Today I can finally present you one of the many bigger projects that I have been planning for a while already, a comparison of the Drag modes in all of my racing games that have one besides NFS World and Shift 2. I recorded two Drag runs in each of the games, which should give you a good idea of what Drag racing is like in each of them. I also applied widescreen patches to the older NFS games to make them more enjoyable to watch on UKposts.
Timeline:
0:00 NFS Underground - Main Street with Eddie's Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R
1:11 NFS Underground - 14th & Vine Construction with Mazda RX-7
1:59 NFS Underground 2 - South Runway with Nissan 240SX
2:53 NFS Underground 2 - Bayview Bridge with Mazda RX-7
3:42 NFS Most Wanted - Riverside & Terrace with Razor's BMW M3 GTR
4:25 NFS Most Wanted - Seaside & Camden with Porsche Carrera GT
4:57 NFS ProStreet - 1/4 Mile Drag with Subaru Impreza
5:47 NFS ProStreet - 1/2 Mile Drag with Ford Mustang
6:33 Grid Autosport - Detroit 1/2 Mile with Ford Mustang Modified
7:27 Grid Autosport - Autosport Raceway 1 Mile with Dodge Charger Funny Car
8:08 The Crew Wild Run - Salt Flats Drag Trial with RUF CTR-3 (Solo Run)
9:11 The Crew Wild Run - Miami Drag Trial with Ford Mustang (Crew Run with Akor)
10:15 Need for Speed 20 - Pedal To The Metal with Dodge Viper
11:45 Need for Speed 20 - Speed Tunnel with Porsche 911 RSR 2.8
13:08 Forza Horizon 3 - Drag Strip with Class C Mercury Coupe (Rival Mode)
13:55 Forza Horizon 3 - Drag Strip with Class S2 Dodge Dart vs Class B Ford Mustang (Showdown Race)
In the first 3 NFS games with Drag your goal is to hit the perfect rev at the start and at each shift. You can also use nitrous and you can draft but you have to watch out to not overheat the engine at the end. In Underground 1 + 2 the traffic can be turned off but in Most Wanted it is always on and the cars are also in the same spots every time, so for each track you have to learn the route that avoids the traffic.
In NFS ProStreet the tracks are a lot more simple and you have the additional task to correctly warm up your tires before the run. This is pretty trivial though.
In Grid Autosport you first have to position your car at the start line. There are several strategies here but it would go beyond the scope of this video to explain them. I could make a separate video about Drag in Grid Autosport if many people want to see more of it.
The Crew added Drag spec cars with the Wild Run expansion and in Drag Trial events you also first have to correctly warm up the tires. Unfortunately the Drag spec physics were messed up with a patch in April 2016 and were never fixed again, so now your tires always get too cold during Drag Trial runs. You can also play Drag Trial events in a crew with collisions turned off, so you can easily reach faster times than solo because of the drafting. It is not possible to do Drag Trials against AI opponents in The Crew.
Need for Speed 20 got Drag tracks with one of its free updates. Here you have to warm up the tires by doing a burnout for the correct amount of time. Unlike in the older NFS games you can freely control your car here during the run (as far as the physics of the game allow it...) and not just switch lanes.
In Forza Horizon 3 the Drag Strip is just a regular track. You can either play it in Time Attack mode or against other players but not against AI. One poor design decision in this game is that there is no countdown before the start and you can't even see the rev counter during your first moments of driving, which can be annoying with cars that want to shift up very early (not shown in this video). And in multiplayer Drag races cars in lower classes actually get a ridiculous head start. For example class B starts 12 seconds before S2, even though it is only about 2 seconds slower, so I have no chance to win in the run that is shown here, even though I am using the fastest Drag car in the game.
Feel free to let me know how you like the Drag modes of the different games and if there are any particular ones that you would like to see more of.
I could also do a similar video for Drift but this would be a lot of work, since Drift is included in a higher number of games and it would also take me some time to learn it to a reasonable degree in each of them, so I would only do a Drift video if a lot of people ask for it and if the Drag video turns out to be very popular.
Thanks to Akor for helping me record The Crew. You can find his channel here: / @akor