Nissan GT-R | The Ancient Gaming Noob

I fade in and out of Need for Speed: World.

In a way, that represents the upside of free to play.

As it tends to go, I start playing, have a run at it, tire, and move on for a while. I think I am at the end of the cycle again. The current run started on a new server when Potshot and Earl got into the game for a bit. We had a really fun evening of races and goofing around and then never quite went back to it, except for a bit of holiday cheer.

I managed to get myself hooked on the NFSW version of the daily quest mechanic, then gem hunt. This was primarily due to the explicit promise that the game has at the end of each such hunt.

NF3ConsecDay

Each consecutive day gives better rewards! That is what it says. So I decided to test that theory. As you can see, I made it past the 100 day mark. So I should have been getting some pretty awesome rewards, right?

Well, I will tell you about that, plus some other aspects of the game as I see them at this point after the cut.

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Need for Speed World is full of exotic cars that you can buy and drive. Prestige marquees such as Lotus, Porsche, Audi, Mercedes, BMW and Lamborghini are all represented at the in-game dealership.

And I have no interest in any of them.

But they put an early 70s Nissan Skyline GT-R on the weekly web specials list and I could not buy it fast enough.

I think that is actually a '72 model

Amongst all the shiny new cars, I could not resist this box. The Hakosuka’s ugly retro charm was too much. It is like a Japanese Ford Cortina Mk. II. (Which I would totally buy as well.)

I painted it a horrible shade of green that reminds me of Japanese cars of the era (our neighbor had a Datsun 510 in this color) and took it out on the road.

In my garage

It is a tier 1 car, so in races it competes against vehicles like my starter Nissan 240SX.

And this car is a screamer. It hits 155 MPH on a straight away, it is light so it sticks to the road and corners well, plus all the fun that read wheel drive brings with it. Cash store bought cars come fully upgraded. I am not sure you can even find better performance upgrades than they come with. All you have to do is paint them up and you are set to go.

GT-R on the road

Of course, people complain about this. Yes, this pretty much makes the game pay to win.

It isn’t like there is NO skill involved. I have beaten new players in their store bough Porches with my mildly upgraded 240SX.

Theoretically, if you managed to get all the right rare tier 1 performance part drops (this sounds more like a fantasy MMORPG every time I write about it… daily quests, farming for drops… where is raiding?), you could bring your initial tier 1 car up to the level of performance of the GT-R.

But it would be pretty unlikely.

And so I had a nice win streak. The race is yours to lose with such a cash store bought car.

But I do not race all that much. I tend to do the gem hunt and a few police chases and call it a night. I guess I am squandering my pay to win advantage.

EA got a bit of cash from me due to my affinity for retro vehicles.

Fortunately, they almost always concentrate on much more modern vehicles, so I am unlikely to have to worry about spending more money with them any time soon. They can put up nice cars like that Aston Martin they just listed in the store, but unless it is the one James Bond drove in Goldfinger, I am not interested.

So I peek in at the weekly web deals and yawn…

Wait… what is this week’s deal?