Freview - Need for Speed
Need for Speed (2015) is a reboot of the series and was released for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 (what I played on), and the PC. It is an open world that is full of races, customization, pretty graphics, cheesy cut scene acting, and much more. So far I have been enjoying this game very much, but let’s dive into some of the details.
The soundtrack is impressive and iconic of what Need for Speed soundtracks have been in the past, high-energy and exciting. It has tracks by AVICII, Muzzy, the Glitch Mob, The Chemical Brothers, Wolfgang Garner, and plenty more. Although the soundtrack is great, you don’t have very good control over it. The only way to skip tracks is to press and hold the left stick, which also happens to be the drive control stick, for what seems like an ungodly amount of time, so when you’re actually driving at any speed it makes it nearly impossible to keep good control of your vehicle. If you’re faced with a track you don’t much care for in the middle of a race you are stuck with the track for its extent unless you want to risk losing control of your car.
Electronic Arts
Most of the time spent in this racing sandbox is at night and it's raining which makes, which can make it tough to see. There's variety to the track pathways, you get nice wide highways, narrow city streets, the twisting mountain roads, and the large parking lots. There are all sorts of places to drive and spend your time in this game. All the races take place on the streets that you travel just to get from A to B, because there are no boundaries for what roads you can drive on. Upside: realism. Downside: the subset of these streets and alleys that are activated during an actual competitive race can be hard to pick out at high speed.
There are multiple events for the player to race in, these range from sprint races which is just getting to the finish line as fast as you can to drift trials where you rack up as many points for drifting cleanly. The game does defiantly have a bias to sprint races and drift trials, though over the many variations that were put in of these races. Another cool addition to this game is that it is always online. So you are always playing on a small server, which has its advantages and drawbacks. The good is that you can challenge other racers whenever you come across them; you can challenge them to 4 different races at the touch of a button with no actual communication. The downside, even though there are computers that you can race against as well, the game requires being connected to the EA servers. You can’t play offline even though it appears to have all the support to do so. Also, since it’s online and with other players racing around, another player might wander into your difficult campaign race and sabotage you, accidentally or intentionally.
Electronic Arts
The game features plenty of unlockables-hunting. The map has 3 different types of “collectibles” in it for the player to collect: scenic vistas to photograph, locations to perform burnouts at, and hidden parts to upgrade your vehicles. Each car that you buy can be customized in many different ways. The performance modifications are extensive and detailed. You can change and modify almost anything you could in a real car to improve performance, and the visual modifications are also really cool. You can modify the wheels and how they are cambered, the slope and ride height of the car. While this makes no change to the performance of the car, it's a slick detail that you customize it to feel more personalized. The game also has a vinyl wrap editor that lets you design from the ground up to decorate your car in many colors and graphics.
The downside of the car stable in this game is none are earned and you only have garage space for a total of 5 different cars. This means you can’t collect every car in the game, but end up buying a few cars and improving them more and more. The game is about showing creativity and your skill on the roads over getting 100% of the items and vehicles.
Electronic Arts
As you drive through the city, you are bound to hit either a wall or another car or some other object. This causes cosmetic damage to your vehicles which go away when you reenter your garage. This is a common feature of most racing games, but I do have some problems with how it’s done in this game. It is incredibly easy to damage the car, it takes one small hit and the front of your car is a mess. Along with this the damage never really increases beyond some front damage. Honestly, I’d like to see more damage be applied to the car, for example the hood coming off, and side denting and so on. The lack of performance damage keeps a good feel with it being Need for Speed and it makes the game more enjoyable and a little less stressful but it would be nice to have the cars more durable so you can see your cool modifications and customizations to the car. A small detail that they did add that is cool is the rubber and scratches around the wheel arches the longer you drive without going to the garage.
The graphics in this game are incredible and beautiful. Now the story of the game has many cut scenes, these cut scenes are not animated but actually filmed. The cut scenes have a cheesy 90’s feel about them with amazingly terrible B-rate acting. The story is by and large a simple story of the small rising to beat the people at the top. Several times in these cut scenes the actors start to suggest things that are adult in content, but are quickly changed to something about cars, it makes the dialog feel disjointed and much less serious than it could be while still being quirky and fun. They're always drinking out of red Solo cups, but whenever they get offered a drink it is soda or an energy drink. While hiding all the other possible adult content of the game though they openly will flip each other off and use minor adult language.
Electronic Arts
The game is incredibly enjoyable from its graphics to the driving to the cheesy cut scenes. I do sadly feel once the campaign is over there won’t be much reason to play it though, and the lack of local play is another down side. It’s defiantly worth the play through as you will enjoy your time playing it. It’s nothing to jump at, but a fun diversion.