Today I am going to autistically talk about the first five need for speed games with the respective pros and cons on each platform and suggestions on which version you should play under the following caveats;

1) Emulation will be assumed for console versions
2) Patches to make the games run on modern windows will be used
3) Where applicable any enhancements to round off rough edges (such as emulation overclocks) will be mentioned.
4) I'm not competing against nostalgia on OG hardware - that warm fuzzy feeling you get doing it old school is fine regardless of how good or bad a given version is.

I will dedicate each post to each game unless I blow the character limit.

FIST UP;

Road & Track presents The Need For Speed.
>available on 3DO, pc psx and saturn

The 3DO version is the original release and is notably different from the other releases which are all very similar. The 3DO version is much more of a driving game than a racing game, very much showing its roots in the test drive series

Pros
>a more relaxed game style than other versions
>no music
>more punishing on mistakes as it has a life system (crash too much and game over)
>arguably the most visually impressive version
>time trial mode keeps traffic so it is just you vs the road
>THE MOTHERFUCKING X-MAN
>only a head-to-head duel mode

Cons
>runs sloooooooooooooow and the only emulator worth a damn only does 2x cpu overclock which still isn't enough
>very low resolution out of the box - a 2x res scale from 4DO can be applied but then your cpu overclock isn't doing anything for performance
>most limited content by far
>no music
>digital controls
>no time of day options
>only a head-to-head duel mode, full grid of opponents not available

I wish the indie scene would hurry up and make a need for speed clone. Y'know, where the focus isn't on racing but driving cool looking cars around cool looking street tracks. We've gone past the outrun clone stage but it seems indie devs doing totally-not-5th gen games are mostly focusing on platformers.