Electronic Arts announces a new partner for their latest installment of the popular Need For Speed racing games, Sports Illustrated. More specifically, Sports Illustrated swimsuit models. Need for Speed: The Run, scheduled for a November 15 release, features Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover models Irina Shayk and Chrissy Teigen in a race from San Francisco to New York. Sports Illustrated stands to benefit greatly from this partnership via bundling, because EA plans to sell a package containing a bonus “making of” DVD, the game itself, and a Sports Illustrated magazine subscription.
Like many of us, I’m a long-time gamer who fondly remembers the early Need For Speed titles. The original tried to realistically simulate the physics of driving the cars in the game, even partnering up with Road & Track magazine to ensure accuracy. (Even the sounds made by moving the vehicles’ control levers were accurately reproduced.) Need For Speed 2 continued catering to car enthusiasts with the ability to drive virtual versions of some of the rarest vehicles and concept cars in existence. The series always managed to balance simulation with entertainment though, especially with the persistent theme of having to outrun the police (and in NFS 3, getting a chance to play the cop and try to pull other cars over too). In Porsche Unleashed, EA concentrated simply on Porsche, going in-depth with the vehicle’s history and available parts catalog while again, providing a high level of realistic vehicle response to the player’s input. Again though, EA didn’t leave out the fun, even including a “factory driver” mode where the player performed various stunts to advance his or her career.
Unfortunately, I think Electronic Arts lost their way when the Fast and the Furious movies hit the theaters. All of a sudden, every new NFS release played out like a bad version of the movies, sans Vin Diesel. Instead of appealing to an audience of car enthusiasts of varied ages, they focused squarely on male adolescents. Special effects (such as the blurring and streaking done to indicate insane boosts of speed) became the norm, and realism was kicked to the curb. The increasing ability to distribute games using more disk space and system resources was leveraged to make longer, more elaborate cut scenes between races versus concentrating on the actual gameplay. When I played NFS Carbon, I found myself enjoying the selection of import tuner cars to choose from and the wide variety of third-party customizations offered as I progressed and won the virtual money to buy them. Even the concept of defeating competing racing clans and owning portions of the city on the map was rewarding. But the cut-scene dialog and the overacting of the other characters you raced against or hired for your own team? Almost unbearable! The last straw was the sudden change in the gameplay itself whenever my car had to race down Carbon Canyon. My opponents’ cars suddenly became much quicker than mine, for no logical reason, ensuring that race would be harder to win than the others. I think I completed about 79 percent of the game and quit out of frustration.
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This release reeks of more of the same. It’s not that I’m opposed to EA sticking a couple of swimsuit models in the game. There’s a long established history of mixing women in swimsuits and automobiles in car shows or expos. The problem is with the presentation. We’re sure to get more of the underlying theme that driving a cool car means getting all the women (despite personal observations indicating a cute dog or cat works far better), but worse yet? We’re not allowed to enjoy modding and racing the vehicles in the game for the sake of doing it. We’re forced to take part in a poorly scripted drama that unfolds as we unlock it, piece by piece. We’re supposed to win that next race so we get to see Chrissy or Irina on the screen for a few seconds again. While the ladies are beautiful, their place in this game is fairly superficial. Let me know when EA decides to partner with Road & Track magazine for an NFS installment.
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