NEED FOR SPEED (XONE)
Many wondered what would happen to Need For Speed, one of EA’s longest running series, when it had a year’s break in 2014. Though it’s now becoming more common with rising costs of games and franchise fatigue being caused by yearly instalments with little changes, it was deemed a sign of the series tiring, and lacking new ideas. But in 2015, Need For Speed hit eighth generation platforms. It strips away any excess, returning to the underground street racing theme, while retaining social aspects from previous games. Unfortunately, a couple of serious drawbacks and a lack of care might mean another reboot is in order.
Need For Speed centres its racing around five distinct styles: Speed, Style, Build, Crew and Outlaw. Speed is all about fast times, Style consists of drifting and Gymkhana events, Build revolves around tuning your car to perfection, Crew relies on completing events as a cohesive unit and Outlaw focuses on police pursuits. To progress in NFS, you tackle missions in each discipline and progress through each story arc. After certain events, players will be treated to live-action cut-scenes with an insane amount of product placement, hokey acting and fist-bumps. It’s cringe-worthy, and unfortunately, not in a so-bad-it’s-good kind of way, just purely irritating.
This much is clear: Need For Speed looks an absolute peach
This makes progressing through NFS’s solo campaign a chore. You lose motivation very quickly, as bland objectives fail to bring out the entertainment of each different play style. For example, the Outlaw will ask you to drag a police pursuit out for five minutes, and then escape. Though different missions may have different tracks, event types and challenges, they begin to blur into each other thanks to unadventurous objectives and a night-only cycle which results in a lack of visual distinction. Racing Speed missions is barely different to racing in the Build. By the time you reach the end credits, you feel deflated.
There are a number of different frustrations to this new Need For Speed. Like The Crew, it’s an obligatory always-online situation, meaning those without internet cannot access any of the game. What’s puzzling is that there’s very little involvement from other players, bar maybe other cars crashing into you during races. Weirdly, you can play solo anyway, but still must be online to do so. This means you are at the mercy of the servers, and weaker internet can cause the game to disconnect frequently. The other pain from this is the inability to pause, which can result in longer races becoming a chore. The actual multiplayer lacks flair, but daily challenges do add a small sliver of additional replay value.
There are a number of different frustrations to this new Need For Speed. Like The Crew, it’s an obligatory always-online situation, meaning those without internet cannot access any of the game. What’s puzzling is that there’s very little involvement from other players, bar maybe other cars crashing into you during races. Weirdly, you can play solo anyway, but still must be online to do so. This means you are at the mercy of the servers, and weaker internet can cause the game to disconnect frequently. The other pain from this is the inability to pause, which can result in longer races becoming a chore. The actual multiplayer lacks flair, but daily challenges do add a small sliver of additional replay value.
Real life: lower definition than the gameplay?
But the main problem with Need For Speed, and what ultimately mires it in mediocrity, is the core racing lacks care. There are a lot of minor issues, such as the lack of manual transmission, inconsistent physics and weird crashes. More significant troubles weigh it down, such as the rubber-banding of the A.I. You can be miles ahead, but one crash will lead to all racers catching up and overtaking you. The A.I. can be irritating, particularly during Drift Train events where the aggressive behaviour of racers is odd because all the drivers are, essentially, working together. Most of the time, the racing delivers more frustration than fun. Police chases don’t fare much better, with lower wanted levels being boring and higher levels becoming borderline impossible due to the aforementioned flaws with the driving. Most Wanted this most certainly is not.
Need For Speed tries to emulate the older Underground games in some respects. The car customisation of those games is reprised here, and it’s about as deep as you’d expect. You’re able to apply different shades of paint, decals and tints to your windows, and its flexibility allows you to be pretty creative. There are also performance parts which unlock as you progress, and cost money earned from races, and your car’s handling can be tuned to precision or drifting, depending on event requirements. All the elements are tied together with a Rep system, which rewards points for feats in specific styles, such as High Speed. It can be a fairly absorbing system, but it can also lead to you short of decent vehicle parts needed to progress through races, causing more frustration.
Need For Speed tries to emulate the older Underground games in some respects. The car customisation of those games is reprised here, and it’s about as deep as you’d expect. You’re able to apply different shades of paint, decals and tints to your windows, and its flexibility allows you to be pretty creative. There are also performance parts which unlock as you progress, and cost money earned from races, and your car’s handling can be tuned to precision or drifting, depending on event requirements. All the elements are tied together with a Rep system, which rewards points for feats in specific styles, such as High Speed. It can be a fairly absorbing system, but it can also lead to you short of decent vehicle parts needed to progress through races, causing more frustration.
If nothing else, Need For Speed looks hot. Everything, from the smooth car models to the detailed open-world city, looks great. Although the constant night-cycle can leave you feeling like you have insomnia, it still benefits from gorgeous street lighting. The audio is not so hot, however. The soundtrack is headache-inducing, featuring the grimiest of techno music which forced me to put the soundtrack on mute. The acting and dialogue during cut-scenes is utterly cringe-inducing, and bar the engine notes, much of the game’s audio misfires.
Need For Speed is a disappointing reboot, lacking the care, fun and excitement of older games it tries to mimic. A jack-of-all-trades but a master of none, the constant frustrations result in a mediocre whole. Always-online is frankly unnecessary, the solo play is a bore, online doesn’t fare much better and the game is just lacks excitement. There’s nothing broken or unplayable about NFS, but it also lacks any kind of precision. Those who pine for the days of Underground, and even to a degree Most Wanted, might get some fun out of this one. But for anyone else, the frustrations may just prove too great to bear.
Need For Speed is a disappointing reboot, lacking the care, fun and excitement of older games it tries to mimic. A jack-of-all-trades but a master of none, the constant frustrations result in a mediocre whole. Always-online is frankly unnecessary, the solo play is a bore, online doesn’t fare much better and the game is just lacks excitement. There’s nothing broken or unplayable about NFS, but it also lacks any kind of precision. Those who pine for the days of Underground, and even to a degree Most Wanted, might get some fun out of this one. But for anyone else, the frustrations may just prove too great to bear.
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VERDICT
Visual: 8/10
Audio: 4/10 Gameplay: 5/10 Longevity: 7/10 OVERALL: 5/10 |
PIXEL SECONDS: NEED FOR SPEED (PS4)
Need For Speed’s 2015 outing marked a solid if uninspired return to the underground racing scene. Its chief successes lie in an elaborate and fun car customisation suite, allowing players to design and share liveries, and its stunningly dynamic visuals, some of the most impressive to have featured in a racing game. Otherwise, the game plays things with a straight bat, and if you’re familiar with the series, there’s little that you won’t have seen before. It gets most of the basics right; handling is pleasingly weighty, whilst a combination of speed and style events means there’s plenty of quick-fire distractions. However, it all feels a little pint-sized in the aftermath of The Crew, and it isn’t long before routes start to cover the same stretches of road, and experienced racers should motor through it in a matter of days. The police chases (which were a great fun in its predecessor Rivals) prove a big disappointment. Cops are flat-footed, to such a degree that, during in my entire time with the game, I was never once busted. Hammy dialogues and a frankly unhealthy propensity for fist-bumping render the story banal. You never get the feeling that NFS fully commits to the online multiplayer aspect either. Racing online is fun, but for all the promise of crews and racing others around the city, it feels so tertiary and inessential. Of greater concern is the frequency with which the game crashes, years on from its release, likely an unwelcome legacy of always needing to be connected to the server. Still, if there’s a racer-shaped gap in your life, then Need For Speed will deliver a helping of fast ‘n’ familiar thrills, just don’t expect anything new. [6] – Tom Clare © 2020
Need For Speed’s 2015 outing marked a solid if uninspired return to the underground racing scene. Its chief successes lie in an elaborate and fun car customisation suite, allowing players to design and share liveries, and its stunningly dynamic visuals, some of the most impressive to have featured in a racing game. Otherwise, the game plays things with a straight bat, and if you’re familiar with the series, there’s little that you won’t have seen before. It gets most of the basics right; handling is pleasingly weighty, whilst a combination of speed and style events means there’s plenty of quick-fire distractions. However, it all feels a little pint-sized in the aftermath of The Crew, and it isn’t long before routes start to cover the same stretches of road, and experienced racers should motor through it in a matter of days. The police chases (which were a great fun in its predecessor Rivals) prove a big disappointment. Cops are flat-footed, to such a degree that, during in my entire time with the game, I was never once busted. Hammy dialogues and a frankly unhealthy propensity for fist-bumping render the story banal. You never get the feeling that NFS fully commits to the online multiplayer aspect either. Racing online is fun, but for all the promise of crews and racing others around the city, it feels so tertiary and inessential. Of greater concern is the frequency with which the game crashes, years on from its release, likely an unwelcome legacy of always needing to be connected to the server. Still, if there’s a racer-shaped gap in your life, then Need For Speed will deliver a helping of fast ‘n’ familiar thrills, just don’t expect anything new. [6] – Tom Clare © 2020