izigame.me

Need for Speed is probably the hardest series to write a review on. Playing most racing games, if they even have a history, it's either directed at the same people over and over, or it's young, and it's probably going to be dead after this game anyways. But, NFS is different, it's persisted now into several decades. And it's caught momentum, lost the plot, and invented entirely new plots for everyone to copy in the span of its run. But it's picked up car culture fans, borderline sim Racers, arcade racers, parents, kids, you name it. It says anyone can play. So when you're reviewing it eveyone has a totally different bone to pick with it. So, up front, I like Sims and Simcade best, but I love arcade racing games a ton as well. I've also played most of the 90's NFS, most of the 00's NFS ,and I got back in after the reboot that was heat, because man, the teens were terrible. So with all that being said, credentials dropped, biases left, and difficulties explained, let's get into this.
Graphics - I'm going to lead with the graphics here, as people are really hit and miss on them. There's flair and animated Cell shaded effects and character models against realistic backdrops and cars. I admit it's odd, but I don't actually find it distracting. And you can turn SOME of the cell shaded effects off, just not all of them, if you want to. Honestly though, I didn't. Something in me liked the spinny lines and the tinted cartoony smoke. I'm not really sure what it is. It's an arcade game, and I'm not playing it for realism, and I just jumped over a Golf to land in first after blowing over a jump and smashing through a billboard. If I'm honest, if I was looking for realism, I might have just purchased poorly. That being said, whether cartoon, or realistic, the models look great, from the character models, to the environment, lighting, and the cars themselves, game looks fantastic. So save design choices, I don't personally have too much issue with, the game looks interesting, and realistic enough for a weird blend of what some people play for graphically, in the same picture right next to what others do. If I'm honest, this gives me hope Capcom will finally make Auto Modellista 2. I know it won't, but I can hope.
Sound - The sound design is a bit hit and miss for me. There's a heavy focus on sound effects and sound presentation of the cars, alongside being able to modify what the exhaust sounds like, and how subdued your supercharger or turbo is. It makes me giddy as a car guy. Each engine and upgrade can influence sound and exhaust notes can be adjusted, just. yes. But, the heavy focus includes a strong hip hop and modern rap focus for the sound track. I'm just not a big fan of this type of music, instead favoring soundtracks like intial D and Tokyo Xtreme Racer style. I know, 90's kid, sorry. The inclusion's not the problem, the lack of variety is. I have limited choice to either hope I like what randomly plays, or listen to the engine by itself, which I'm probably going to do really soon. Thankfully, I like the sound effect design enough this isn't an issue. But it sucks there isn't much metal, rock, pop, or percussion, or even electronic music like trance or eurobeat to listen to as well. That or a customizable playlist like EA Trax had, if you don't remember (god I'm old) EA used to allow you to change the whole soundtrack, turn off songs, etc. Crazy right?
Gameplay - I played this on a controller. I'm sure you can use a keyboard, I just would rather get a tetanus shot. So I can say the pad works well.Steering is responsive, cars feel attached to the road. Doing Burnout^tm things (this game is made by criterion) gets you boost charge to boost a lot. Some things contribute to a boost bar which has a multiplier you can quick fire if you get it high enough to use boost you didn't charge conventionally so when that runs dry you can boost using the stuff that was charging conventionally while you were boosting from bonuses. Criterion might like boost a bit. There's also tap brake to drift, and tuneable suspension behavior, and upgradeable cars, as well as purchasable ones. So while driving feels good, there's a bit more emphasis on boost than I like, but it's fine, and there's a pretty big emphasis on drifting, which is kind of not fine. I mean it's fine in the world map and on races where cars are designed to drift this way. But if you turn off tap to drift, and make corner slicing grip monsters like I tend to, you're going to make drifting events and the combined events really freaking hard for you. Which sucks because drifting and Takeover events are extremely lucrative most of the time. So, at least until you can secure a decent second car, try to keep your set up balanced and keep tap to drift on. Money's tight at first.
Progression is... weird. The story burns really slow. If you're expecting to jump in a 4 banger and blow the doors off of the riff raff that just came off a meth high, you're going to have a bad time. The beginning segment is fairly involved. It's not bad, per say, it's just involved. There's a lot of world building and character stuff the game wants to get out of the way before it dumps you outside the clutches of the dreaded tutorial police. But, after that, you're basically free to do what you want, how you want. So long as you prep for your saturdays. Honestly, there's plenty to do, plenty of race types and plenty of room for differentiation for your garage as it grows. You can even build the off road mercedes s-class you always wanted, and whoop the average truck guy with it at the dirt track, what's not to like?
Collectibles and random challenges dot the map, and the map's huge, so if you're feeling a bit of petrol powered assassin's creed, have at it.. there's enough to do's and findables for 6 games this size. That's either massive value, or an unnecessary bowling ball added to your luggage, depending on your enjoyment of completionism, that could go either way.
Story - I haven't finished it yet, but from what I've seen it's... a hammy EA NFS story. If you want Literary genius in your NFS game, I must insist you try to be reasonable. This a series of dumb people, doing dumb things, for dumb reasons.It's fun, usually. Or it contorts your face into terrible shapes. There's not really an in between. If the story is serviceable, I usually consider it a win. Honestly, The PC isn't an insufferable pile of pixels, so that's actually a plus. There are annoying people, and really disconnected dialogue. Insert grown man with skateboard meme here. Dialogue feels really forced at times. We're not expecting Shakespeare here... I keep telling myself that. But I digress, the story's FINE. It's just not winning awards.
In summation, the graphics are great, the sound's really good, better or worse if you like modern rap or not, The story's there, and the gameplay's fun. Is it worth 70 bucks? No. And... yes. Yes is I think a minority. This is worth it if you really want a slow grind racer heavy on the grind to the top of the ladder. You'll probably be more frustrated if you just want to play and progress quickly. I'm still driving an MX-5 in one up class from bottom, 8 hours in (around 6 actual time, took breaks) It doesn't strike a good progression balance. It's decidedly a grind, but, you can cut the grind by just being really lucky and reckless too by playing on really high heat levels, so there's that. Risk vs. reward's there. Races are pretty difficult on high difficulty, they don't feel (they might be though) rubber banded, but I'm also not looking too hard. Game's fun, I like it, I'm fine with what I paid even if that was WAAAAAY too much. Technically it's stable for me as well. I'm on an older I7 and an 3060. No severe problems, not so much as a graphical hiccup.
I will not sing this game's praises from the rooftop, but you could do a heck of a lot worse.