Criterion has done it. A comeback to the golden era of NFS. Fantastic racer that really sets the foundation for a new generation of Need for Speed. The aesthetic changes just hit the spot, and the focus on characters really works well in the game.

One of the most divisive aspects of the game has definitely been the soundtrack, but not for me. A$AP Rocky did a terrific job curating the soundtrack and is definitely one of the best in the entire franchise, full of hits.

And finally, after god knows how many games, grip driving is doable and competitive. Just a great work overall.

Definitely took me by suprise even though it was heavily mix with frustration towards the end. One of the most competent NFS in the last decade. The style is there. Music is there. Decent library of cars even if low and customisation is mixed like great for some cars and fine for others. My main problems stems from cop cars spawning incredibly unfairly and out of thin air sometimes. Paired with the rubber banding that's probably the most offensive this series has seen. Like cop cars that are just simple sedans can match speeds with lambos going at 300. And sometimes can match throughout a boosting moment too like man it's just not well designed especially given the previous NFS titles doing it right. Especially helicopters being able to spot you through roofs sometimes and seem to just appear midair once there's too little cop cars on the road. Yaya it feels so artificial. Game can also implement the rubber banding if you're doing incredibly well money wise and specifically the person you bet on even if they are under classed they some how rocket on by. Those are my big problems for it but otherwise drifting is fun and stylish jumping feels like a suitable fragile thrill and the new gauge arguably kept me through to the end of the game. Not one I'm gonna return to due to the server lack of events and unique tracks even given the expansive open world but for criterion first game back after battlefield support it's been a flawed but fun distraction being able to live out some street car fantasys:)

Criterion are the masters when it comes to racing games (outside of Mario Kart). The last great Need for Speed game (MW 2012) also happens to be their last contribution to the series. Huh, weird. The art style here is incredible. It's one of the best looking games ever, if not my all time favourite in some ways. The driving is perfectly smooth. The only knock against this game that I really have is that the police chases tend to get old pretty quickly. I wish there was a better way of adding a sense of "pressure".

coming from GT, the handling model was incomprehensible. i feel almost no difference between cars since you can set every car up for drift or grip tuning. engine swaps also make little sense as you can't put in a 4.0 Liter V8 into a tiny hatchback and expect it to create enough downforce to not spin out with FF design. but whatever. this is arcade, not sim.

races are really repetitive, online and in SP, but at least in SP you get cash and then you get cars with that cash. there isn't any weird gating, and cash is readily distributed.

in online you have to "race 100 races with a BMW to get this tier of BMW." wtf is this grind. who thought this is fun in arcade-racer?

i do like aspects of the online GTA-style server, although its really limited in design. so much more could be done but it seems EA only wants to do some car releases and track releases, no major gameplay loop overhaul in the coming months. no cops in online races is boringgggg. credit for allowing you to earn currency in party-only races, as me and my friend will just hang out and have goofy races for hours as a mindless way to catch up.

the diving pedestrians is a nice touch, and the limited destruction has those fun elements of the Frostbite engine.

Refazendo a review pois minha opinião mudou muito

NFS Unbound infelizmente é um jogo que entrega que foi feito as pressas e que não teve tempo suficiente para ser entregue de forma satisfatória.

O jogo sofre desde problemas de desempenho, física e até progressão. A EA cagou o estúdio botando eles para ajudarem no desenvolvimento daquela BOMBA do Battlefield 2042. Infelizmente esse é de longe o pior Need for Speed desde o início da era Ghost Games. Eu admito, sou um ♥♥♥♥ fanboy de NFS e mesmo assim o jogo não me convenceu. Eu já não esperava muita coisa por conta do anúncio em cima da hora, a falta de vídeos de gameplay entre outros detalhes de pré-lançamento. Quando joguei as primeiras horas o jogo até parecia agradável, mas depois de jogar mais de 70 horas do jogo vejo que é um jogo medíocre mesmo.

A história do game é horrível, não faz sentido algum e o protagonista é um(a) baita de um bundão.

Enfim, queria deixar registrado aqui minha decepção com esse game e espero que a Criterion nunca mais toque em um NFS na vida dela.

Se quiser testar esse jogo, ele vale no máximo uns 80 reais.


OBS: Fique atento pq o jogo é muito mal otimizado no PC e pode não rodar de forma satisfatória mesmo em máquinas mid-end.

5/10

Complete Story Only
Platform: PlayStation 5
Release Date: November 29, 2022
Genre: Racing » Arcade
Finished in: 31 Hours

Pro version of Need for Speed - Heat with anime style. A good decision to put same features on previous entry was genius and lazy at the same time. Criterion made it perfect with a little bit touch, i.e day / night cycle and cop chase sequence. There's no official on-road racing on the day, every day and night you're street racer!

A generic story they're putting here, how we're getting back a traitor in our gang and made her out alive from cop. Also Yaz's taking our car and we want it back.

Criterion force players to make our decision right when betting money on some races you good at. For me I am bad at drifting, so I can skip that all the time. You also need to have a decent car for every classes that divided into 5 classes from B to S+. SO you better save your money to max out every classes you want to participate races.

✔ Loading rendered objects much faster than previous entry (in this case I was testing them with SSD for both)
✔ The animations are so good, like teasing rivals or even in cut-scene love it!
✔ Catchy soundtrack easily pump up adrenaline
✔ Some people hate VFX (not me) for dirt and smoulder that come from exhaust. Criterion heard it and be able to turn off
✔ There's Most Wanted 2005 iconic car in side quest
❌ There's still no physics for wall objects that can be hit, only 2 types: destructible or not.
❌ The last race should be more intense and memorable to get our car back. The car should be an icon for NFS - Unbound the Mercedes one (it shows on the cover)
Verdict: 8/10 ❤❤❤❤❤

Pros
Driving felt great
Cars also felt great with lots of cool customisation

Cons
Repetitive
Cops are enraging
Story/acting was cringe
No fast travel preventing you from getting to the fun part quicker - racing!

Alrighty, after completing this game, I don't know if I can say it is better than heat. But I can say it just manages to be on par.

This game has one of the SLOWEST openings I've ever seen. It took more than an hour for things to finally open up and get into things. I felt like freaking dropping it.

But then once things open up, it is a freaking great game.

The gameplay, is what carries this game so hard. It's so fun. It's addicting, and you just can't stop playing. The new visual effects are so unique and enhance your cars and make them feel so powerful and fast and look so cool. And the gameplay, it feels so so good. Just like the old need for speeds. It gave me nostalgia of carbon, especially since they brought back light trails. I was hooked. Much better here than heat, a huge step up and feels like a throwback to the old nfs racers we loved, not to say heats is bad but this is a clear improvement and what makes the game worth it, as it should.

The graphics, performance, car models, are all better than heat here as it should be.

Car customization, and audio design is on par, if not better, it was already so good in heat and it's all here as well.

The soundtrack is amazing, just as good as heats and better. So many good tracks, a few bad ones it is a modern ea game, but overall very nice.

The story, it's a step up from heat I feel, but that's a low bar. It's cringe and bad but it's more fun here than heat. I liked the characters, not at the beginning they're terrible but as the story goes on u kinda like Tess, Rydell, and even Yaz near the end. Still overall as a whole it's pretty poor and kinda just gets the job done and gives u some enjoyment. However, the plot itself is more nfs than ever, your cars get robbed, you gotta rank up get cars and win your cars back. You become a legend. And man some of the missions are very very fun. Like the ones where you steal cars and one of the missions you get to drive the freaking iconic M3!!! So yeah, on the right track hopefully the next one is actually good and not just meh okay good. I also liked how npc racers were given more personality but not that much better here hopefully they can find a way to improve that.

The grind and pacing of the game, excluding the first 2 hours is very good. Earning cars, doing pink slips, and just racing feels fun and fair. You win so many cars and get to try out a different variety of them and it encourages you to. Some of the cars are a bit pricey, but it's still fair for the most part.

The night and day system are very much here, and they are just like heat. Super fun, and night starts off not being that exhilarating, but ends up being as good as heat if not better. I will say I had more fun in some of the chases in nfs heat, but I also had so much fun here. It's great, the cops still rubber and and have crazy catch up but it's not that bad here. Honestly I kind of miss the nfs heat cops lol.

The world is also great, pretty much as good as palm city, but it's better, filled with so much life. And overall just fun to drive in.

I wish they went more in with the effects, but the effects offered here are great and have a good variety.

Very good ui design and solid UI, looks very nice easy to get to where u need to go like heat. I like the aesthetics here more but heats was also great. I really enjoyed the colours and the way things look and transitions and etc here.

Now we get into the bad.

Multiplayer. Absolutely awful. Awful. Probably the worst multiplayer I've seen in the modern day a complete step back from heat.

Here's the problem with the game, story and multiplayer are SEPARATE modes and your progress is NOT synced. In nfs heat it was seamless. Invite your friend, boom done. Play missions change cars and you progress and are not penalized. And it's super fun, because you can do story missions whatever and you keep your cars and yeah, it's multiplayer.

Here, you start from 0 in multiplayer. None of your progress is synced, and the cars u have in story u don't have them in multiplayer. Why would I do the same thing twice. Also there's no story in the multiplayer LOL. It's a joke.

The crew system is completely scraped here as well. Why? Why is it gone? It was a perfectly good system and you could level up and look forward to rewards with friends and the community but it's just gone here. What a stupid decision.

And the garage system is also scraped. What a joke. It was nice displaying your cars and stuff and it's just gone here.

But overall here, there's lots of fun to be had here as a SINGLE player experience. Definitely would not recommend this if you wanna play this with your friends, just play heat. And honestly, because of that heat feels closer to full price than this game, but like heat unbound went on sale fairly quick. And no mtx, bs marketing, just a release date and they dropped the game so fair play. It's a great game, the core gameplay, customization, soundtrack, story, almost everything here is a step up. The gameplay is so addicting.

Another, good step forwardish? For the franchise, hopefully their next one they figure out all the issues and learn fully so we get a masterpiece.

The best NFS since 2006.

They've genuinely outdone themselves. The soundtrack bangs. The cars are great. Stylish as all get out. Brimming with personality. Novel game structure which works pretty well. Racer AI is competitive and fun to race against.

Held back by Frostbite and weird business decisions, as is par for the course with modern EA titles. The car performance rating system is flawed, and lets cars with lower numbers be much more competitive.

Deserving of ongoing support or a follow-up.

The driving feels good, the overall art direction and aesthetic in this game gives it a sense of identity I have been desperate to see back in NFS for years, and the customization is better than it's been in a long time.

The story and writing are way better than I expected. Aside from a handful of cringey lines of dialogue, I don't really get the complaints. Rydell, Yaz, Tess, and even us the player, are engaging enough characters that play their roles well. In addition to that, when you give fellow racers rides at night they talk to you about their background and things like that and it makes the world feel more alive.

I have a few gripes with the game though. For instance, I feel like the game is too stingy with money for a game that actively wants you to drive more than one car at once. The exaggerated collisions are cool to see back, but they are too easy to trigger - to the point it often feels like they shouldn't have. The soundtrack is garbage, and brake to drift feels a little inconsistent for me. Lastly, don't fucking bother playing this online. Just don't.

This doesn't overshadow the positives though, and overall, Unbound is a step up from Heat, and definitely the best NFS since the 2010s.

Disappointed. After 3 years of development, I expected something better. The core of the story is not bad, and the soundtrack is enjoyable, immersing you well in the underground world that the game aims to portray. The depth of the tuning system is truly impressive. I appreciated the idea of combining realistic graphics for cars and the game world (which are well done) with cel-shaded characters and vibrant, colorful driving effects. However, I don't like the driving mechanics. A car with the handling set entirely for "grip" is difficult to control in tight corners with sudden drifts, whereas a car fully set for "drift" is nearly impossible to handle normally, with sudden loss of grip. Normal NOS is useless, as well as an off-road build 'cause there aren't races that need this type of setup like it was in Payback or Heat. The dialogues, especially the radio conversations, seem to be written by a 10-year-old. The traffic cars are incredibly heavy, unlike the police cars that feel weightless. I didn't like the checkpoint system, and despite the story being short, the game quickly becomes repetitive. In addition, I find it ridiculous that a game that heavily relies on aesthetics and visual impact has such a barebones photo mode: you can only adjust the depth of field and contrast without even being able to apply a filter, while in previous installments, there were perhaps too many image filters available. I haven't played online, so I can't comment on that. Overall, it's one of the worst Need For Speed games I've ever played, which is a shame.
Played on PS5