Kawasaki integrated tail light

Crash, into me…

Like any good racer, the Need for Speed franchise never stops moving. They’ve come a long way since the early ’90s, though the last few years’ releases have been more about refinement of the formula than anything else, moving more towards an open world structure.

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The latest in the franchise, Need for Speed: Rivals, takes a big step by going all-in on one mode that combines a single-player campaign with online multiplayer. The rest — including the cops, the cars, và the crashing — stay the same. In a sense, they’ve made it so players can jump in and go fast without having khổng lồ worry about the details.

And it’s all the better for it.

Between the story progression, the tốc độ lists, và AllDrive, you’re never at a loss for what to vày next. You can keep your head down và keep lớn yourself if you’d like, but I found that openly engaging other racers makes for a much better time. As nicely done as Rivals‘ mở cửa world is, it wouldn’t be nearly as exciting without real racers zipping around you as you try lớn run from the cops. For the most part, it gets rid of its predecessors’ scripted races & messy multiplayer, giving you kích hoạt that feels more real. AllDrive is the real deal, and it makes for some pretty lively gameplay.

As great as the open world và its always-online connectivity are, there are a few speed bumps in Rivals‘ game balance. While the cop chiến dịch is mostly problem free, racers’ patience will be tried with some supremely frustrating thiết kế choices. While both cops & racers earn speed Points for completing challenges, racers are always at risk of losing their earnings at any time. Cop busts or full wrecks will drain all of a racer’s earnings; the only way to ensure keeping these points is to race to lớn a hideout to lớn ‘bank’ earnings before being busted.

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There are a couple of other design holdouts from Most Wanted that they still need lớn fix. When you need to set a waypoint most — during a pursuit where you’re in danger of losing all of your speed Points — Rivals’ conveniences no longer feel convenient. You can use either the EasyDrive mini menu by tapping the d-pad, or the overworld map, by pushing the Option button. Either has you taking your eyes off the road when you should be going full speed. With no way to stop and look, you’re going khổng lồ either crash or get busted. There’s nothing even close to a pause button.

The mini-map is pathetically small, poorly placed, & barely usable. Just lượt thích with Most Wanted, it’s too far away from the kích hoạt in the bottom left corner khổng lồ look at, which means you’ll have to take your eyes off the road khổng lồ know where khổng lồ go. Doing so at 200 miles per hour never ends well — và with that kind of speed you’re actually out-driving the map! The colored path lines are slow lớn appear anyway, but at that speed they appear far too late. Worst of all, the range the map displays is too restricted, leaving you unsure of what’s ahead until its too late. Ghost Games have added street-level graphical indicators lớn help guide you in the right direction, but they’re hard lớn see, và they still don’t give enough of a clear view of where you need khổng lồ be going.

That all said, I want to lớn thank Ghost Games for dialing back the crash animations. In Most Wanted, they lasted so long that it felt lượt thích the game was making fun of you for losing, and were sometimes so disorienting that I had lớn look away. In Rivals, they’re big and flashy, but not drawn out.

Even with the balance issues and design missteps, Need for Speed: Rivals is a blast. Literally. Plowing into cops to lớn watch them explode off the side of the road as you zip by is never not fun. So is blasting them with EMP to watch them flip in the air. Và through AllDrive’s connectivity, I loved being able lớn race up alongside someone and mash L1 lớn instantly challenge them to lớn a head-to-head showdown. Ramping jumps, drift contests, dodging tốc độ traps — it’s all a blast. There’s simply too much fun to be had here to lớn get hung up on the gripes.

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Just be sure to lớn take breaks when playing the racer campaign, as the grind, and the suicidal cops can wear on you.