10 hours of a game pass trial is a very generous offer considering you need exactly 5 minutes hands-on to realize there's just not much to experience here. A street racing game that leans heavily into hip-hop culture would be a treat but instead it immediately commits Forza Horizon 5's cardinal sin of having a person constantly talk in your ears establishing how relatable and hip they are, while the painter tag SFX gimmick is exactly that — a gimmick, and could as well be a mutator in virtually anything else.

What's left? The most cookie cutter seventh gen open world racer you've seen. Doesn't feel good ripping it a new one considering the car handling is competent enough and there are at least glints of fresh appearance, but if you're a regular on this website you definitely played this game already.

Dipped into trial. Drifting model doesn't feel great. Can't remap controls, and not going to retrain my brain to gearshift with bumpers. I like the art style and the characters/story really have some kind of soul to them, especially after playing Forza Horizon 5. Another game like Gotham Knights (and maybe Deathloop) with an interesting take on a structured day/night game cycle. Build "heat" during the day by taking on races/activities to earn money, which makes night races more difficult, but you can't bank the money until after completing the night section.

It was Hot Pursuit (2010). That was the last time I can say I really cared for a need for speed game, with each one after being met with somewhat apathy. "Oh a new need for speed cameout? That's cool I guess" was my usual response to each new ad I'd see for 12 years. Then this game gets announced. Just a trailer and a "comes out in two months btw." With an art style very striking and does interest me but I was still wearingly interested because of how these games have turned out. Game comes out to absolutely no press, the worst part of this game was marketing. Damn does it feel like EA did not want this game to succeed. So when it came to releasing I saw a clip on twitter of somebody playing it and I went "it's out?". I rented the game because I was still not sure on the full 70$ but if you have the money it is a BIG recommend. With some of the best soundtrack choices I've heard in a game in a while, with an atmosphere that tracks, and oh my god I love the style the game goes for. This is what I needed Horizon to have. Horizon 5 is my favorite racing game ever but it was always super clean in it's presentation since the first game. Nothing too special kinda felt like "yea this is all just normal racing but in pretty setpieces." To the actual stakes to police chases? A game with actual stakes to getting caught by the cops (losing money is really fucking tough)? To the pretty tough reset system so you have to be on top of your game to make sure you get the winning pot of money. With the albeit can be pretty corny dialogue which at the end of the day, is better than anything in Horizon. The story pretty cheesy along with the dialogue just felt like home to me. It felt like Underground and it felt like Most Wanted. This is Underground 2 if it was made today. I clocked in at about 26 hours which I enjoyed all of. Please if you can pickup this game and show that Need For Speed needed this direction for the future. I am now back on the nfs train and I want to see what Criterion can make next with Codemasters helping them now.

The customization is great. Burst NOS is an engaging mechanic. Sense of speed is good. The art direction is stunning. And while the narrative can be really jarring with it's "criminal negligence? oh yeah? well the mayor is corrupt!" scapegoat whataboutism, and being talked at in interview form by ASAP Rocky phoning it in as hard as possible, there are genuinely wholesome moments. I'd be lying if I said if it wasn't fun but it just does not reach the glory days of this franchise. OG most wanted had more organic car chases, more ways to interact with cops, to not aggro them, to give them the slip. Wipeout wasn't nearly as aggressive causing you to take more risky and in turn fun maneuvers to further incentivize cop chase craziness. The open world here is tacked on and vapid. The multiplayer is filled with bad balance, and as the meta develops, the game will suffer. People that are hyping this game up have either forgotten how good 2000s era of street racing was or just haven't played it. We're suffering from a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome. Master has finally thrown us a bone and we worship them for it as we completely neglect what we had beforehand.

Further iterations of video games are supposed to get better. Not worse and more expensive.

Bits and pieces of this are pretty interesting, and I'm happy to see (between this and Heat) those running the NFS series identify the open space for a racing game that leans hard into the spectacle of street racing. Heat felt like EA (and Ghost Games) dipping their toes in the water, and this feels more like jumping right in - a greater commitment to a street art aesthetic, streetwear, music (didn't really expect to hear clipping. on a Need for Speed soundtrack), the whole nine. Does it work? Kinda.

It's definitely the closest thing to NFS Underground that has existed since the release of those games, and I do genuinely believe that the cel-shaded style of the people (and some mid-race effects) works really well to give the game some character. There's still a feeling of sanding off the rough edges that might scare off the suits, but overall it feels like the developers have tried to make something that they think is cool, and they are a lot closer to the mark than most AAA games get. I do wish they cut back on the talking - especially notable is the fact that the game alludes to municipal politics WAY more than you'd expect from a game that is trying to be trendy, but if it surprises you that "the mayor fucking HATES racing" is a plot point in a Need for Speed game, then I'm not really sure what to tell you.

I don't really want to hype this up too much - your car typically feels like the tires are made of either ice or glue, the game itself often looks fuzzy due to the way effects/filters are used, and even gentle curves often require that you hit the brakes pretty hard - but the core is pretty interesting and I'd really like to see them try to build on what's here for future games. Right now the game simply cares too much to be truly cool, but they're on the right track for giving modern NFS an identity separate from other big-name racing series. I still kinda hate the way cars handle in the newer NFS iterations, but I'm seeing a lot of people offering praise for that specific element of the NFS Unbound experience, so maybe in a few years we'll see this franchise (re-)develop an even larger, dedicated audience of people who are less interested in sleek, unmodified hypercars and more interested in turning the car itself into a form of expression all its own.

I probably won't get to finish this anytime soon since my EA Play 10 hour trial is going to run out and I bought more than enough games right now, but let me just say this: This is easily the best NFS game since 2012's Most Wanted (which is funny since Criterion made that one too), which is a game I immensely loved.

The progression system in this game is quite smart. It adds stakes by having a time limit of preparing your cars so they can be optimal in the main tournament, but it also lets you tackle this preparation stage to your liking. You can take risks by doing a lot of races in quick successions and attracting pigs to your tail, and the game does a good job of incentivizing it. Not to mention the game limiting the number of restarts you can do, and adding the ability to do side bets with other racers, making the core gameplay loop more dynamic and active.

Another well thought out aspect of the game is the boost mechanic. You'll get a normal nitrous thing that works like in pretty much almost every other arcade racing game, but there's another boost thingy that only adds up when you do certain actions like drafting, jumping off a ramp or doing near misses, and this bar will drop quickly if you don't keep doing those actions, so it rewards both smart and flashy plays, and at the same time adds a more aggressive touch to the overall gameplay.

Lastly, the style of the game is quite sublime. The graphics almost looks photorealistic at times, and yet there's the eyecatching cell shaded character models and cartoony visual effects that contrasts each other in a exciting way. I also like the soundtrack quite a bit, it certainly strengthens the vibes that the game is going for.

Unless the game takes a massive nose dive later on, I can't see this going lower than a 4 stars so that's what I'll give it for now.

The best NFS in over 15 years. It borrows elements from every title since Underground 2 and blends them all together to make a title that has the most satisfying gameplay and progression in uh, maybe the whole franchise? The story is appropriately goofy and corny, as it's an exaggerated love letter to modern car culture. The devs have clearly been keeping up with Gen Z tiktok tuner clout culture and poke fun at it while still keeping its better elements intact. As a longtime NFS fan and a car person, this satisfied an itch I've had for almost 20 years.

The most important part of the game, which is the handling is spot on, fantastic, mostly grip but some drift is good in some close corners, and some of the main mechanics like risk reward with money, the cops, coupled with the race requrements at the end of the week makes the first hours fantastic, i remember fucking up and getting caught on the second day of the first in-game week and loosing a ton of money and having to strategize how im going to upgrade the car, what races would i participate in, where i use my 2 available race restarts and being extremely tense when running the cops with a lot of money on hand.

Said that this game took me 30 hours to complete and basically the last 20 hours werent nearly as great and the last 10 were an obligation to finish the game, i didnt have a bad time since handling is fantastic, but all the difficulty wears off extremely quickly: while being in a slow car and inexperinced, having to deal with a level 5 heat is hard as balls and an achievent to make it out alive, with a fast car and understanding how the AI works, cops are just a chore; when you understand the best path to upgrade and buy cars, money transforms overtime from a strategy game to an acumulating pile of numbers like every AAA ever does, and in races, where I sweated and celebrated my first victory after the prologe since money was hard and you never had a fast car compared to your oponents, I ended up almost lapping A$AP Rocky in a 3 lap race to take his car in one of teh last races of the campaign, kinda like the Dark Souls 1 experience but in this game is waaaaaaaay worse, i played on the hardest difficulty btw.

Every game doesnt need to be extremely mechanically profound or anything like that, but if you main story is around 25 to 35 hours long to beat, as a designer, you cannot expect the player to have the same level of challenge if you havent made any single change to the game through it, in the original Most Wanted police heat levels werent all unlocked from the start so the high heats didnt have to be tuned down so you could escape in your Civic and you also didnt have as much time to learn how they work, level 6 heat only apears at the end of Most Wanted!, also with giving full map access at the start, 30 hours to learn how something works is a fuck ton of hours

I think i will come back to this game with a difficulty mod where requirements are higher, you have less days to meet those requirements or/and there arent races where you win cars

Unbound is a good Need for Speed game. It has a really cool visual style and distinct identity. Most importantly, the handling is good and responsive which makes it fun to play.

The more hours I played, I did have several nitpicks. The gameplay loop gets repetitive and there isn't much variety in event types or race routes. About halfway through the story mode, it really starts to feel like a grind. The cops play a major role in the gameplay and their presence is excessive at times. It's a Need for Speed game, so it's somewhat expected, but I'd like to see the next game take things in a different direction.

For a modern open world racing game, there are certain quality of life features missing like fast travel to events, rewinds, and an optional racing line. Fortunately, Unbound has three difficulty modes. While I didn't have too much trouble or frustration on Relaxed (easy) mode, it's one of the most challenging "easy" modes I can recall. The game is not very forgiving and one little mistake can cost you a race and force you to restart.

All that said, I still liked the game. The customization is great, and there are a lot of optional challenges and scavenger hunts in the open world if you feel inclined. Unbound is a step in the right direction and a strong foundation to build on going forward.

I genuinely don't understand why so many people are being so weirdly negative about this game. It is, in my opinion, the best NFS game. Period. I feel like a lot of people are just mad that the game has an artstyle instead of just going for realism like every other racing game ever made.

Also people complaining about cringe dialogue, did y'all even play the other games? NFS has always been like that. It's not a big deal. I won't argue that it's not good dialogue, but it's such a minor complaint for me personally. I don't play NFS for interesting characters and writing.

I think the racing feels super fun, it's fast and challenging. The AI racers play super realistically and you always feel the tension of each race. You don't just always win first in this game, you have to work for it and you WILL lose sometimes. I also love that you actually need to have multiple cars now as events are locked to car rankings, so if you have an A+ car you can't take it into a B race, you need to have a B ranked car. This encourages you to have a number of vehicles, instead of just relying on a single super car the entire game.

The game is also built around risk vs reward. Missions offer various amounts of cash, but also add various amounts of heat, and you always run the risk of losing it all if you get caught. Then you can also sidebet racers to earn more if you beat that specific racer. It all feels really rewarding and you genuinely have to think about which missions you take and when.

Car customization is in full force, you can personalize and tune your car in tons of ways, even down to the sound of the exhaust.

Graphically the game looks gorgeous, and I think the cellshaded npcs looks excellent and are so much more appealing than the models from Heat. The visual flares that happen are also really cool and stylish and always feel good. NFS has always had that flashy graffiti aesthetic but now it extends into the actual gameplay instead of just the ui.

Overall I think this game is absolutely fantastic, a total return to form the franchise. Don't listen to the naysayers, at the very least if you like arcade racers you should at least give this game a shot.

They should've gone full cel-shaded with the visuals. It's like they're afraid commiting to go fully in that direction, or a compromise as a result from being held back by higher ups. It still stands out, but it's been ages since we have a cel shaded car game since Auto Modellista (or drift city).

The burst nitrous makes the handling more engaging than it should. It encourages grip racing, and rewards you with grippy boost which allows for crazy lines which is a neat mechanic. I wished the handling was good tho. The handling in Criterion's past games felt more direct than this, what happened? RWD cars are prone to oversteering.

I feel like theres less events and layouts available, and partially at fault is classes and the few events per class. It results in racing the same few events over and over.

There's a lot to like about Unbound. A nice selection of cars (minus Toyota ever since their new stance on street racing), really cool visual effects, cars handle well, and the map is just the right size too with a good amount of races and collectibles. You start out with a cheap car and work your way up, buying new parts and increasing your stock at the garage to build up during the calendar to the big events. The AI is actually pretty good and can be unpredictable and make mistakes too, which makes each race feel all the more authentic.

The plot is pretty bad and 99% of the characters are poorly written or just plain annoying, but I guess that's how NFS has always been - even back to Most Wanted. You can also tell A$AP Rocky was a hilariously huge component of the marketing. He appears at the end of every Takeover event, he appears in races, and he even talks all through the credits. But despite all that, where the game really falls apart for me is the cop chases.

Cops are an outright chore. Chases are tedious, they spawn constantly (usually right in your path too), and at higher levels they go on for so long. Unlike the original Most Wanted, there are no pursuit breakers or cooldown zones, and their road block spawns are laughably bad and miss the mark 9 times out of 10. By the last couple of in-game days, I just skipped races once I had enough money just so I didn't have to deal with them anymore.

I just really wish they had tuned the cops. I love racing around the city and will probably still go for a lot of the collectibles, but with a couple of changes this would be a 4 or a 4.5 game for me.

i think my ideal racing game would completely do away with any sort of voice acting and wouldn't bother with a overarching story as a way to motivate the player into the various races and challenges. of all genres i think racing titles have to potential to make really compelling gameplay loops that are enhanced by a lack of explanation or justification. wanting to go fast and make a cool looking car is its own motivation. cutscenes, phone calls between races, an end point to a story, distractions that pull focus from everything that actually matters. so many games in this series alone are made worse for just trying to explain themselves instead of letting the driving systems speak for themselves.
unbound at least makes the narrative into a gameplay concern. kinda dead rising in how it asks you to work within a set timetable which i really love. the first racing game in a good long while that's really broken out of the traditional open world racing structure and attempts to force new playstyles and ways of thinking about very traditional racer activities. i want to revisit this title someday and see if i can't crack it open.

Num grande geral, é um ótimo jogo. A história é meio irrelevante, genérica e tem um final bem broxante, mas as coisas que eu gostei foram a estética meio desenho, pra dar aquela diferenciada dos jogos anteriores, o que muita gente não gostou. A polícia tá bem pesada nesse jogo, o tanto que eu sofri na mão desses caras não é brincadeira, e no início o jogo era bem difícil também. Acho que uma das coisas que realmente não gostei foram algumas missões se repetirem e as fases de drift estão bem sem graça aqui.

its not often ill beat a game and play through it immediately afterwards. this is the best NFS game in a long time. heres some of the things id change tho

1) fine tune drifting a lil more, its serviceable but not amazing

2) after you beat the game there's not a ton to do, maybe add a NG+ and let you do the grand finals at the end of the week instead of just tallying up all the cash you collected

3) customization in this game is really good, but more is never a bad thing

4) more features for photo mode, like being able to place your character and have them pose with whatever your current car is