OK is high praise for Need for Speed these days as the bar has been set so incredibly low over the years.

Graphically the game does look gorgeous, especially at night with all the neons reflecting off the cars and seemingly perpetually wet streets. The driving looks like your typical NFS mix of slight realism but mostly arcadey racing. After spending so much time with Forza Horizon 4 recently it looks like the cars are kind of floating on the road to me. That said I do love a good arcade racer as long as they go all out and let you just do insane handbrake drifts around corners while boosting and such.

I dunno for the most part this looks pretty tame and somewhat underwhelming. I guess the most exciting thing about it is that it doesn't look like complete dogshit and that NFS is getting back on track.

What do you guys think?

Drifting seems fun, and it's clear they've taken some cues from Forza Horizon 4 in terms of its presentation, focusing more on a colourful and fun attitude in the daytime racing, and moody Miami glow at night. Certainly more eye-catching than the series has possibly ever looked.

The police aspect has never excited me when there's a dozen cop cars screeching and hollering and ramming you. Always felt like an annoyance; dumb, giant wasps needling at you without ever feeling realistic or fun. One or two consistent threats are okay, but maybe that's me. It's not 'difficult', just obnoxious.

It doesn't look bad though, I'm somewhat intrigued. Won't make the mistake of getting excited, but yeah, it gets a soft nod from me for now. Gimme a great soundtrack and decent driving mechanics and I'll play most racers, gladly.

It looks better than the last few Need for Speed games, but it's just hard to get excited over a new casual racing game when there's still so much of Forza Horizon 4 I haven't played. This just seems too similar to Horizon and Horizon is very good.

When I saw the font treatment for the logo and the poster, I was immediately hyped but seeing the trailer and this gameplay just as quickly deflated that excitement. I thought they were going for an Auto Modellista inspired look but it doesn't seem to justify the simple and stylized look of the title. It looks nice but I'm not sure they're doing enough different. I'm not convinced this isn't gonna be a solid racer with the most offensive rubber band AI like every NFS. Imagine what they could do with a cel-shaded look these days. I always thought that was a sweet look for racers.

@liquiddragon: Oh yah the rubber banding.. now that I think about it Horizon 4 doesn't really have rubber banding as far as I can tell? I was playing on the second hardest difficult at some point and I don't ever remember cars passing me by in ridiculous ways on the last corner. Seemed that if you drove well you just stayed ahead.

2015 is the Underground 3 that I wanted since Carbon, so I'll be very satisfied with Heat being an even better 2015, provided that EA doesn't pull an EA and fucks everything up with "surprise mechanics."

And I'll be my usual contrarian self an say this: Though the Horizon games have some pretty strong points and have been consistently decent since the first game, the Horizon games just don't scratch the same itch in terms of progression and vehicle customization. I prefer racing games that make me spend some time with tuners like the Golfs, Civics and other vehicles that I could rationally afford in real life, not just get an Aventador within an hour for the sake of power fantasy. The only other series to really do that for me is Midnight Club, which I sincerely doubt that Rockstar is ever going to update or even port LA to PC since GTA prints money.

@facelessvixen: In Forza Horizon 4 you can very much purchase a Civic or Ford Focus and then tune it for drifting or what have you. There is a wide assortment of low end cars to choose from in addition to the high end hyper cars.

It looks good but Need for Speed still looks good (arguably better than Payback) the question is whether the progression will be fun. I'm not saying it needs to be like Horizon where it throws sports cars at you left and right, but the card system in Payback was a joke. I literally just had one car per class in that game because it didnt matter as long as the numbers were high enough. I also wish they would go back to the goofy FMV but judging by the trailers that isnt going to happen.

@humanity: I'm aware, but again, my personal preference is to have a scene of progression. In NFS and Midnight Club, you start with your basic tuners and you earn your way to more advanced tuners, muscles, higher end sports cars, exotics and hyper cars over the course of 10 to 15 hours, depending on play-style. Horizon just seemingly hands them out without putting much effort into it; like, almost literally, "Do you want a Countach or a Diablo? Here you go boss."

Now, I'm not necessarily saying it's an objectively bad thing since I still like Horizon 3 and I understand that it works for those who want a more casual experience and just to ride around in their favorite cars without too much of a time investment, which seems to be thing thing on this site where the vocal majority are seemingly married with children while I'm single and with no kids, work typical 9 to 5 jobs compared to my day job as a painter where I can make my own hours, and are older than the 29 years and change that I am. And to be fair to Horizon, it does take some effort to get the highest end Bugatti, Pagani, Koenigsegg, or, whatever the most expensive cars are in the game. But my desire for getting an Aventador in NFS 2015 is higher than getting one in Horizon because I enjoy the steeper hill to climb in NFS, so to speak.

And there are some other things that I prefer in NFS over Horizon, such as how the cars generally handle and the atmosphere and attitude of Underground 1, 2, the original Most Wanted, 2015, and Midnight Club LA compared to the Horizon games, but I've done enough nitpicking for one post. ...except for one more complaint: Toyota said no to Horizon 4, so no Ryuubi Gentoku/Ikkitousen themed Supra in Horizon 4.

This weeb machine is basically why I keep Horizon 3 installed.

Yeah, this does seem alright. That being said, I don't really have any faith that it'll actually end up being alright; that franchise's recent history has been...poor, to say the least. Also,

HIT A COP

Well, I watched less than a minute of the video, but I can say that I appreciate what appears to be a more realistic direction for the franchise. Set up your Corvette with an absolutely idiotic camber.....immediately start losing.

Seriously though, I have little to no interest in this, and I'll probably just stick with Horizon.

No in-car view, no sale.

I liked the gameplay of Rivals a hell of a lot. But then they made a game where I needed to do drift events so I was out. Just here to race!

@csl316: It's great to meet another human being that liked Rivals! It feels like no one ever mentions that game and I thought it was a lot more fun than Most Wanted. I enjoyed the driving model and the changing landscape a whole lot. That final race that takes you through the forests, into the icy mountains and then down the desert plains for the final stretch was really amazing. I especially enjoyed the arcade racing model that basically equated drifting to nitro-boosting while cornering. Taking my Lambo out on icy mountain roads and sliding around corners at 150kph while flames are shooting out my exhausts is exactly what Need for Speed should be all about.

@humanity: I agree with all these things!

Rivals was one of my first PS4 games, despite it getting middling reviews. I absolutely loved it and that final grand race was one of my favorite moments during the early days of this generation.

I'm cautiously optimistic. My favorite subset of NFS has always been Hot Pursuit followed closely by Underground. This seems to mix the 2 together?

I'm just hoping EA doesn't...well..."EA" this up.

The NFS games still don't know what they want to be. This is absolutely Hot Pursuit meets Underground with some Forza Horizon elements sprinkled in, and I've seen them try and fail to pull off something similar multiple times now. It ultimately always feels like they half-ass a few things and it ends up mediocre overall. The series was better off when they really leaned into a style. Stuff like NFS Underground 2, NFS Hot Pursuit 2, NFS Shift were all very good games at what they did and set themselves apart as a result. They should go back to that.

Trying to be like the Forza Horizon games is a fool's errand. The Horizon games have gotten to be virtually perfect at this point, and there's zero chance of anyone competing in that space. The racing genre itself is in a bit of a weird spot right now as a result. I'm not optimistic for Heat, but I suppose I'm glad they're at least trying. Again, though, I think they'd better off trying to do something different.

Played about 90 minutes just now. I really like it. I haven't liked NFS for a decade, so the bar is low.

No rubberbanding with AI racers (some rubberbanding on the cops though, but it doesn't feel unfair yet, I've only got 2 stars so far). You can absolutely leave the AI miles behind, but this also means that there's no catch-up if you screw up and hit a wall or miss a checkpoint.

Handling feels fun for an arcade racer, basically Mario Kart drifting, let go of gas and mash it again in a corner to go into drift mode and control it with stick.

Typical "new in town, work your way up" street racing story. The vibes are what I remember from Underground. Characters are more likeable than the last few games. It's cheesy, but not over the top.

Great customization, you can even edit the tone of your exhaust with several sliders.

Not sure about the Day/Night thing. Basically you get your money in legal day racing, then rep in illegal night racing. Rep is what gates unlocks, then you buy it with the money you earned during the day. You can change from day to night as you please. I don't dislike it, just not sure if it adds much.

Visually stunning. Real fuckable cars. I'm running max settings at 1440p. Looks real good at night. Neon lights shining through rain and the spray kicked up from the cars.

@thatonedudenick: Yeah I saw some footage of someone playing it and was surprised by how Need for Speed Underground it felt. I only saw part of one cutscene and it seemed like what you would expect from a Need for Speed game.

When Jeff eventually gets around to it I'll be interested on his take.

Slim chance, but I'll ask anyway:

21:9?

Edit 11/6/19: Answered my own question by buying the game. Yes, in fact the game does support 21:9.

I like games that support 21:9.

@thatonedudenick: This is really encouraging to hear. I sort of wrote this off a few months ago (not sure why), but I might have to give it a go then. Thanks for the details!

@thatonedudenick: “real fuckable cars” is a box quote if I’ve ever seen one.