Need for Speed: High Stakes Direct link

 Need for Speed: High Stakes, released as Need for Speed: Road Challenge in Europe and Brazil and Over Drivin' IV in Japan, is a racing video game released in 1999. It is the fourth game in the Need for Speed series, once again featuring a host of exotic sport cars and tracks located in Western Europe and North America. It is notable in the Need for Speed franchise for being the first installment to include a damage model and a career mode where the player earns money by winning races and can spend it on more cars, upgrades, or repairs.

 

 As in its predecessor, Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit, High Stakes retains standard races and police pursuits in game, as well as introducing a new form of tournament (High Stakes), and two new pursuit modes (Getaway and Time Trap). The game also introduces a Career Mode, as described in the subsequent section. The physics are improved compared to those in Hot Pursuit, which included for the first time damage modelling which affects both the appearance and performance of a given vehicle.

 Career Mode has a chronological set of tournaments that challenges the player to complete a set of races for trophies to unlock bonus cars and tracks. This incorporates a monetary reward system that allows a player to purchase vehicles, performance upgrades, and repairs with the money they earn by winning tournaments. In addition, most "Tiers" (selection of 1 to 5 individual competitions) require that the player compete against one opponent in a "High Stakes" race, where they bet their current car. There are more tournaments on the PC version, and they are different from the console one - for example, the PlayStation version separates the Career into two separate modes, Tournament and Special Event, with the second being optional.

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