Intro Welcome to the skilled channel and today we're
looking at Need For Speed.
Need For Speed packs in the same high action racing on the frostbite engine in an open
world integrating live action cutscenes to tell the story.
It's an ambitious attempt to combine car culture, arcade racing, and live action.
Is Need For Speed a seamless thrill ride or do these ambitious attempts at creating an
interactive racer fall flat?
Let's find out in the Need For Speed review.
Story Need for Speed takes place in the fictional
west coast USA city of Ventura Bay, which has a downtown, a harbour, and various canyons.
It's based off of California, but it's also designed to have its own unique look.
In Need For Speed, your character is joining an underground racing crew to took over Ventura
Bay's street scene one race at a time.
You meet the local racers and the icons which represent a racing style and a type of progression
for your career.
The story is told through phone conversations and live action cutscenes.
Each of the Icon drivers have unique personalities that you would find in an underground racing
scene and the dynamic between them is interesting.
The characters address the camera directly as if it was you, the player, standing right
in front of them.
Gameplay Need For Speed plays fast and loose just as
you would expect from the series.
Competition is tight even when you are cruising in high speeds during races.
Races get hectic when you are dodging traffic, potentially aggravating cops, and still trying
to outperform your opponents.
Story missions are broken up into different categories.
Speed has you competing in time trials for fastest completion time.
Crew has you driving in a pack and outperforming the competition.
Style is based around drifting perfectly around corners.
And Outlaw requires you to bait and escape from the cops.
You progress individually in these categories and as a whole with the reputation system.
This lets you unlock upgrades and give you an overall score of your performance and completion
of the game.
Drifting is a big part of street racing and this game.
It's something that has a strong learning curve and you will have to keep modifying
your approach whenever you change cars or parts.
The drifting missions often have you racing alongside other opponents, but the goal is
actually to earn more style points.
I actually find most of the drift missions to be very easy to win, but it's more about
teaching you how to drift when it's necessary during races.
Because it does come in handy.
Car customization isn't just for personal experience, it's to help you win races.
Since some missions are based on speed while others are based on style you'll need to adjust
your car for grip or drifting.
Every car handles differently and every adjustment makes a big difference on performance.
I found myself tweaking constantly to squeeze the right amount of speed and control out.
And if you ignore this system you will run into problems.
Visual customization is fun even if you aren't a gearhead.
You can change almost every individual part of the car.
You can customize your paint job and even apply decals if you want then save it into
individual layouts.
Police will interrupt your races periodically but you can easily lose the heat if you outrun
them or sneak away from them.
And when you take on the outlaw missions, outrunning the cops is part of your objective.
Although the police chases are downplayed compared to previous games like Most Wanted,
it fits in well with the game without being distracting.
Graphics Need For Speed runs on the Frostbite engine
which always knows how to make a game look attractive.
The game is highly stylized with cars looking slick and the environment looking very detailed.
Since the game takes place entirely at night, headlights and streetlights really stand out
with their bloom effect.
Cars are really fantastic to look at and you can see all the details of your customization
throughout your playthrough.
Sound Another big highlight of the frostbite engine
is the sound.
Every car has a distinct sound.
Even engine upgrades have an audible difference.
Positional audio lets you hear cars coming from all directions.
The music fits the tone for the most part except for a handful of really obnoxious tracks.
Negatives This game introduce a new style of storytelling
in racing games.
But with the way the live actions cutscenes are directed, it does not tell a cohesive
story.
Characters speak directly into the camera as if you were standing there.
But there's no response, so it becomes awkward.
It's not a proper dialogue and it's also not a monologue so what is it?
Everything is from a point of view perspective or POV.
Both POV and actors speaking directly into the camera is rarely used in movies and television
and it's usually to convey something very specific.
To have this happen throughout the entire game is boring to watch.
There's no editing.
On top of that the scenes don't really convey anything.
They're just celebrations after the race.
There's really no progression of narrative.
And worst of all the product placement is extreme.
It's understandable that a publisher wants to include product placement, but this is
over the top.
Tons of cutscenes have monster energy drinks.
There's a character wearing a monster jacket, a monster hat, drinking from a monster can.
There's a toast with all members including the camera man, who is supposed to be you,
drinking monster.
Watching this takes you out completely out of the game world.
Need For Speed requires you to always be online to play.
You don't need premium subscriptions like PS PLUS, but you must have an active internet
connection.
The purpose of this is for the ALLDRIVE system which let's players dynamically jump in and
out of your game.
And it enables some social sharing of screenshots.
For some reason, you also can't pause the game.
No matter what menu you bring up the game doesn't stop running.
In my playthrough I never understood why this was necessary.
I never needed other players to complete any objectives and although there were side objectives
based around gathering screenshots, it's not integral to the gameplay.
Always online is a barrier to entry for a lot of players and is unnecessary in this
game.
I played on the Xbox One version which runs in 900p resolution and has some really bad
pop ins.
It's a shame because the frostbite engine looks very attractive, but the Xbox One can't
keep up.
In addition I experienced some serious slowdowns that resulted in the game stuttering during
high impact moments later in the game.
This didn't occur until I had the fastest cars in the game, but when it did happen it
was a big problem.
Your milage may vary on this one, but framerate slowdowns in a game based on max speed is
a big problem.
Almost every arcade racer suffers from this, but yet again we have to bring it up.
Rubber band AI.
Even when driving the fastest car in the game fully upgraded, the AI would always catch
up to me.
This breaks the seamless nature of racing and decreases the significance of developing
your skill.
Final Verdict Need For Speed is a lot of fun for players
who enjoy arcade racers.
It took me about 16 hours to complete and I blasted my way through the story missions.
Some levels are very challenging while others are more about cruising through Ventura Bay.
However, the technical problems and the lack of cohesive storytelling are enough to break
the experience.
The weak cutscenes, the graphics slowdown, and the always online requirement prevent
the game from being a seamless experience.
Need For Speed is a game that you might want to wait until it's on sale to pickup.
The game gets a 6.5 out of 10.
It's fun racing your favorite sports cars in Ventura Bay, but there's a lot of hiccups
along the way.
What do you think about the direction that the Need For Speed series is heading in?
Let us know in the comments and subscribe to the skilled channel for more fun game reviews.
Negatives Cutscene Directing
Always Online Graphics Performance
Rubber Band AI
Positives Fun Racing
Frostbite Engine