[Ferrari engine revving]
- [LGR] What a magnificent, high quality track right here.
This is like. [laughs]
Oh no, oh no!
[electrical floppy drive buzzing]
Greetings and welcome to an LGR thing,
and this one is, "We All Need Extra Speed".
"Extra tracks for the Need for Speed," for DOS PCs.
A highly unusually thing for a multitude of reasons.
For one thing, modding
in the original "Need for Speed" for DOS
is just something you typically think about.
For the most part, it really took off for the modding scene
with "Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit".
I mean, there were also some mods for II and II SE,
and of course this, obviously, since we have this here.
But, yeah.
The fact that this exists is just amusing to me
and it's something that I've been after
for a very long time now.
Was never able to actually find a copy of this.
For one thing, it was only sold in the UK and Europe,
or, you know, various countries really,
but this mysterious company called UK Gold.
Amusingly, as far as I can tell,
they were actually based in the Netherlands.
They released several unofficial add-on packs, like this,
at retail, with mods and add-ons for games like
"Command & Conquer", "Warcraft II" and "Red Alert".
Each with there on cheeky titles and [laughs]
interesting artwork.
This one in particular amuses me
because it has a Ferrari 288 GTO from the mid '80s,
something that is not the game whatsoever.
Not only that, but it seems to be taken from the "Turbo Cup"
or at least, they were using the same artwork
that was perhaps purchased from some stock artwork thing.
I don't even know.
Either way this is not the only package at retail
that feature this 288 GTO.
Which is, I dunno, it's just one of things
that as a car guy and a collector of PC game boxes,
both gets on my nerves and makes me happy.
Anyway, yeah, look at that, "500 plus tracks
for 'Need for Speed'.
"Free bonus.
"30 racing games and 200 plus car pictures."
Yeah.
So this was sent to me recently,
in fact I think there's the note still in here,
by a viewer of LGR named David.
He has his own channel, Deckard Games.
And apparently he found this second copy here in France.
And yeah, he found his own and set this one along my way
because he knew that I was looking for it.
But yeah, it's just a CD in a box,
there was no documentation.
In fact I've never seen any documentation
for this posted online.
It just says, "Read the README text
before using the CD."
And then there's also this floppy disk
that it came with as well.
This just has another selection
of track editing files on it,
in fact it might be some of the same that are on the CD,
I'm not sure what it actually came with that.
Anyway, let's just go ahead and take a look a the CD itself.
Stick this in a computer
and mess around with the some of the tracks it came with
and go from there because I've been quite curious
to see what's actually on this thing.
All right, got the "We All Need Extra Speed" CD
inserted into my IBM ThinkPad 380XD here.
And running Windows 95 with Windows Explorer open here.
You can see that it provides you, not much.
You get an Xtrspeed directory,
filled with a bunch more folders and some files.
Get a README and this See executable.
And this is just a very simple file viewer here,
but it allows you to see things.
You know, browse what's on the disc.
But that's it, it doesn't actually bring up a menu system
for selecting individual programs.
You know, the utilities or the tracks.
You can kind of just look at them through here
and that's it, it's just a file viewer.
I was expecting more of an involved menu system, but nope!
And then there's some instructions here
which are rather confusing, they're kinda wrong.
It's like, "Install the things by copying over
"whatever tracks you want
"into your 'Need for Speed' directory
and then install the game."
Which makes no sense,
you wanna od that the other way around.
But most important thing to take away from this is
it needs a custom install to get that miscellaneous folder
with the track data onto your hard disk,
so you can overwrite them and use the custom tracks.
But, yeah, otherwise it doesn't tell you
where any of this stuff is.
I mean, you could figure it out,
but highly underwhelming.
It really is just a collection of stuff
that they've found on the internet and slapped onto CD.
Anyway, let's go ahead and look at the tracks though,
because thankfully these are divided up
in somewhat of a coherent way.
So you have these folders here that just say
what tracks they're supposed to overwrite these TRI
or tri files are individual tracks,
but, again, it doesn't really tell you what they are.
There's no READMEs, there's no names, just numbers
and they're all gonna have to be renamed anyway
so that the game will recognize them.
So, whatever, at least it tells you which track files
are s'pose to go to what.
So here's these tracks that are gonna overwrite Alpine
or sections of the of the Alpine tracks.
Autumn Valley, you got City, Coastal, Lost Vegas,
Rusty Springs, and Vertigo Ridge.
And then you have these tracks one
and two folders here. [laughs]
It's like the, whoops, it's like the same
as all those other ones, it doesn't tell you which
tracks are suppose to be overwriting.
You can kinda figure it out like, AL2 is Alpine two.
Here's one that actually straight-up tells you,
you got Vertigo Ridge, it's gonna be overwriting.
And, oh look, Geoffrey Brown made this using Tracked.
So it does sometimes have information in these folders,
but for the most part it's extremely vague.
Same, well not so much the same with this one.
This more what I was expecting, you know?
Actual titles and README files that go with them
tells you who made it and what they are
and what the idea is behind it,
and things like that. [laughs]
So, I mean, yeah, this is a little more coherent,
but again, it still is just a collection of files,
you gotta install these yourself.
Or you can try using one of the programs that it came with.
Just briefly here, let me mention
these others that it comes with.
Clrscore, this is not a program, it's just Config.dat.
This is just a high score or really the times file
that "Need for Speed" makes.
This is so that you can clear it out because, obviously,
if you are setting times on custom tracks
it's gonna mess up the balance of everything.
This is the, what is this?
Track editing tools?
Yes, or utilities.
I remember using this briefly back in the day.
It lets you view tracks and mess around
with different parameters within said track files.
That's handy.
And then Tracked or Tracked.
This is what I used, I mean, really everyone used,
to make custom tracks for "The Need for Speed".
That's a thing.
Maybe we'll try to make a track later,
but for now let's just try Track Manager, here.
And this is something that I wish
that I had back in the day, it's by Mike Latimer.
It's sort of a menu system that helps.
Again the README for the actual Xtrspeed disc here
doesn't tell you about that.
Kinda wish it did, it's really the most
useful program on the disc.
We'll get these other folders later, but yeah,
for now let's just take a look here at NFSTM,
the Track Manager.
So I have the original "Need for Speed" right here,
in the Nfs directory.
Also tried this with NFS SE and nothing seemed to work.
So I believe that they
really intended a lot of these tracks,
at least all the ones that I've tried,
to work with the original NFS.
So that's what we're gonna be playing with.
Anyway, Track Manager.
Let's get this opened up.
So the first time you run it here,
it takes you through a set up process.
And yeah, you can try the automatic setup, but I dunno,
we're gonna do a little bit custom,
'cause I have somethings in different spots.
So "Need for Speed" directory and the directory
for the miscellaneous files,
which are mostly track files and what not.
So that is this.
And then the import directory.
So this is NFS track manager,
and I have them put in the tracks sub-folder.
At this point I've gotta insert
the original "Need for Speed" CD-ROM,
so they can actually copy over all of the original files,
and provide back-up for them.
So that's nice, it takes care of things that really
you could just do on your own,
but it's nice that it does things. [laughs]
Whatever, here we are in the Track Manager program itself.
This is nice.
So you can actually configure the courses here,
these are the ones we can overwrite.
And you can overwrite them by segment,
and if we had any tracks imported, you know,
the customs from the CD, then we would see them here.
We don't right now, so let's go ahead and do that.
So Import Tracks.
And if we go over into one of these,
like say, we could just copy over this one.
And I'm gonna put it over into the tracks directory.
We'll call this, alpine.tri.
Doesn't really matter what we name these,
it's gonna be renaming them anyway.
Let's do one one for Alpine, let's just do one for Coastal.
And we'll do Rusty Springs, how about that?
Yeah.
And that's that.
We'll go back into the Tracker Manager
and do 2, for Import Tracks, and there we go.
"Import this new track,"
it sees what I just copied over, Alpine.
And we will overwrite Alpine, Segment One,
I'm gonna call it Farts because it really doesn't matter.
This description stuff and naming is gonna change
anything in-game, it's just for the track manager itself.
Import this, yes, let's do that for Coastal.
Segment One, Blerg.
Meh, and that is that.
And really, it's not doing much at this point,
but it's part of it's process.
So I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Rusty Springs.
Rusty Balls.
And that's that.
So it has imported tracks, quote, unquote.
Hadn't actually copied them to the game yet.
In order to do that we go into Configure Tracks, here.
Alpine, Segment One, and see now we have that one
that we just imported.
There we go.
Now it has copied over that track file, the TRI,
renamed it the proper thing and put it over into the
"Need for Speed" directory.
So we'll just repeat that for these over ones.
And yeah, like I said, this is actually
pretty darn convenient for, you know,
doing the things that you can do on your own,
but you don't have to because it keeps track of that stuff.
And so now, yeah, when you look at these things,
you can see that, oh,
it's got these other things copied over
and so I'm going abandon this and leave the Track Manager.
And let's go over into "Need for Speed".
And yeah, we've got some new tracks and such copied over.
You can see they're capitalized now,
instead of lowercase, as the original files were.
So yeah, "Need for Speed", let's try it out,
with our new tracks.
[relaxed electronic music]
Ah man, I still love that into logo.
I will always that play when I start this game.
And yeah, this is "The Need for Speed",
not special edition, nothing else.
It's just straight-up "Need for Speed".
So we have, yeah, these three.
That's convenient, didn't even plan it that way,
they're right next to each other.
So Coastal, Alpine and Rusty Springs.
Let's try Coastal, why not.
And let's see what this is, I don't even know. [laughs]
Well that's a good start.
Oh dear, car facing the ocean.
So yeah, as you can tell, this is a custom track.
There it is just floating off into the distance over there.
[laughing]
Oh man, yeah, this instantly brings back memories.
'Cause it's very easy to create exaggerated tracks
with the track, Tracked program, the track editor.
Oh. [laughs]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I also remember it being very difficult
to place any props or change around any textures
or anything.
Although it looks like they've definitely done that.
There's fewer props and the textures are,
looks like we're going into a weird desert,
concrete environment.
Honestly, this is pretty par for the course
for custom tracks, in my experience.
It's not a very exciting one I gotta say.
A lot of times there's crazy jumps
and all sorts of nonsense.
This ones pretty drivable, all things consider.
All right, I think I've had enough of that.
'Kay, let's try Alpine, see what that's like.
[laughing uphill]
Oh, what an intro.
Thunk! [laughs]
It just.
Yeah, this feels familiar too.
Oh man, I customized this first segment of Alpine
so many times back in the day.
And the results were similarly bonkers, that's for sure.
What have they done to there guard on the side there?
Oh man.
Got some custom textures on the left there, too,
that's kind of weird.
It's like a road texture, on the mountainside.
That's a choice.
Yeah, this is definitely a speedier, crazier track.
This is.
I don't why, I gotta big old grin on my face
this entire time.
There's just something about customizing these tracks
in a game that was never meant to be like that.
Oh, what is this coming?
What is this?
Oh, that is trippy and friggin' great. [laughs]
Oh!
Oh, that's pretty cool.
Ah man, 10-year-old me would've loved this track,
it is pretty sweet.
It's fast, it's stupid looking.
I'm feeling it man, the vibe is speaking to me.
My inner 10-year-old is happy.
This whole outdoor section here,
like this wide open, weird section,
reminds me of "Test Drive Off-Road 2" or something. [laughs]
Well, I guess that's just the end of that track, huh?
Cool.
And of course, I could continue,
but I didn't customize the other segments,
so we're not gonna bother.
Rusty Springs, switch over cars.
Just because
All right, see what they did to Rusty Springs.
[car engines revving]
Hopefully something because it looks
pretty much the same from here.
[car horn honking]
Yeah, looking the same so far.
Okay.
This is a little different.
Whoa, my goodness, speedway going on here.
Huh.
Well, that's underwhelming. [laughs]
It's not very different at all is it?
It's just sort of faster.
More of a speedway type thing.
Definitely give you some ample opportunity
to do that though.
That's always fun.
And a bit of a waltz.
Okay, so that's that.
Let's go ahead and take a look at what else is on that CD
because there are things than I thought there would be,
that's for sure.
Actually, gotta put it back in there first.
So miscellaneous, it really is just miscellaneous.
I mean, there's the PK unzip and other zip things.
Vbrun, I got some Visual Basic libraries
for some of the things that run in Windows,
got WinZip for instance.
Yeah, just different achieving things.
Cheats, this is kinda interesting,
I remember using these back in the day or things like them.
These are just saved games that unlock different things,
that you wanna unlock
without having to actually play the game!
Same thing with this, this is a special edition,
"Need for Speed SE" version.
This Games folder is interesting,
there's all sorts of.
It's just shareware, car and racing related shareware.
You got "Ford Simulator II" to race with all your Ford cars.
[laughs] [computer beeping]
It's just, straight-up, "Ford Simulator II".
Yeah, they just had extra space on the CD
and filled it with things.
"Skunny Kart".
"SkyRoads", and "SkyRoads: Xmas".
Patches.
This is just another thing for cheats.
This one here is the cheat patch for the original
"Need for Speed" and then "Need for Speed SE".
Just unlocks the things, so that's what that is.
This is fascinating though, these pictures here
in this pictures folder.
So you've got PCX files of different cars
from different manufacturers. [laughs]
Honestly, I would have thought this was
pretty darn cool back in the day.
I was always trying to download car PCX files.
Some of these were pretty big.
Man, look at these, 500-something kilobytes,
that took a long time to download.
Right, so let's go ahead and try out Tracked or Tracked.
I always called it Tracked, I dunno man.
[keyboard tapping]
So if I wanna edit Rusty Springs, it should be.
All right, so that did work.
So there's rusty, the original.
I went ahead and restored it.
And so you can just press the up arrow here
to go through the track.
See what we got here.
Yeah, all sorts of things.
Track shaper, slopes, twisters,
scenery and object editors,
which I don't think those are going to work
because they don't have any textures loaded.
Nope.
But you can see here just scrolling through,
those are the different objects,
selecting off to the side of the road.
Things like, I don't know, grass plants, trees,
guard rails, signs, things like that.
But, again, can't edit them,
'cause don't have the textures loaded.
That's okay.
We can change the shape of the track though, that's cool.
So it bends the track in different directions like this.
[chuckles]
And actually, as I just said there,
"You should not use the Track Shaper with closed tracks.
"If you do, please check that both ends of the track
"coincide before saving changes."
Well you know, we're not, that's what we're gonna do
because I feel like it.
I wanna totally ruin Rusty Springs,
make just a completely ridiculous, bonkers track.
[relaxed electronic music]
Well, this is a totally broken track and that's that.
We've got our custom track made now, see how that works.
All right, Rusty Springs, LGR edition.
Let's give this track a shot and see what kind of nonsense
we have created, completely,
carefully planned out on purpose.
[laughs] There's my left turn, I see that anyway.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah, this is exactly how I envisioned,
with the floating trees and left hand turns.
So yeah, track editing, it's that easy.
You get perfect tracks every time. [laughs]
Perfect track, I swear.
Oh, look at this.
Look at this!
What a magnificence, high quality track right here.
This is like. [laughs]
Oh no, oh no! [laughs]
Whoops.
I guess that.
Little too much twist on that part of the track.
[car horn honks]
Perfect though.
Hey, at least it's coherent up to this point.
Little bit less of a jump there, at the beginning,
as I anticipated.
I meant to make more of a elevation change, but that's okay.
Hm, tight turn there.
Or wide turn, rather.
All right, we're coming up at the end of the track,
let's see what kind of void we get here.
What is that?
Oh no.
[laughs in disbelief]
There we go.
Did you see the opponent car over there?
They just flying in the air.
[laughs] What was that?
I guess I connected it close enough that it just
made up something in the middle.
Oh dear, whoops.
Okay, here's this again.
That is just so weird.
It's just connecting, like that.
[laughs] That's great.
Oh, it's like a, I don't even know what.
Like an escalator, it just pulls me up there.
So that's "Need for Speed" editing.
And thank you very much for sending this in sir.
Once again, the "We All Need Extra Speed" pack.
Even though it's not doing anything
that you couldn't already do
with some of the existing archives
that have been out there online for 20 years now.
The track editors and stuff.
It's exact same stuff I messed with back in the day,
so I kind of anticipated that.
But it's really cool that it is, effectively, an archive
of all of these tracks and stuff that were made by people
back in the day.
I wish there were proper credits included
for all of them on the disc,
but take what you can get I s'pose.
There was a very limited scene for a "Need for Speed" one
modding like this, and a lot of those files
have just long gone, otherwise.
So it's great.
Awesome archive in that regard.
[chuckles]
Oh, this thing right here.
Let me see if I can.
I'm just gonna wait for the RX-7 to go by.
Let's see what he does.
'Cause it looked like he was flying in the air
or something, earlier when he came through.
[upbeat rock music]
[LGR starts losing it]
You just see the shadow first and then the car. [laughs]
This car just, it's fallin' out of the sky
and keeps going.
I mean, hey, props to the AI for figuring out
this ludicrous track [laughs] I've put together.
Oh, that's wonderful.
Oh man, well anyway.
Yeah, thanks for watching this,
a little different than more normal kind of thing, but
[chuckling]
it's still somehow in keeping with LGR I suppose. [laughs]
Hope that you enjoyed watching.
And yeah, if you wanna check out the CD for yourself,
I've posted a archive of this to the Internet Archive.
So check the video description if you want to peruse the CD
at your own leisure.
And some more substantial LGR things
coming up in the near future, so stick around of those.
And thank you very much for watching what you just did.