The Need For Speed Special Edition: An LGR Retrospective

Retrospective focusing on the original Need For Speed game's 1996 special edition: NFSSE for DOS and Windows PCs! Classic no-frills racing with eight great cars and lovely environments, ahh yes.

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Music used is from the NFSSE OST

[DisplacedGamers]

It was really awesome to hear you mention Jeff van Dyck and Saki Kaskas. These two guys put together explosive soundtracks for numerous games in the mid to late 90s, and more people should know who they are. They created music so amazing that I would sometimes just sit back and listen to playback during menu screens rather than fire up my next hockey game.

[ADVChina]

Your story is exactly what happened with me with Test Drive 4. Sat on my shelf for months before my parents finally got a computer with a CD-ROM drive. Oh the memories. Fantastic video.

[jeremebp]

Holy crap, I had that exact same Acer, and I haven't seen it anywhere else since back then. I remember always playing with the clicky door while waiting for the blazing fast 56k modem to connect.

[Tsilly]

I have the need. The need, for mildly fast.

[HeadSmackable]

Can't get enough of this guy. Been watching for 10 years now! Here's hoping for 10 more :)

[barry-allenthe-flash]

5:10 Good Lord, that music makes for one _Radical_ Rehabilitation Sequence, lol

[MrGrandis]

This is the first PC game that I have when I was 5, this has influenced me become a petrol head!
The Viper is the car I love the most, since I born in Hong KOng, there were no american muscle to be seen.
That music video really hooked me into the game and real life cars.
Man I really love this game, thanks Clint for reviewing this for us :)

[BlazeHedgehog]

As somebody who just bought Need for Speed Rivals on PS4 because it was $5 and has spent the last three weeks gnashing teeth at how simultaneously frustrating and enjoyable it is, I would love to see you keep going with the Need for Speed reviews, Clint.

[ES]

I can't believe how much this review mirrors my own experience. I remember buying NFSSE when I was 12 years old at Costco, when we too did not have a PC with a fast enough processor (or a CD-ROM drive). I also remember staring at the back of the box so excited to play it. I begged my dad for a new computer, and behold for my birthday that year, a new computer with a Pentium processor at 133mhz showed up. Still one of my favorite games as a kid.

[KonkeyVG]

This video reminded me of your "Remembering the Classic Need For Speed Games", one of my favourite videos of yours very moving at points when you talk about your sister. Keep up the excellent content Clint I love to see your channel grow.

[metfanl]

Need For Speed was really something special back then, too bad the last couple of titles were so disappointing.

[qaryoko]

Man, this brings back memories. i LOVED this game. I had it on the Panasonic 3DO in my mid-late teens, and i could race my buddies on my 27" Zenith tube TV. This was the game that introduced me to cars i had never heard of back in the 90s. The NSX, Supra and the RX7. The point to point highway racing in traffic was bloody awesome. In the end my favorite car was the NSX and the 911 second. My buddy always made us race two 911's. God, great memories.

[parvanaturalia]

The Viper was pretty cool, yeah, but man, was that Mazda a bright, bright yellow that appealed to me back then. Still does, to be honest.

Although, truly, the love of my life since NFS2 has always been and always will be that gorgeous Jag XJ220. Now THAT is a car.

[OhioGirl-bukv]

Oh this video of these racetracks and cars is bringing SO many memories for me right now.
I'm feeling very nostalgic and getting misty eyed.
I used to race the Viper on Alpine (I think).
I would drive that car so fast down an open stretch of road and purposefully slam the Viper into an oncoming
vehicle!!
I loved the sound of the metal scraping against the concrete and hearing the glass shatter in the windshield!!
Such good times back then!!
I played in Knockout mode and the Tournaments to unlock the special tracks!!
It was very stressful and I had to play over and over and over again until I finally won!!
I would love to be able to play these on a modern computer with the right equipment.
I had the first 3 or 4 NFS games, I had Driver and Driver 2, I had all the Crash Bandicoot games and I also had
Road Rash and Road Rash 2.
All of those games played on the Sony Playstation 1.
I forgot what the graphics looked like from these NFS games.
I have been so used to seeing these modern games with impeccable graphics and then to see the
graphics from NFS was such a shock to the system!!!!
Great review on this game.
Wish I could play it again!!!

[DiogoUsagi]

I never got around to try the Special Edition so some of this stuff surprised me, from the mods to the exclusive car and tracks, but the vanilla The Need For Speed was also my very first purchased CD-ROM game, at a time when my computer could barely play the FMVs without slowing down. The installation itself was mindblowing to me back then. Great stuff Clint!

[jethrowegener]

I swear, Clint could talk about the most boring topics in the world and I'd still watch these videos. I love them, and always look forward to more. Need For Speed 3 was my NFS game of choice. I had a crappy Intel Integrated Graphics chip in my PC for years, and just spent hours racing in that game after school.

[jordandehart]

This takes me back.
Not because I played the NFS games, but because it takes me back to that special time when you're a kid and you don't know the limits of a video game, it feels like this magical, open-ended world where everything can happen. Back in grade school, me and my best friends would swap stories about all the cool things we did in video games. Good times.

[positronicreflex.]

I remember playing this on an old packard bell. My brother and I would alternate trying to beat each others lap times. Was also the first time I used a racing wheel. The first time I actually played it was at a Playstation demo kiosk at a hills department store. It amazed me. Ill always consider this the best NFS game, no bells and whistles, just fun racing.

[nezimar]

NFSSE was the game that showed me racing was more than just Pole Position at the arcade.

And then NFS2 SE came out with Glide support, and blew my freaking mind.

[MetalheadEchidna]

Saki Kaskas was amazing, i heard about his passing right after it happened and i felt like a part of my childhood had left me, i spent so much time playing NFS2-HS and his music, along with Rom Di Prisco, and several artists, is the type of music i like to chill to. Rest in Peace Saki.