Nitro) is Hot Pursuit 2k10.
  • Satchel Switcheroo: Happens in the storyline in Carbon.
  • Scare Chord: Sort of. In the second and third games, crashing your car would cause a short riff (that was part of whatever song was playing, depending on track) to play.
  • Scenery Porn: Just about every game in the series, but Hot Pursuit 2010 takes it too the extreme. Think about it, Seacrest County has tall red-woods, a large lake, long rivers, a mountain range up north, long stretches of desert.. all presented in then-impressive graphics which still hold up well to this day. And it looks absolutely brilliant!
  • Schizo-Tech: The Atlantica course in III: Hot Pursuit, which looks very futuristic but only features 1990s cars.
    • To go further, Empire City is your standard, dystopian Crapsack World city yet there are high powered, rare sports cars racing around the district.
  • Score Screen: Used in all the games, though Most Wanted also tallies up your pursuit score like this.
  • Serious Business: Daft street racing with a straight face is what the game is basically about.
    • The police in Hot Pursuit have a dedicated speed enforcement unit with tricked-out cars to match those of racers.
  • Shark Tunnel: The first Hot Pursuit has one as a segment in the Aquatica track, which is also available in certain versions of High Stakes. The PSX version of Hot Pursuit also has a giant version of it as a secret track.
  • Shout-Out: The Coastal course in the original had a half-buried Statue of Liberty on the beach at the finish line. "You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you all to hell!"
    • If you crashed the Lamborgini in the 3D0 version of the orignal NFS, the guy at the menu would say:

"You just wrecked a $500,000 dollar machine. Nice going, Gomer...

    • In Most Wanted...

Cross: I want everyone on this guy."
Partner: Everyone?
Cross: EVVV-REEE-OOOOONNNNEEE!!!!!

    • There's quite a few in the new Hot Pursuit's achievement/trophy list.
      • Just so you know who made the game, there's an achievement/trophy called "Burnout" that requires the player to fully charge up the Nitro Boost and use it all in one go.
        • To drive that point home, one of the routes in game is called Point of Impact.
      • One achievement/trophy requires the player to win a certain event in a "bee yellow" Camaro. The name of the achievement? "Flight of the Bumblebee".
      • There's another achievement/trophy called "Iron Man" that requires completing three police events in an Audi R8.
      • And there's one called "Shaken, Not Stirred" that requires completing an event in an Aston Martin vehicle.
      • Speaking of James Bond and Astons, there's another Aston-only event called "Do look after it".
      • Finally, there's one called "Godzilla" that requires completing a certain police event in a Nissan GT-R Spec V with no weapons used, a reference to the film series and the Affectionate Nickname of the car in question (which was coined by Australian motoring publication Wheels in its July 1989 edition).
      • One of the Racer events in the Lamborghini Untamed Downloadable Content pack is called Cannonball and has the player racing against the clock and police in a Lamborghini Countach.
  • Silliness Switch: NFS II had cheat modes that would turn your car into a box, a dinosaur and a bus stop, among other things.
  • Slap-On-The-Wrist Nuke: Spike Strips? EMP? Nah, only a flesh metal wound in the Hot Pursuit 2k10. Averted in other games though, as the pursuit is basically over if you hit the Spike Strips.
  • Slo-Mo Big Air
  • Spin-Off: The V-Rally series (which only bore the NFS name for branding; was eventually passed to the Test Drive name later). Beetle Adventure Racing was envisioned as a Need for Speed title for the Nintendo 64 but eventually became a VW Beetle-focused racing game. More recently, the Shift games are trying to draw a divide between themselves and the rest of the franchise, with the second game dropping the name and being called Shift 2: Unleashed.
  • Stealth Pun: NFS Hot Pursuit 2k10 used this sentence during the final roadblock upgrade briefing for police. Also note that a cayenne is also a type of chili.
    • Porsche Cayenne Turbos are now deployed to add spice to your pursuit.
    • Now The Run does recursive shout-outs to previous installment's names on their chapters, remarkably "Underground", "Most Wanted" and the last episode "Hot Finish"
  • Stopped Numbering Sequels
  • Strictly Formula: A common complaint against Carbon and Undercover.
  • Suspect Is Hatless: In Hot Pursuit 2k10:

Police Dispatcher: Suspect is in the sand, heading toward the rocks!"

  • A Taste of Power: Underground starts In Medias Res with a Bonus Car with nitrous, Underground 2 starts with a borrowed tuned car, Most Wanted starts with a powerful BMW M3 that is sabotaged and lost in a bet, and Carbon starts with you thrashing that same BMW.
    • Defied in Hot Pursuit 2k10. A starter cop mission gives you Lamborghini Reventon, and things don't get worse from there. Mind you, NFS:HP2010 absolutely loves this trope, heck, fairly early in the game (whichever side of the law you are on), you're gonna get a preview of a handful of cars you won't be driving for a while. The best examples include the McLaren F1, Pagani Zonda Cinque, Corvette ZR1 and the Bugatti Veyron 16.4. All of which can be unlocked after a few hours of playing.
      • And yes, the Veyron and the Konigsegg CCXR are the last two cars you'll unlock.
  • Trial and Error Gameplay
  • Vanity License Plate: 'NFS' on your plate. Supposedly these were going to be customizable for online play, until somebody realized that You Suck and would almost certainly use swear words...
    • In Need for Speed Undercover and Hot Pursuit 2k10, all the cars have license plates that say "ND 4 SPD".
    • For the real life pictures of the cars in NFS III, all of the pictures showing the license plate will have "NFS 3" edited over them to prevent tracking.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Slowly happens to Razor and Cross from Most Wanted, as well as Darius from Carbon.
    • Chase Linh at the end of Undercover after being arrested by the police.
  • Wacky Racing: With licensed Cool Cars, to bout!
  • Wham! Episode: Actually a Wham Race in the first Underground. The race known as "Friends Are Easy To Make, And Easier To Lose" has you racing against Samantha who's been your guide throughout the first two thirds of the game. Later, the other racers will call you out on this.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Possible example in Hot Pursuit. Just listen to the Aquatica part of Rear Flutterblast #19 (which is about halfway through the video,) especially 5:19 to 5:40. Keep in mind that Aquatica is a winding cliff-side road along the ocean at sunset.
  • A Winner Is You: Appears in Hot Pursuit 2010, when the player clears all of the offline missions for one side.
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