nfsprostreet I’ve always been a big fan of the Need For Speed series of video games, so when I was in New York a couple of weeks ago I jumped at the opportunity to interview Mike Mann, Senior Producer for Need For Speed ProStreet. Now, unfortunately there were a couple of questions that weren’t answered, but it seems Mike did a good job at clearing up most of my concerns. Read on for the full interview, and feel free to post a comment.

[XBS, Christina Mariannino] – What will we see in ProStreet that is new to the NFS franchise?

[NFS: Mike Mann] – The street racing culture is evolving and NFS ProStreet is moving with it and extending it.  For Need for Speed ProStreet the goal was to infuse the street racing culture, create the ultimate proving ground and deliver a believable drive experience that has consequences (damage).  ProStreet features an all new physics system that was developed from the ground up for over 18 months that delivers on the cross discipline of racing – grip, drag, drift and the all new speed challenge mode.  To make drift and drag believable we added a new smoke system that shows off the raw power of these cars.  One of the biggest investments this year was the procedural damage system where the speed, angle and weight of the car will determine severity of the damage inflicted to your car.  From the design side we wanted add consequence as a game mechanic – risk to pushing your car to its limits.  We had engineers working to build a complex damage system for about 16 months and it meant that car team had to reinvent how to build all the cars and parts to support damage.  Additionally, we really embraced social play this year and added new online features where you are able to create and share Race Days and blueprints with your friends or the online community.

In your opinion, what is the single most appealing part of ProStreet, or the one thing that you are really excited to be able to present to racing fans?

Without a doubt Speed Challenge modes is one most exciting new features to ProStreet.  In embodies pushing your driving skills and your car to limits and risking it all.  It’s an adrenaline rush times 10. When you take your 800 hp car up to 200+ mph, racing down a two lane highway the slightest mistake will have severe consequences.  We created undulation, pot holes, off camber corners – we wanted to deliver experience where you feel the weighting and un-weighting of the car, where you feel and hear that you’re stressing the grip on your tires as you take that tight bend in the road.  At its core speed challenge is about pushing the limits of both speed and control, and when things go bad it takes skill and a bit of luck to get the car back under control.

From what we understand police chases, and in fact, most story-driven action, has been eliminated from the game in favor of a more linear race patterned game; can you tell us why? Is there a storyline in ProStreet?

Need for Speed has evolved and expanded, innovate itself over the years and we will continue to do so.  Need for Speed has delivered on the open world since Underground 2 and added the cops element back in plus introduce the FMV live actors in Most Wanted.  Myself and a number of the design team for ProStreet that created NFS Most Wanted were asked to expand the NFS franchise to multiple titles, to deliver on a believable street racing experience and capture the movement that is happening street scene. Open world felt forced when we are creating the concept for ProStreet and did not deliver on a multi location/international stage. For the motivation the goal was to deliver a career path to become the show down king with secondary quests to become discipline kings – grip, drag, drift and speed challenge.

It’s odd to see a NFS video game featuring daylight, and several variations (time frames) to boot, was there a specific reason for this change from what we’ve become accustomed to from the series (dark, night, dusk)? Any benefits to the game, or benefits to development by making this switch?

Recent Need for Speed titles like NFS Most Wanted featured day time and had dynamic times of day.  For ProStreet we want to create a unique visual look that included daytime and street racer race day vibe and dressing.

Most Wanted was received very well by the gaming community, are there any elements from Carbon and Most Wanted that have been kept, or has the entire system been revamped so to speak?

We are very proud of Most Wanted and Carbon and both have features that we wanted to extend into NFS ProStreet.  Customization and Autosculpt are a couple of the features that were carried over and enhanced in ProStreet.  We added additional performance and visual parts to the customization as well visual tuning which now impact performance for an extra layer of depth in the customization system.  We extended autosculpt so you are now able to sculpt stock body kits and all rims types … just to name a few.

Please tell us a little bit about body-sculpting, has it improved any from previous versions, are there any aspects of this that you are particularly proud to present?

As mentioned earlier, we extended autoscuplting so that you able to modify the stock kit as well as the additional body kits you can purchase.  As well you can modify aftermarket rims, tires, body kits and parts.  The big difference for ProStreet is that visual modification will impact performance.  It’s now more of a balancing act, do you want to sculpt your car to be more streamlined and increase your top end?  Or do you want to increase the drag on your car and keep more traction.  How you visually customize your car can have a significant impact on how it performs, especially in Speed Challenge.

We couldn’t help but notice ProStreet Blueprints on the official web site, can you tell us a bit about this feature, and are there any other avenues for gamers to interact with the media from the game at their PC and vice verse?

Blueprints is new feature that helps to support our goal to embrace and extend social play online.  Blueprints is a save file of your vehicle customization and tuning that allows you to share your vehicle with your online friends or the online community. Your friend or online community can they download the car and start racing with it.  However, they can’t see your secret sauce – how you set the car up and tuned it.  What’s cool about this is that when they get posting on the leader boards it will show the car was created by you, and you can watch as your blueprint spreads across the online community.

This is the first time we’ve seen damage have a true impact on the performance of your vehicle within a NFS game, was this a targeted move to gain more respect among simulation type racers? Or is NFS still a game that everyone can pick up and play right off the bat?

The vision for NFS was to make it a more believable experience than past NFS.  The target was to create an accessible experience where the casual consumer can pick up the control and play, at the same time allow the hardcore racer to turn off the aids and assists to feel raw power of the car.  We create an aid system that has 3 levels “Casual”, “Racer” and “King”.   The most difficult thing to do in a racing game is to figure out when to use the brakes, so for the “Casual” setting we applied a brake assist as well as best line assists which help direct you to the best line. For “King” the physics are unaided, it’s the raw experience.

From what we’ve seen the game is part arcade racer, part simulation racer (we tend to think it’s still more arcade than Sim), why switch this late in the series?

Need for ProStreet delivers on a very believable physics and race AI, however, we have layered on aid to help grow the casual user into an advanced racer.  This thought pattern is also reflected in the story, where the player starts out as an already established street racer and is challenge to take their game to the next level and try to compete on the international stage.

Since NFS ProStreet is now at least partly a simulation racer, has ‘catch-up’ mode been eliminated, is it an option to turn on and off?

The AI system this year is based on driver characteristics versus a glue based system. For example some drivers will drive more aggressively, press in the corner and push their car to the end of race even if they are in first place.  Other AI drivers will be more conservative which will mean fewer mistakes; however, they are less likely to push their car if they are first place to ensure their car will cross the finish line. 

As well we have adjusted the behaviors/difficulty for the different Aids levels. So in King mode the AI will be more pf a challenge and aggressive, basically in King mode the gloves are off.  We wanted to make sure that the player is rewarded for their success in building and tuning the ultimate performance machine, AI glue should never take that away from them.

Was it hard taking the same physics engine and re-applying new rules for damage modeling?

The physics system for ProStreet is new; however, there were design and coding challenges in modeling damage to the car.  The biggest design challenge is how much of negative is damage to physics/control of the car.  Initially we had heavy damage greatly impact the handling of the car but during numerous focus groups with NFS and Racing fans/consumers we dialed it back because it became a controller throwing moment or “un-fun times”.  Although we wanted damage to have consequences, crashing the car is still a great game moment, and we didn’t want to turn it into something negative.  Damage does impact your performance of the car but does impact handling.

Were there any specific challenges during the creation of the game that stick out in your mind?

As you brought up in your questions above.  One of the biggest challenges is embarking on a new direction of racing under the Need for Speed umbrella.  We knew we were not supporting cops and open world for Need for Speed ProStreet but we did not look at this as limiting the experience or holding back the design, but rather we took it on as a new challenge. We looked at this as an opportunity to expand and introduce cool new features that we could not pull off in a open world environment – Speed Challenge is one, the track is specifically design and tailored for high speeds and the amount of polys and detail put into the road to give it the texture and feel could not be supported in a open world.  Another challenge was working with the John Doyle aka “Diva Doyle”.  Diva Doyle is the most challenging individual to travel with.  This spans from airlines, hotels to food.  Example of this is “Diva Doyle” wanted to fly out of Seattle (3+ hour drive) versus Vancouver because the seats on the airline recline an extra 3 degrees.  We love him but he’s very high maintenance.

Thanks for your time!

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Filed under: Interviews • Xbox 360

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