Conflicting Thoughts.
Need for speed Rivals is a game of conflict. Conflict on the road, conflict in regards to the score I should give it and conflict in regards to its never ending struggle to feed my game world with real players. In short NFS Rivals doesn’t quite reach the incredible highs that it aspires to due to design issues with its multiplayer but even with those issues, im having a blast.
NFS Rivals can be broken down into three key components for me. Driving, the world and multiplayer. Lets address the good stuff first
The driving model in Rivals is sublime. Ok, its an arcade racer and it isn’t simulating the intricate nuance of a passing seagulls feather fluttering to the road as a Pirelli P Zero tyre drives over it and looses 1.34% traction. But what it is sublime at is delivering a sense of speed and ultimate control at that high speed to a level ive not seen since Burnout Paradise…
Its handling model beautifully straddles the line between giving the cars enough weight to seem challenging while keeping the handling nimble enough to keep you the player in control. It results in a game that, once you’ve got to grips with it, leaves the driver feeling empowered. Countless times I found myself approaching a long arching corner with two cars ahead only for my brain to think “I can do this, I can powerslide between those two cars at 180mph” a tap of the breaks and some steering and acceleration finesse later, you've cleared the two cars and been rewarded with your own little dose of endorphins. The game didn’t gift you that, you earned it.
On top of the endorphin blips you receive from threading your car through the eye of a passing sedan storm you also have a soundtrack that does its complete utmost to turn you into a maniac on the road. Music is a very specific taste but for me the soundtrack in NFS further cemented its attitude towards driving just 10% faster than you should. It’s a soundtrack that would be personally dangerous to drive to in real life. So I suppose that’s a success!?
Secondly is the world. Its great. Its large enough to give the player a feeling that they have somewhere to use the 700bhp they currently have beneath their feet but it’s a tight enough world that you see corners enough times to feel you can learn their nuance.
Nuance isn’t a word id usually associate with a NFS game but its something I personally find very important in a racing game. If I crash out on a corner I want a chance to beat that corner again, to prove I’ve improved, to get my own little positive reinforcement loop going. Rival’s world is tight enough to let this happen and the way the world is broken into “speed zones” and speed camera challenges, each with their own leader board means the game gives the player an excuse to practice sections over and over.
As well as the worlds game size feeling about right, it’s a beauty to behold. Seagulls gather around the top of a lighthouse in a display of avian numbers not seen since that opening level in Battlefield 4. Dust whips across the road as you traverse the open planes of Rivals reproduction of Nevada. Leaves skitter about in the air as you rip through an orchard as 200mph. In short it looks nice and its full of little details that tease me to the full potential of next gen.
I think Ghost Games may have over milked the cow in regards to using its THIS CAR LOOKS WET! Tech but im not going hold that against them. Next gen launch is the time for sweat tech and damn they tried to make that car look sweaty.
Now onto what brings me to the conflict in this game. The multiplayer. And I think the multiplayer brings up interesting questions as to how we fundamentally review games.
The overarching goal for multiplayer in Rivals is to create a world in which a human racer can be tearing his way through a race to all of a sudden find himself being hunted down by a human cop or being pushed to the limit by a fellow human racer. Rivals does not achieve this. To any level of success.
Yes there are other people in your game world at all times, yes some are cops and some are racers but the game does nothing whatsoever to funnel these players into a set goal.
If im racing and a human cop gets involved its either the result of a coincidence or an incredibly determined cop player that has had to chase my 200mph car across the map at 201mph. The way the developer pitched Rivals made it seem almost like it deployed a match making system like Destiny’s (as that is being pitched anyway). It seemed as if the game would, in the background, spawn in other human players near events of interest creating a fluid always moving human playerbase.
In reality we are left with a map full of players all going about their single player progress while never really interacting with each other. The sum total of my interaction with the games multiplayer was to enter its multiplayer menu and disable voip. The screaming babies got that bad (disable your camera mic people)
This however leads me onto my conflict with the game and how it makes me question how we review games. On a fundamental level Ghosts completely fails to hit its overarching goal to be an open world multiplayer racing experience. However I couldn’t care less. They have created a game that Is a complete blast to play and provided enough AI to fill the world so that I don’t really miss the multiplayer being a mess.
Do I score a game based on how it achieves its aims. Or do I score a game based on how much I enjoyed it? That is the conflict.
Ultimatly, for me, gaming is a subjective entertainment format and ill score the game based on the simple question of how much did I enjoy it. In this instance I enjoyed it a ton but im not a man that thrives on multiplayer. I can survive without it.
If you are someone that comes to Ghosts expecting a multiplayer romp, or even a basic set of features that make it easy to race with your friends, well you wont have such a good time.
If you are someone who grew up playing R4 and understands the appeal of fitting cars through gaps 1% larger than you at four times the speed limit, well, you’re going to have a good time.
