Ahhh, Need for Speed. Most Gamers that you ask will have either played, or heard of the Need for Speed series. The first ever Need for Speed in the franchise, was released in 1994 on the Playstation, and a few other consoles, and over the years we have seen some real classics as far as the Need for Speed games go. I remember indulging many hours of my time into the first Need for Speed game that I really properly played, Most Wanted, as I would look to gain my points up and rise up through the Blacklist to be able to take out the #1 driver, and be the best. Need For Speed, the newest addition to the Need for Speed franchise, is the second NFS game to be released on the next-gen consoles. It`s had a turn of developers, with Ghost Games taking over from Criterion games, and this one is seen as a re-boot of the series. This is the 22nd instalment of the franchise, so how do you re-boot a game that has been running for 21 years? A fan-favourite, and I took on the task of playing through and finding out whether Need for Speed had gotten better since the last one I had played (which was The Run a few years back) or whether they`d made a mistake in going up to next-gen. Well, a few hours played into it, I feared it was the latter.
If you`re a fan of the Forza series, then straight from the off, you`ll find yourself getting very frustrated with the controls in this game. Not so much in the way of how to play it, as the controls are very similar with any car game, your left bumper stick drives, your right trigger is to accelerate, and your left trigger is to brake. My issue I had was being so use to Forza, and the controls and the reactions of the cars in that, I went straight into this with the same mindset, and as I found out round the first corner, don’t go in with that mindset. The turning on this game, is so sharp. I found myself winning several races and then coming last because I had made a sharp turned and had hit either a barrier or another oncoming vehicle to take me out of the race. Of course, Need for Speed is a game where you need to master the role of drifting to be able to take the full advantage of going 150mph round a track and dodging all obstacles while making it look sweet going round bends. I did find myself getting use to the drifting eventually after tuning my car with Amy (One of the characters you`ll meet that works in the garage and will help you getting your car fine) and adapting it to how I liked it, as the default settings make it very difficult to drift.
Throughout the campaign, you`ll take on a variety of race types, including circuit races, sprint races and draft races. Let me fill you in on a bit of the story. You come across a group of friends (This is quite good, as each race and event will specialize in an area that will be to a different character, i.e. Most of Amy`s events are all sprint races), all of which are fantastic racers, and are all veering up a go to take on 5 of the most iconic and skilled racers in Ventura Bay. You`ll find that certain events will take a range of progression, as you will need your car either to be tuned up to a certain hp level, or you`ll need your overall level to be at a certain. The more you play, the higher your level will go, the quicker you will get through the story.
Now, I`m not a fan of this whole online constant connection within the game. The exact same occurred with Need for Speed Rivals a few years back, and although I can see more and more games going into this road, as it means a quicker way of being able to play with your friends and get online, if you don’t have an online connection, then you are sort of screwed. I think that really games should be offering both an offline and online mode, so at least everyone has a chance to play it. I would think that a lot of gamers now would be on some sort of internet connection so it wouldn’t be too bad, but I don’t think that everybody has been accommodated for, especially those without any connection. Again, some will love the idea of being able to go straight into an online game with friends to race, it`s just a niggle I have, with any game on the market.
Throughout the game, you`ll also come across many live-action scenes that include the characters within the game (Some of which you may recognise, I think one of them was in the Football Factory) and I`ve got to be honest, being a student in Drama at college, it has got to be some of the worse acting I have ever seen. Of course, I`m here to judge a game, not their acting, but I found it quite amusing, and although the acting was average, it did tell you what it wanted to tell you, and that was the story. I think live-action though is something that they`ve tried to include a number of the NFS games, or at least that`s what I remember from Most Wanted, Carbon and a few others.
This is a game that can be frustrating to some, and some will love it. And if this game is a re-boot of the franchise, then perhaps, it`s time for the franchise to die. Some will love it, and some will not like it at all. I think if Forza hadn’t come out, and this was the only car game on the market, then you`d see a lot more people into it, but for me, it felt a little bit dull and boring to play through. Nothing I don’t think will beat the originality of some of the past NFS games, and I do think perhaps, it`s a franchise that maybe at times I feel similar to Call of Duty, should stop, or at least not be so often.
A huge thank you to XCN for supplying us with a review copy of Need for Speed.
