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[RipperGrim]

EA publisher meddling (Ghost/Criterion has the talent for racing games), and trying to define what NFS is is the problem. NFS as a series now serves too many masters: open world/closed circuit, fmv/no frills story, customization, limited setup, full arcade to semi-sim. I honestly don't think anyone can win making an NFS.

The most frustrating thing about nfs is that you most certainly can win making an NFS game. The potential is right there in the reviews, it's fun but completely stupid design decision are blocking it, always online,no manual and aggressive rubber banding are just stupid decisions to make for a modern driving game and ones that are easy to avoid.

 

[Synth]

Just give us a remaster of the 2005 version of Most Wanted already FFS.

Fuck that. Give us a remaster of Need for Speed Underground. I want a Need for Speed without the bloody cop chases for once.

 

[Acquiescence]

"This game did not need to be always online."

Basically.

We can only hope this game bombs like a mofo so as to really drive home the point to EA that they should not indulge in these shitty practices any longer.

 

[User 479360]

I don't see this one posted

We Got This Covered - 3/5

 

[Always-honest]

i'd like the cars and customisation, but in a Paradise kind off game..

 

[#sorrynotsorry]

The rubber banding isn't as bad as these reviews make it seem and it does work in your favor as well. It's definitely there, but I haven't lost a single race due to it. It keeps the tension up. I like it.

 

[desu]

EA publisher meddling (Ghost/Criterion has the talent for racing games), and trying to define what NFS is is the problem. NFS as a series now serves too many masters: open world/closed circuit, fmv/no frills story, customization, limited setup, full arcade to semi-sim. I honestly don't think anyone can win making an NFS.

I personally don't think that this is the problem. All of the last games seem to be riddled with weird design choices and this game fits in perfectly. That's why I was wondering if this is EA meddling with the game design or the studios simply not having it to make a proper game (lack of resources/time mit also factor into this).

 

[User 479360]

The rubber banding isn't as bad as these reviews make it seem and it does work in your favor as well. It's definitely there, but I haven't lost a single race due to it. It keeps the tension up. I like it.

It's pretty bad at times

 

[Enter The 36 Chambers]

Framerate, always online, no drag racing, Always night time.. I can forgive.

No drift mode or manual transmission is a fucking travesty. What the actual fuck

 

[Arttemis]

Framerate, always online, no drag racing, Always night time.. I can forgive.

No drift mode or manual transmission is a fucking travesty. What the actual fuck

How can you forgive the always online in this game? It's a publisher enforced restriction without any justification that provides zero benefits to the player and actually removes features like pause.

Also, the lack of drag racing in an Underground / Fast and Furious game is ridiculous.

 

[Valkrai]

Jesus, I was excited for this game. I've been wanting it to be like Underground 2 but it sounds like a train wreck from impressions. At least customization still looks pretty cool.

 

[Gamezone]

To be honest I didn't really expect reviews to hammer the always online crap, but almost review is writing about it in some negative way, even though Ghost Games and EA tried spoke of the awsome benefits.

No pause is probably the worst thing. With kids under the roof it's pretty much impossible for me to enjoy something without this function.

 

[iratA]

I don't really mind either of those, considering it's an arcade racer and nighttime thing just seems to be a part of the vibe they're going for. The bigger problem is with how it's online only without there being any need for it to be.

Bingo. Also a weird decision considering Battlefront (also EA) even has offline solo modes.

 

[MDSLKTR]

I really wanted this but will wait for a price drop and hopefully some goodwill patches

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Actually getting some better reviews than I thought so far. Interesting how negativity towards the always online stuff seems pretty widespread in the reviews.

 

[scitek]

Criterion are more of a skeleton crew these days.
The head guys left to form a new studio and I think some of the rest of them were moved to Ghost Games.

From what I remember Alex Ward (I think it was) saying, Criterion now consists of about 17 people. The rest are now at Ghost Games.

 

[Gaz_RB]

With NaNoWriMo, Fallout, and Battlefront, I'm gonna have to wait to a price drop on this one.

 

[Arttemis]

Interesting how negativity towards the always online stuff seems pretty widespread in the reviews.

I would be shocked if it didn't. They literally provided no justification for it. It's 110% unnecessary.

 

[User 479360]

What did you guys think of Rivals? I thought it had been received poorly, but it doesn't seem that way.

I picked it up for a week not too long ago and played through it. It was pretty fun, although it had some frustrating elements. I had high hopes for this one as a result.

The cops and nitrous felt so much better in Rivals.

 

[Tunned]

Shame the game turned out this way, it had so much potential, good thing I learned to keep my expectations in check for new NFS games, so i'm not that disappointed.

I'll go back to my beloved Driveclub, at least it's the only racing game that gets close to the original TNFS (p2p races, track racing, exotic cars racing in exotic locations).

 

[Volotaire]

Giantbomb 2/5

 

[immortal-joe]

How in the world did they think having no manual transmission was ok?

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Giantbomb 2/5

Damn, I know people say Jeff seems down on games these days, but regardless, he just laid into this one. The technical problems he describes sounds pretty embarrassing.

 

[Revven]

Giantbomb 2/5

Holy moly. That's low. Like I knew Jeff wasn't really into it based on the Quick Look but I didn't think he'd give it a 2!

*Reads*

 

[level1]

Did I understand the ign review correctly? Is there no matchmaking?

 

[RE_Player]

The Gamespot review does not read like a 8/10.

 

[jesu]

Did I understand the ign review correctly? Is there no matchmaking?

Yip, no PvP matchmaking, no lobbies, just randomly asking people to race with you and hope they accept.
That's my main problem with the game.

Here is how Giantbomb described it

Multiplayer has been a great part of Need for Speed games in the past, and the challenges the player must face to even put a multiplayer event together seem insurmountable when you're playing with strangers. The game really just needs some kind of standard hopper system that takes players from one event to the next. Instead, the game has a function that seems to let you invite members of your "crew" to a race, but beyond getting a group together in one multiplayer world and attempting to "invite crew" (which was fruitless), there's no easy way to just get a multiplayer race together. Who thought this was a good way to organize things? It's a mess.

 

[Insane Metal]

Giantbomb 2/5

LMAO. "This is a car."

It's also a technical mess. Playing on the Xbox One, the game seemed to run worse and worse as I got into faster and faster cars. The game seizes up frequently, mid-race, textures load in late, and the weather and time of day seem to pop in and out. Car purchases seem to ping an online server when you make them, leaving me in a situation where the game took my in-game currency away, but didn't actually give me the BMW I was trying to acquire, a problem that persisted until I dug into the settings menu and uncovered the "play alone" option.

Damn.

 

[Big Green Anus]

I see EA killing this franchise as a Console game and making it mobile only

 

[Brian_FETO]

The thing that kills me is that there's no other games to fill this niche anymore.

I think I'll pick it up just to at least play through once, but I'll definitely have my expectations in check...

Beta was good fun but seems like there's just not a lot of lasting appeal. I barely did any events in the beta, just drifted around the city and had a good time doing that. Only night time/rainy isn't an issue for me, it's my favorite aesthetic (and I don't use manual so that's a non-issue) but rubberbanding, performance issues, and always online hassles are a bummer

Reviews with heavily negative views of the cutscenes are a bit surprising to me (especially the Videogamer review) just because it's all in good fun and are very well done from a technical standpoint. They're of course dumb as fuck, and I know not everyone is gonna buy into the "so bad it's good" mentality, but seems a bit odd to get hung up on. I infinitely prefer this approach to the idiotic "Grr I'm going undercover to avenge my brother's death and take down this illegal street racing ring" serious take

Phone calls were def excessive though in the beta. "Will call again later"

 

[MaceTheDon]

Not surprising tbh, but didn't expect this many lukewarm reviews. ouch!

 

[sems4arsenal]

We need a new Midnight club

 

[DOWN]

Updated with all the reviews I've seen posted and Meta score

 

[Karak]

Updated with all the reviews I've seen posted and Meta score

Thanks Down.

This is the first time i have been really disappointed in game fans. The number of death threats, sexual assualt threats, and absolutely insane commentary on the review pages blows my mind.

I also wish I was better as an investigator. One strange series of comments from a specific youtuber with a series of fake links on their youtube pages, makes me think they were a developer. Lots of "Thanks for fighting for the title. Worked hard on it." or "Appreciate the kind words about the game."
I mean...that sounds oddly like someone involved. When confronted they didn't answer about it.

 

[ReturnOfTheRAT]

Giantbomb 2/5

I hate what EA has done with Need For Speed. They had such a great run. Each year you just had to buy the game for the new tricks they had up their sleeves. I fucking raced Escalade's man! now look at what they've done. It's so disappointing.

I won't even be tempted to purchase it when it's heavily discounted on Black Friday.

Spoiler

Primarily because there won't be any digital download deals.

 

[psylah]

Hold on, no manual transmission?

What? Goddamn it.

 

[Saty]

There's a possibility this will end with a lower average than The Run.

 

[Karak]

Hold on, no manual transmission?

What? Goddamn it.

Here is the worse problem. The automatic doesn't work right and there are videos everywhere of the cars not shifting down in many areas resulting in incredibly slow times depending on the location. Its actually missing manual and handles Automatically poorly as well.

 

[psylah]

Here is the worse problem. The automatic doesn't work right and there are videos everywhere of the cars not shifting down in many areas resulting in incredibly slow times depending on the location. Its actually missing manual and handles Automatically poorly as well.

Alright, maybe I can still enjoy playing dress-up with the cars...

 

[Gamezone]

Hold on, no manual transmission?

What? Goddamn it.

The game is obviously meant to be very "arcade". Dashboard view and manual transmission was something they were able to pull off in the 90`s.

 

[User 479360]

I'd think it would be difficult to use a manual transmission in a game where you go from 0-60, or even 100+, so quickly. It's like you're driving a rocket sometimes.

Then again, I've never been a manual transmission person in games.

 

[shandy706]

The game seizes up frequently, mid-race, textures load in late, and the weather and time of day seem to pop in and out. Car purchases seem to ping an online server when you make them, leaving me in a situation where the game took my in-game currency away, but didn't actually give me the BMW I was trying to acquire, a problem that persisted until I dug into the settings menu and uncovered the "play alone" option.

Yikes!

 

[eksy]

Check the User Reviews on Metacritic. Some of the 10s are obviously shills to swing the metric up. There one person that even makes a comment of it in one User Review... glad it wasn't just me that noticed this.

 

[User 479360]

LMAO. "This is a car."

Yeah, that was funny.

It's hard to really disagree with Jeff. He disliked it more than I did, but his complaints are valid.

I played an 8 minute session with several others at E3 and had a lot of fun, but the full version didn't end up as well as I'd hoped and expected.

It's not a bad game, it's just ho-hum.

 

[UberTag]

EA has destroyed countless developers and franchises in the past.
Don't see why we ever expected Criterion to be an exception to that rule.

Hopefully gamers will make a statement with their wallets here but I highly doubt it.

 

[Lebneney]

It's pretty bad at times

I was able to be in the closed beta of this game and from all of the release videos I've seen and reviews that I've read, they haven't fixed a damn thing from it. It is truly horrendous rubber-banding and I made sure to mention that to EA in their post-beta survey. It is a ridicule to my driving that the AI comes and speeds past me without nitrous when I am half-a-mile ahead. It's really a shame that Ghost messed this up. Sometimes, to be honest, I feel that Ghost had a fantastic idea and then EA executives were like that's cute, threw away the idea, and proceeded to say "make it purty"... seriously frustrating. Oh and just to add, this "rubber-banding" does not only happen in races, with drifting events, you might want to retry because you got 2nd with a score of 20,000, so you do and the second time you kill it and get a score of 50,000! There is no way that the AI beat you especially because the first time 1st place was only 30,000... THINK AGAIN! THAT AI M*****F***** GOT 70,000! That was the point in which I deleted the beta and was like nope...

We need a new Midnight club

I made sure to highlight that in the post-beta survey that they had. I was like, "This game is a watered-down version of Midnight Club: Los Angeles from Rockstar Games. It takes the concept of that game, improves the graphics, and strips all of the features. Also there is nothing to do. At least in Midnight Club, I am able to pull up to a stoplight and burnout to initiate a race without any loading screens. Plus in Midnight Club I'm able to choose my own path to go from point A to point B, while this game forces me to specifically take one route.

 

[TGO]

The lack of any drag racing in Need for Speed seems like a misguided omission.

This, also when you press NOS button I expect to be greeted by blistering speed and special effects.
They had one job, and the fact this is made by the Burnout team makes no sense.

 

[ViciousDS]

This, also when you press NOS button I expect to be greeted by blistering speed and special effects.
They had one job, and the fact this is made by the Burnout team makes no sense.

Surprise!...........its not made by the Burnout team

 

[RipperGrim]

Here is the worse problem. The automatic doesn't work right and there are videos everywhere of the cars not shifting down in many areas resulting in incredibly slow times depending on the location. Its actually missing manual and handles Automatically poorly as well.

That is insane.

 

[Mayjaplaya]

This, also when you press NOS button I expect to be greeted by blistering speed and special effects.
They had one job, and the fact this is made by the Burnout team makes no sense.

I feel like this game is a little schizophrenic in the realism front. The NOS graphics are realistically subtle but weak, all the graphics feel like they have the filters/processing of a cell phone camera or GoPro (which I hate), there's that stupid story, and you can make any car drifty or grippy with a single slider.