Hello folks. So Need for Speed has been in quite a dire state the last few years, with Ghost Games at the helm.
They made progressively worse games. Rivals was decent, but only cause it a sloppy and worse copy of Hot Pursuit 2010. Very buggy as well, but hey I'll give it a pass since they only got like 10 months to make it.
Need for Speed 2015 was mediocre. Graphics and sound were sublime, but with the always online (means no pausing) and crappy handling model being the biggest detriments, along with egregious rubber banding and it's fair share of bugs as well.
Need for Speed Payback got even worse. With the rng microtransaction based performance upgrade system, arbitrary car classes, no free roam cops, and that utter cringefest of a story. The handling was marginally better, and off roading was worthy edition, but it was a clear downgrade from even 2015.
Fast forward to now, I decided to try out Heat a couple months back, as I still have some attachment to the IP despite recent blunders, and wanted to see what Ghost would screw up this time. Didn't go in with particularly high expectations.
And... I really ended up enjoying my time with it. Yeah, didn't see that coming.
The developers (and EA too, in the case of MTX) really did get the memo from last time.
- Microtransactions are gone. In place is are traditional performance upgrades, which is the way it should be. Spend credits to get part you want, easy. Lends to a better sense of progression as well, in typical but satisfying rags-to-riches type feeling of getting better.
- The car handling, at least to me, feels super improved. Feels less on rails, and gives more "control", or at least a good illusion of it. I also like slower style of drifting. Keep in mind, car handling is extremely subjective tho. For me, it makes races feel fun again.
- The sense of speed is back. The motion blur, camera work, weather, and various other effects makes it feel exhilarating at high speeds. This was non-existent in the past two games.
- The car class system is eradicated. Thank god. Meaning you can take the same car from a race event to a drift event, and not have to buy a duplicate car for it (the fact that this is an "improvement" just tells a lot about payback)
- The story is tones down the cringe, feels less intrusive than Payback did. It's not good by any means, but it did make me actually hate the antagonist, did feel like an extra motivation to keep playing more.
The game doubles down on the few elements Ghost games were already good at:
- The lineup cars is impressive, it carries over most of Payback's selection and adds a whole bunch more, over 120 now, the best selection in any Need for Speed game, I think. The cars themselves look great too.
- Customization options. Payback was already good with this, but Heat adds even more to the table, with things like engine swaps and exhaust sound tuning. The entire customization is suite is nothing short of amazing.
The biggest thing for me tho, is how day and night is handled.
Instead of a dynamic cycle, you manually chose between Day and Night. Day events are legally sanctioned, and you earn money. The night is "illegal", you do street races and could get chased by the roaming cops. You earn rep points at night. Night works somewhat like NFS Rivals, where you need to bank in the rep points to your safehouse. If you get busted you lose most of the rep, which introduced a nice risk-reward factor to the game. Playing both day and night are needed to progress the story, which honestly, I liked.
There seems to be multiple skyboxes for both day and night, helps it from getting too repetitive looking.
The day doesn't look too shabby, but the night is star of the show here, it looks very impressive graphically. Especially in the city, bathed in neon, with pouring rain, gives the most Underground vibes since the underground days themselves. More so that NFS 2015 infact.
The cops, actually feel like a threat again, after being a joke for the past few titles. Your car actually as a damage meter this time, to up the stakes.
Well, there are quite a few cons as well, and I'd like to go over them.
- This game feels short. I feel like I finished fairly quickly, and was left wanting more. The story just ends out of nowhere too. It lacks an "endgame" loop.
- The map, could be better. The city is fine, but the surrounding plains/hills areas were boring. There were some cool spots tho, like an abandoned raceway and a blatant copy of cape canareval, but there could've been more.
- The cops are just straight up unfair at times. Dodge Chargers should be able to out run koenigseggs. Sometimes they spawn in the most bullshit places as well. Its way better than past games because there's actually some threat, but it could be much improved. Sometimes when you get busted, it feels like its not your fault, which is frustrating.
- The online offerings are apparently not good. I haven't dabbled into it myself, but this what most of the community is saying and I'll take their word for it.
- The soundtrack, is absolute trash. Completely irredeemable. They can do better than Soundcloud rapper tier music.
- It's been four months and no post launch support
Overall though, it I had an awesome time! This is, quite easily, the best Need for Speed title since Hot Pursuit 2010, and actually slips into my top 5 NFS games:
1) Hot Pursuit 2010
2) Underground 2
3) Underground 1
4) Hot Pursuit 2002
5) Heat
In a dire time for arcade racing games, it's good to get a genuinely decent one for once. The only pure arcade games I like this gen, not counting Horizon, is The Crew 1 (which took years of updating to make it decent), and now this game. Compared to many from last gen (Burnout Paradise, Midnight Club LA, Driver San Francisco, Split Second, Blur, Hot Pursuit, the list goes on)
Main reason I made this thread is for awareness, I feel like this game went under the radar, and some people writing it off due to past games (which I don't blame anyone for doing).
I'd like to hear peoples thoughts.
They made progressively worse games. Rivals was decent, but only cause it a sloppy and worse copy of Hot Pursuit 2010. Very buggy as well, but hey I'll give it a pass since they only got like 10 months to make it.
Need for Speed 2015 was mediocre. Graphics and sound were sublime, but with the always online (means no pausing) and crappy handling model being the biggest detriments, along with egregious rubber banding and it's fair share of bugs as well.
Need for Speed Payback got even worse. With the rng microtransaction based performance upgrade system, arbitrary car classes, no free roam cops, and that utter cringefest of a story. The handling was marginally better, and off roading was worthy edition, but it was a clear downgrade from even 2015.
Fast forward to now, I decided to try out Heat a couple months back, as I still have some attachment to the IP despite recent blunders, and wanted to see what Ghost would screw up this time. Didn't go in with particularly high expectations.
And... I really ended up enjoying my time with it. Yeah, didn't see that coming.
The developers (and EA too, in the case of MTX) really did get the memo from last time.
- Microtransactions are gone. In place is are traditional performance upgrades, which is the way it should be. Spend credits to get part you want, easy. Lends to a better sense of progression as well, in typical but satisfying rags-to-riches type feeling of getting better.
- The car handling, at least to me, feels super improved. Feels less on rails, and gives more "control", or at least a good illusion of it. I also like slower style of drifting. Keep in mind, car handling is extremely subjective tho. For me, it makes races feel fun again.
- The sense of speed is back. The motion blur, camera work, weather, and various other effects makes it feel exhilarating at high speeds. This was non-existent in the past two games.
- The car class system is eradicated. Thank god. Meaning you can take the same car from a race event to a drift event, and not have to buy a duplicate car for it (the fact that this is an "improvement" just tells a lot about payback)
- The story is tones down the cringe, feels less intrusive than Payback did. It's not good by any means, but it did make me actually hate the antagonist, did feel like an extra motivation to keep playing more.
The game doubles down on the few elements Ghost games were already good at:
- The lineup cars is impressive, it carries over most of Payback's selection and adds a whole bunch more, over 120 now, the best selection in any Need for Speed game, I think. The cars themselves look great too.
- Customization options. Payback was already good with this, but Heat adds even more to the table, with things like engine swaps and exhaust sound tuning. The entire customization is suite is nothing short of amazing.
The biggest thing for me tho, is how day and night is handled.
Instead of a dynamic cycle, you manually chose between Day and Night. Day events are legally sanctioned, and you earn money. The night is "illegal", you do street races and could get chased by the roaming cops. You earn rep points at night. Night works somewhat like NFS Rivals, where you need to bank in the rep points to your safehouse. If you get busted you lose most of the rep, which introduced a nice risk-reward factor to the game. Playing both day and night are needed to progress the story, which honestly, I liked.
There seems to be multiple skyboxes for both day and night, helps it from getting too repetitive looking.
The day doesn't look too shabby, but the night is star of the show here, it looks very impressive graphically. Especially in the city, bathed in neon, with pouring rain, gives the most Underground vibes since the underground days themselves. More so that NFS 2015 infact.
The cops, actually feel like a threat again, after being a joke for the past few titles. Your car actually as a damage meter this time, to up the stakes.
Well, there are quite a few cons as well, and I'd like to go over them.
- This game feels short. I feel like I finished fairly quickly, and was left wanting more. The story just ends out of nowhere too. It lacks an "endgame" loop.
- The map, could be better. The city is fine, but the surrounding plains/hills areas were boring. There were some cool spots tho, like an abandoned raceway and a blatant copy of cape canareval, but there could've been more.
- The cops are just straight up unfair at times. Dodge Chargers should be able to out run koenigseggs. Sometimes they spawn in the most bullshit places as well. Its way better than past games because there's actually some threat, but it could be much improved. Sometimes when you get busted, it feels like its not your fault, which is frustrating.
- The online offerings are apparently not good. I haven't dabbled into it myself, but this what most of the community is saying and I'll take their word for it.
- The soundtrack, is absolute trash. Completely irredeemable. They can do better than Soundcloud rapper tier music.
- It's been four months and no post launch support
Overall though, it I had an awesome time! This is, quite easily, the best Need for Speed title since Hot Pursuit 2010, and actually slips into my top 5 NFS games:
1) Hot Pursuit 2010
2) Underground 2
3) Underground 1
4) Hot Pursuit 2002
5) Heat
In a dire time for arcade racing games, it's good to get a genuinely decent one for once. The only pure arcade games I like this gen, not counting Horizon, is The Crew 1 (which took years of updating to make it decent), and now this game. Compared to many from last gen (Burnout Paradise, Midnight Club LA, Driver San Francisco, Split Second, Blur, Hot Pursuit, the list goes on)
Main reason I made this thread is for awareness, I feel like this game went under the radar, and some people writing it off due to past games (which I don't blame anyone for doing).
I'd like to hear peoples thoughts.
