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One of the best racing games ever created.

Fun game. I was stuck on PS1, being a kid at the time and all but I played it through and it was fun though hard at points. I played it again (I still have the game) and completed it as clean as possible to aim to get the Safe Driving Bonus from each race. And the long as Endurance event with the best car in the game. That being the F1 GTR. I had an Australian localized version so I got the Australian road cars the HSV GTS and Ford Falcon XR8 (the 97 versions so they weren't as powerful) as well as the V8 supercar Commodore which is Touring Car representation (fully upgraded HSV GTS in body, but couldn't be further from it in soul considering it was just a tier below the CLK GTR and F1 GTR and it had better stats than the Porsche 911 Cup Car which was literally just the fully upgraded 911 with I think just better handling).

Knights of Honor 1 was by far my favorite grand strategy but it was broken. When they finally launched 2 it was like Christmas. It could use some updates but totally re-playable and so much less clutter and junk than other grand strats. I'll admit I never play battles in the new one, it needs a rebuild on that feature. But I'm fine without it, the game is more challenging with auto resolve anyways. As for marshal limit you can just install a mod there are multiple.

Great video, but you forgot to mention one very important feature of this gem: split screen mode! As a father I find it very important option to play with my kids sitting together in front of one screen/TV and have fun. That way this is something one can do together with another person. And this is quite a different experience than an option to play through a computer network (LAN or internet). So remember about split screen in racing games. 🙂

HS still looks and sounds better than most of the modern games. More taste, more soul, more features and vision.

Great! Its on sale now in steam 31 October 2024. I hate too complicated Strategy games so this one, i will pick up.

WOW 🤯 I have played it a million times on PSOne/2/3, but I have never seen it this good and polished before😮. So much more detail than any PlayStation!

I couldn't get into this game, I'd played Porsche 2000 before it, so it felt too much of a step back for me.

Only two 90's racing games with carrer mode? Nah bro there's also Ridge Racer Type 4 and Racing Lagoon both of which also have stories that revolve around your career progression.

I got a Playstation 1 for my 11th birthday, and my Dad let me pick out a game for it. For some reason, I chose Need for Speed High Stakes. I spent countless days and nights playing this game on the Playstation, so this game holds a special place in my heart. My favourite car was probably the Porsche 911 Turbo, as I found it the most well balanced car. Looking back now, the game was actually rather beautiful for it's time. EA really did a good job creating beautiful environments with the limitations of the hardware at the time. I never had a chance to play it on PC, but it certainly looks even better than the PS1 version. Hopefully I can find a good emulator and relive some cherished childhood gaming.

NFS III, High Stakes, Porche Unleashed and Hot Pursuit 2 is the gold standard. The physics where perfectly arcadey and the environments were fantastic.

The dashboard view while driving is not in the playstation version

Forgot all about the damage system . I wish some modern games would implement that. Pro Street is the only other game that comes to mind. You can just leave your car all beat up and get another one lol.

Got a link to that NFS discord server? I'd like to join it.

7:17 Yes, this! It really was the perfect sweetspot between arcade and simulation. Many later games sadly failed at that.

Subscribed solely for this underappreciated game being covered. (and your thorough and comforting commentary) Underground was the first NFS I ever owned, but this was the first one I ever played as a little kid. My uncle had this on his old desktop and getting to mess around with it when I visited was a magical experience. Beautiful how this generational leap in a game franchise matched up with one in my family :) Thanks for this video! I'm checking out your Limbo video next

On of best racing game i ever seen

So if you prefer to fight the field battles yourself, then it's better to play the first part? But to be honest, back then, when I tried the demo of the first game, I expected to get a better Stronghold of sorts. Even though the screenshots promised this, there was little of it in the game. Which is why I never picked it up.

I loved how watching this video made me feel, it reminded me of the few good childhood memories I had….growing up as a kid wasn’t a very good life experience for me, but video games were the exception….gaming in the 90s early 2000’s brought some much needed joy in my early life….i don’t know what could’ve happened to me if it weren’t for video games and gaming/pc technology in general….it filled me with so much interest that it allowed for me to have an escape from my shitty reality that was my life back then….yet somehow watching a video like this at age 39(about to turn 40) brings me so much joy and nostalgia for those early days……just when i thought everything in my past looked so gloomy and dark, i see a bright shinning light at the end of this dark dreadful looking tunnel….I feel this strong desire to walk towards the light and when I get to the end…I see the source of the light….it’s a 📺 and in front of that 📺 sits a little kid….a little boy to be exact….yet despite that dreadfully dark looking setting, I could still see a genuine bright smile radiating from that little kids face…A very delightful but not very common joyful moment in my adolescent experience…A time where I felt forever internally blissed and peacefully content in the pursuit of happiness…if only for a moment in time…for forever is not really for ever….but just a figure of imagination….just a little kids dream and want….the desire to please everyone and everything, in order to overcome whatever life throws at you…..

The ending of this game is heartbreaking 😢😢😢

"...then you'll eventually watch one of your rims screech against the asphalt, sparking half the track." Wait, wasn't that the deformed chassis, not the rims? It happens when your chassis is so damaged it clearly bends to one side and it starts sparking only when you try turning to the opposite side and the car's weight transfer pushes the bent chassis closer to the asphalt. "Later iterations of the franchise even introduced licences..." No, licence tests were present in ALL Gran Turismo games since the 1st one. I recently played through the 1st 4 GT games and they *all* had licence tests. -_- "There's just no point [playing the Hot Pursuit mode]." Not true. You have several different game modes (Classic, Getaway and Time Trap) and winning races and arresting racers there unlocks new police cars. Also, you can play as the *entire police team* - not just the car you start with. You can switch between cop cars on the track, with the AI taking control of your previous car. Cops are not part of the Career mode as you do legal racing there, so it'd make no sense for cops to chase you. Few discrepancies aside, it's always cool to see people showing how amazing High Stakes was back then.

Great points! Nothing felt as good as its career mode.

This is the one NFS from the "classic" era that I haven't had the pleasure to try out yet. I gotta find a way to play it.

Its not that great.

It looks like the lighting in the game was somehow modded? How did you do that? It looks amazing on some tracks

and he died

Truly an underrated gem, remember playing it as a kid with my PS1, it's overall vibe and feel is nothing short of amazing and even other worldly, but it adds so much charm to it, visually, audibly, and functionally beautiful

speaking of personal preference, psx was actually EAs main target platform though. pc port had this unexplainable plastic toy feel. also, whats so "revolutionary" about that damaged texture swap. is carmageddon a joke to you?

Something nobody talks about is modern racers are ugly, I simply dont wanna race in the city streets, its ugly as hell, these old games and the forest/mountain locations were pretty places to race, making it waaaay more fun. That being said, we all know WHY the modern racers went to the city streets...........coz of 14 year olds

Yup, that sums up everything why I loved NFS HS

NFS High Stakes was racing at it's peak for EA; everything since then turned into ricer hot garbage, pointless story lines, overdone with motion blur and confusing open worlds which destroyed any form actual linear racing. Only game that comes close to quality of NFS High Stakes was NFS Hot Pursuit in 2010; beautiful tracks and excellent cars.

🥲 these NFS Games were the GOAT.

Wow, i thought this game existed on ps1 , time to replay with better graphich on pc. Ps , found this vido becouse was listening menu music on the way to nightshift 😅

I see old NFS game, I click like.

"Be on the look out for an M5, by the ruins"

Why does your game look so good? Reshade?

I have so much good memories sharing ps1 high stakes with my dad.

This was my first NFS, and with a 3D card it looked amazing! I played the career mode all the way through, and some races were definitely a challenge!

This game on PC played a pivotal role in my childhood. I still go back every now and then to replay it and/or listen to the sound track.

Brilliant video describing this masterpiece. It needed appreciation like this after so many years. I think I spent years playing the career mode. It was so overwhelming that in the end when you win vs the CLK GTR you feel like you’ve become a master in martial arts or something 😂.

Dinosaur Skull if you pause @10:58

I always thought that the 2010 hot pursuit was a spiritual successor to this game instead of a reboot to hot pursuit 2.

High stakes and hot pursuit 3 are probably my all time favorite nfs games. I can listen to the sound track for ever. And I do!

"worse then it's decade old predecessor" I see they took another inspiration from the total war franchise

Why is NFS 4 High Stakes not on GOG. I dont understand it. Best arcade racing game i have ever played. And they nailed the police chase stuff. The radio added so much to the athmosphere. Unless you play the horrible german version. :D Never thought i need the original version for a racing game but ... yeah. Neverless this game was pure fun.

To this day for me NFS 4 is still the best one of the franchise by some margin. Nothing even comes remotely close. The hours i spent with my sister on our family computer chasing down racers with the police cars were insane fun. Even today at the age of 37 and her at 34, we still play it occasionally at family gatherings and my nieces watch us play in complete silence and awe. And the soundtrack is nothing short of a masterpiece. As one might notice from my username, my all-time favorite track is from that game. Still actively listening to those tracks in my car every single day.

I liked all of NFS games... started with 1, then 2SE, then a lot of 3... a bit of 6, then U, U2, MW, Carbon (which I abandoned half-way)... then nothing for a long time, tried Unbound, it was OK, now i'm returning to 4 and 5 to see what i've missed, and 4 is holding up very well in terms of fun driving! Although back in the day I have played III almost religiously with cars downloaded from the internet and that game will always have a special spot in my heart, I'm enjoying IV so far and is definitely going into my archive.

If you don’t know how to play this game then you just suck jbh

if somebody recognizes nfs hs' brilliance like i do, i subscribe.

I'm gen z, but I grew up on the ps1 version since it was my mom and dad's. This game brings back such fond memories