The one where Hot Pursuit gets a walkthrough.
Need for Speed: High Stakesnote is a 1999 racing video game developed by EA Canada and EA Seattle and published by Electronic Arts for the PlayStation and Microsoft Windows. It is the fourth game in the Need for Speed series, following Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit.
The game is essentially III: Hot Pursuit with a career mode and expanded with more options, allowing players to control police pursuits attempting to stop racers, while the PC version is basically a Mission-Pack Sequel to III: Hot Pursuit, because it also included all nine tracks from the previous game, while the PlayStation version didn't have those tracks. The game also features more realistic elements than its predecessors and introduced a damage system that allows cars to take damage when colliding with objects, affecting their appearance and performance. This led to a quite particular situation in that because the game features licensed cars, Electronic Arts had to convince manufacturers to let their cars get damaged in-game. It also introduced a series of economy-based tournaments, awarding players with a cash prize that can be spent on repairing, purchasing, or upgrading cars for subsequent races, making it the first Need for Speed game to feature visual modifications (before this feature became popular with Underground). The game's name comes from the game's High Stakes mode, where a player can lose a saved car in a race, along with the money they had spent on upgrading it.
High Stakes marked the return of the Porsche license after being absent from racing games since Porsche Challenge in 1997.
Need for Speed: High Stakes features examples of:
- Artificial Brilliance: The PC version demonstrates some pretty fancy artificial intelligence that is usually unnoticed by a lot of players.
- In Classic and Time Trap modes, the police react to the first call of them engaging pursuit with a speeder - usually the next unit up the road will lay out a roadblock or spike strip to hopefully intercept them.
- The police helicopter plays a big part in Getaway mode and is a minor convenience in other modes. In Getaway if they spot the speeder (if they're not hiding in a tunnel), they will call them out, all the police AI react and start swarming towards the location and the speeder's location will appear on the radar.
- Unlike later games, if you haven't already been chased by the police in a race it's entirely possible to drive right by them with no consequences if you're doing the speed limit and not being reckless. This would be useful if not for the game's tendency to spawn police cars just far enough down the road behind you that by the time your radar goes off for you to slow down, they've already seen you and initiated a pursuit.
- Battle in the Rain: High Stakes was one of the first Need for Speed games to feature rain during a race.
- Bilingual Bonus: The 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, as driving a Victoria police's Holden has the police sound more like they're from Heartbeat than Blue Heelers.
- Call-Back:
- Similar to III: Hot Pursuit, High Stakes has some billboards advertising certain raceways: Rusty Springs and Autumn Valley. Both are levels from the first The Need for Speed.
- High Stakes' career mode has a tournament called "Memory Lane". It leads to a big race through all of the tracks from III: Hot Pursuit, and beating the tournament unlocks said tracks for regular play.
- Difficult, but Awesome: Mastering the La Niña concept car, an extreme amount of top speed and acceleration and an extreme lack of handling. That being said, letting off the gas will increase the turn rate dramatically and gain you a very high edge in class A races, so it's mostly a matter of not being a lead foot.
- Joke Character: The police helicopter. You can only use it in a test drive, it hovers just above the road like a car and it's surprisingly slow.
- Land Down Under: The Australian release rebrands Durham Road as an Australian course, and it's complete with Fords, Holdens, and a Victoria police unit.
- Marathon Level: Both the PC and PlayStation releases have this as their final career event, driving around most of the tracks the player has previously driven in different time and weather conditions.
- Market-Based Title: The game was released in Europe as Need for Speed: Road Challenge, while it is released in Japan as Over Drivin' IV. The German and French releases are instead called Need for Speed: Brennender Asphaltnote and Need for Speed: Conduite en état de liberténote respectively.
- Mission-Pack Sequel: The PC release has shades of this, as all nine tracks from its predecessor, III: Hot Pursuit, are present in the game.
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Nintendo Hard: The PlayStation version can be one of the hardest EA Canada developed entries, with its Special Events. A full grid filled with lots of traffic that you can't avoid? You're gonna be groaning, swearing, and hoping that you could win one, which boils down to just luck. - Nostalgia Level: The Memory Lane career tier in the PC release has you driving in courses from the previous game.
- Pimped-Out Car: High Stakes started the trope for the franchise, before the following Porsche Unleashed, Motor City Online and Underground series expanded on that aspect. In this game, the players can buy upgrades for some of their cars, which include the bodykits that can affect aerodynamics performance.
- Regional Bonus: The Australian release of High Stakes has additional Australian sports cars in the lineup, such as the Ford Falcon XR8, the HSV SV99 and the MHRT VT Commodore, while the Japanese release adds the Nissan Skyline GT-R R34.
- Shark Tunnel: The PC release of High Stakes has available the Aquatica track that was previously featured in III: Hot Pursuit.
- Shifting Sand Land: The returning III: Hot Pursuit courses, Redrock Ridge and Lost Canyons.
- Shown Their Work: The police cars are all depicted in their respective nations' livery, despite the fact in Real Life, the cars used in each country are used in rare cases.
- Shows Damage: The first NFS game to ever introduce vehicle damage. The feature is depicted in defamation which also impacts performance. On the PC version, a damage display has been added, which indicates how much damage the car has taken.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Three courses, with two being from III: Hot Pursuit that return in the PC version of High Stakes take place during the winter.
- Translation Convention: High Stakes has two tracks each set in Germany and France, but the cops have (American) English voices. Can be averted on the PlayStation version where you can program cops to speak their native language on said tracks.
- Unfortunate Names: Some of the opponents' names take an extent of being outright ridiculous. Wouldn't it be crazy if you see a driver named "Gotcha", "Naasty" or "See Ya!"note ?
- Vanity License Plate: This game (and the following Porsche Unleashed) allows the players' profile name to appear on their license plates.
- Version-Exclusive Content: The PlayStation and PC have each their own set of exclusive cars depending on the console: The PS1 release has the fictional cars like the Phantom and the Titan, where as the PC release includes the M variants of the BMW Z3note , Ferrari 360 Modena, the Downloadable Content Jaguar XJR-15 and the Lister Storm, as well as the infamous La Niña.
- World Tour: After this being the biggest theme of Need for Speed II, this got revisited to a slightly lesser extent here, featuring seven countries: United Kingdom (Scotland, England), Germany, United States, Canada, France, Spain, Italy; though the last two are merely settings for Formula One-themed closed circuits.
