Like clockwork, the official Need For Speed newsletter posted its latest "Under the Hood #4" last week to talk about the latest NFS DLC. The new Need For Speed Showcase Update arrives Wednesday, Feb. 3.
Previously, the Need For Speed Legends Update delivered a number of major changes including a new "Eddie" chapter that introduced new challenges and races in Ventura Bay. The Legends update also added more than 100 new customization items including new headlights, taillights, mirrors, brake calipers and discs and new vinyl design options. The Legends update also raised the level cap, added new collectibles, tweaked A.I. rubberbanding during races, and even offers players to unlock Eddie's own R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R. While the Legends update certainly set the bar pretty high, we're still disappointed that the latest Need For Speed Showcase update delivers a little less content.
The anticipated Need For Speed Showcase Update will introduce a slew of cool features for those that enjoy the art of hard parking: Snapshot Pro lets you create photo shoots of your favorite car and share the photos with the NFS community around the world. Just tap on the smartphone screen and you'll be able to maneuver the camera around the car and select a number of effects including a selection of pre-set filters, changing depth of field, brightness, contrast, vignette, and saturation.
If Snapchat Pro works as well as I hope it will, the tool could be a great way to roam around outside the confines of your own vehicle-centric camera angle, which would be a great feature that potentially enables NFS players to organize meaningful car meets that let players take a closer look at each others cars.
Next, if you're really proud of the livery you created for your car, you can now share the design with the community via a new Wrap Sharing function. Of course, this means that you can browse and download wraps that are being shared by other players as well. Once downloaded, you can still edit and tweak the design to fit your car as you please.
Beyond the straightforward benefits of Wrap Sharing for people that want a cool design but may not possess the artistic talents to make one, the new feature can also be applied to crews that may want to rep cars with a matching livery or theme. Think Risky Devil.
Like the Legends Update, the Showcase Update will once again add another 100+ new customizable items. This time, the mods will be made available for 11 cars, including the Ford Focus RS, Chevrolet Camaro Z28, BMW M3 E92, Ford Mustang Boss 302, Ford Mustang Foxbody, Ford Mustang GT, Mazda MX5 (2015), Nissan 180sx Type X, Nissan Silvia Spec-R, Subaru BRZ Premium, and Subaru Impreza WRX. In addition, custom license plate frames created by popular car culture brands including Speedhunters and Illest are now available as well.
Although the new Showcase Update will not have brand-new events like the Eddie challenge from Legends, NFS has added a "Competitive" option to multiplayer that allows players to join game lobbies with other competitive players. Another new gameplay feature now allows you to drive to gas stations to have your car repaired, free of charge, instead of having to teleport to the garage every time.
New updates are definitely welcome, especially new mods for the 11 cars. However, it doesn't look like the long anticipated neon light mods will be available in the upcoming Showcase DLC (unless NFS is trying to keep it a surprise). What's more, it doesn't really answer a lot of the requests from the Need for Speed community of gamers either.
More garage space. Moar. Garage. Space. Redditor Estim8r shared deeper insight on the need for more space to put the cars we've purchased, and even offered a concept idea of how to implement it:
" We've all been asked to add more garage space, or more garage spots," said Estim8r. " /u/Ghost_ben (Community Manager for NFS's Ghost Games), and everyone from the community, how about adding a couple of new garage around the maps, but making us buy them? Considering the idea to add like, 3-4 garages with 5 car spots, they could be for sale for a price around 150'000 $ - 300,000$, adjusting prices, according to the number of garages available or to the number of cars spots the offer, maybe some garage with 3-4 spots, another 5-6. That would push people to work for the money to get their garage."
The suggestion is ideal for many reasons. Firstly, this finally enables players to own all the cars they wish without interfering with the existing car garage aesthetic. Rather than one large parking lot sized garage, the idea proposes multiples of the existing garage design instead.
Secondly, if cars can be stored in different locations on the map, then players can organize their cars based on region and the proximity of certain types of events where their cars become the weapon of choice. For example, your collection of drift cars can be located at a garage that's located near the touge mountain pass.
The addition of more garage spots also help to enable two other popular DLC requests as well: more cars, larger map. Garage locations at farther sides of the map merit for more a bigger map to explore as well as more variation in Ventura Bay. A more expansive map will also introduce new roads to compete in new events, whether it be drift contests, sprints, or races.
Finally, the more cars players can own, the more cars players will want. From an Integra Type R to a Porsche 918 Spyder, the number of car requests from Redditors cover the entire spectrum. Personally, the addition of the Nissan 350Z is a no-brainer, especially since it belongs to Melissa, Eddie's girlfriend.
What are your thoughts on the garage expansion idea? What other cars will you like to see in Need For Speed? Let us know in the comment section below:
