Need for Speed Review (Microwave)
First things first - this is a drifting-focused game. Don't bother trying to tune a car for handling to take corners with proper racing lines; the physics just don't allow cars to rotate enough to make turns that are sharper than 30 degrees without ripping the handbrake.
Second - the main story is exclusively told via live action, unskippable cutscenes. Some are mercifully short, others annoyingly long. The acting is decent enough, but becomes stilted and awkward once they directly address the cameraman/player. I'm 95% sure Manu and Spike are gay lovers, and that Amy died or something since I no longer get her quests by the time I got to level 40.
Thirdly - I played this game exclusively with a Logitech G920 wheel, and I had to rebind pretty much every key since none of them were appropriately recognized. (By default, clutch was throttle, throttle was brake, and brake was clutch) Circling back to handling issues, the wheel input often "desynced" from the steering ingame, with much less steering output than expected for a few moments before it would "snap" back to being what you expect, most times putting you into a wall. The steering output is also terribly limited at high speeds, which is fine for many of the freeway corners but necessitates handbrake turns on otherwise very gentle corners. Manually shifting with paddle shifters is extremely slow when you need to quickly change through multiple gears, and in most cases, you have to wait a full second before you can shift again, which makes downshifting for tight corners or recovery from a severe slowdown an absolute bear. Not to mention, if you initiate a drift and downshift, often times it doesn't downshift and instead of sliding out and doing sick drifts, you just straighten back out into a wall because your car can't maintain wheelspin in 6th gear.
Fourth - The walls and guardrails are extremely unpredictable in that sometimes you slip right off and keep going at speed, sometimes you slip off and keep going at 30 mph, sometimes you get pulled into the ground and nearly stop, and sometimes you get absolutely murdered by a static pixel. (the '32 Ford is especially terrible with getting murdered by guardrails and walls)
Fifth - The transmissions and their gearing is arbitrary and strangely connected to the modifications you do; The starter mustang I chose went from 5 gears stock to 6 and now 7. I'm a tad disappointed that the block and cam upgrades don't increase the rev limit, but I guess it was easier to program a transmission that magically gains gears as you make more power.
Sixth - The map is cool and detailed, but suffers from a problem NFSU:2 did that I call "literally never dry." It's always raining, just rained, or about to rain. It's also always nighttime. Why make a killer paintjob if you can barely see it while you're roaming around?
Seventh - Vehicle details do exist, but certain stats like weight aren't readily available. The only direct mention I could find on a vehicle's weight is in the description for the Lotus; "It weighs under 1000 kg." Even the most expensive car in the game is described as "lightweight," but there's no real mention of how much it actually weighs. It doesn't even tell you if a vehicle is FWD, RWD or AWD.
Eighth - Sometimes during drifts, your car will break the laws of physics and noticeably speed up by nearly 30mph in a very short time. I noticed this most often when I'd initiate at around 70 mph and suddenly in the middle of my drift, I'm going 95 and about to say hello to a guardrail.
Ninth - The drift challenges you can do in the overworld are points-based and you're limited to just one slide per run to score. That's all well and good, but if you so much as rub your ass hair on the walls, you gotta do it again because... reasons?? Oh but don't worry you can slam into another car, probably killing a family of 4, and you're just fine, no need to do it over here's your points.
TLDR; If you're looking for realism, keep looking, you won't find it here. TBH this game is barely worth it and I got it in a pack with PVZ Garden Warfare 2 and Unravel for like $5