I ended up liking this. It’s a shame the trial kicks you out of SP when it ends. I think I preferred it to Forza Horizon 5, which was the last racer I played. Chicago seemed more visually dense than the Mexican desert, with its looping freeways and urban detail. I could be misremembering. In FH I also don’t remember it mattering if you couldn’t keep on the road - you just mowed down a swathe of cacti and kept on trucking. Here, although many obstacles disappear in a puff of debris, I could still prang myself on a pillar or something fairly often.
There was also no HUD driving line, unlike FH or FH the way I had it set up, which took me out of the setting less. The map was not a sea of icons, and I really liked the way the DPad would easily let you switch to the route to the next race or back home, and how choosing a race from your safehouse would start a route from the nearest safehouse. Some helpful intelligence from the UI, rather than a map as a menu with 100 choices on it.
The handling was the big weirdness at first, but it seemed to get better, either as I did, or the car did. Music didn’t do anything for me but it never does :)
Thumbs up.
Started playing this over the weekend a couple of hours in. I really appreciate the risk reward gameplay that is prominent throughout the game. Basically every aspect of the game has a push your luck element to it. Do another race but risk getting caught by the cops? Use one of your only four retries on this race or safe it up for the night races? The list goes on. For once the game is actually challenging on the difficulty that carries that name. I don’t think I even won a race straight up first place yet.
Anyone else struggling with getting through the first qualifier? I have a A car at the very top of the A rating (upgraded my original tier B) but I just can’t seem to not be eliminated in the second race for qualification. Not sure what to do now, the game bumps you back one day but I’m wondering if I should start over completely?
Don’t think I ever got that far. My chances of qualifying for anything would not have been high :)
You never got beyond the first week?
I actually expected the game to just reset to the beginning of the week if you fail to qualify. Now I’m in this really weird loop with being bumped back to friday with my money in the bank. This gives me a chance to grind for money but it feels really gamey.
It’s interesting that you just assume that the game is tuned really hard. You might be right. I haven’t played this NFS yet, but I played the previous one, NFS Heat, I believe it was called, and I had the same problem as you, I just couldn’t win a race to save my life. And it really seemed like the game expected me to win the race. So my assumption was that I just didn’t understand NFS physics well enough to win in the game. It’s not like real racing, it’s physics is its own special thing you have to try to grok. And I just couldn’t, so I gave up.
I had similar problems with earlier NFS titles. I do well in Forza games, NFS Shift, Gran Turismo and other titles that try to emulate real life physics, but throw me in an arcade race like NFS and Blur, and I just scratch my head at why I can’t win races.
It feels like my car is underpowered somehow like maybe I should have bought a fresh one instead of upgrading my original ride to the next class. Who knows! I’m not super bad at racing or anything. Maybe I played it safe too much and I should have pushed my luck by buying in to more risky races earlier.
Hey! I’m not bad at racing either! Only Need For Speed recently. :)
I’ll try to get to the 10 hour trial tonight to see what’s what with this particular game. It’s getting very good reviews.
Haha I wasn’t implying you are bad at racing. I remember you beating my time trials in drive club back in the day!
So I managed to grind myself out of the situation I was stuck on. My advice here would be to not start off the game by upgrading your B rated car to an A rated car for the first qualifier. Once I actually bought a new A rated car the qualifier became a breeze even though it had a lower rating than my upgraded car.
I’m now making my way through the second week. The environment is starting to get a bit dull. Lakeshore just doesn’t have a much variety in terms of views. But I’m enjoying the racing well enough to stick with it.
40% off at Epic already - $32.
40% off at Steam as well. $42.
I finally got around to trying this game last night and this morning.
I’m surprised, but I really enjoyed it so far. With the previous game, NFS Heat, the fact that I couldn’t win the first race and kept trying over and over and tore my hair out wondering what I was doing wrong was a determent to the game. In this one, the fact that I’ve done 6 races now, and had 10 retries, and I still haven’t won a single race counts in its favor because this time all the reviews are mentioning that this is a tough game, and it’s hard to win. So there’s nothing wrong with me, the game is supposed to be tough, and it fits well with the story so far.
I’m also really enjoying the music, none of which I’m familiar with. I’m also really digging the graphics and presentation on the Series X. It’s a beautiful game. Plus I really love that someone is in the car with you. What a brilliant way to do story without interrupting the gameplay with cutscenes and such. Just have someone in the car with you who is talking while you’re driving to your next destination. Brilliant.
I’m also really liking the look of the cars themselves. All the “bling” enhancements on the cars from other racers, for once it actually looks good to me, which I don’t think has happened before in these kinds of games.
Anyway, I’ve only played an hour, but I’m impressed so far.
So how is the physics? Honestly, I’m not sure yet. It seems to be a more realistic physics this time, which is a plus in my book. But I’m not 100% sure yet. It seems like sliding around slows you down a lot, like it does in real life, but also earns you nitrous, so you can boost your way back to full speed, which is a neat way to handle it.
Another sale, down to $34.99.
I haven’t run out my 10 hours yet as part of the EA Play trial, but I’m still enjoying it when I get to play it. Criterion did a good job on this one.
This is showing as $28 for me this week. I think that includes a Game Pass discount plus a sale.
Lowest price ever, $20.99. Might bite.
It’s now included in the Xbox Game Pass for 10€ I’m going to play it a bit. I’ve never fully finished racing games, always kinda lose the interest half way in. So for a tenner, it will be good, I guess.
It requires to install the EA (Origin) Launcher and link your Xbox account to it.
Followup with initial impressions: Feels actually pretty good. The engine is snappy and doesn’t burden my 2080TI too much (but seems to be locked at 60fps? correction: it’s self adjusting to keep 60fps).
It feels like NFS Underground but with more bubblegum flavor - which is pretty nice for an arcardy “car goes wroom wroom” game.
Made it through the SP. Had a lot of fun, though I was ready for it to be over. I could have done fewer races I suppose but I didn’t have a good handle on how much cash I would need until towards the end.
First game to make me kind of grasp all this B/A/A+/S/S+ malarkey, and how the upgrades worked too. Well done EA for making a non-overwhelming race game for people like me :)
