I know complaining about the story in a racing game is like complaining about the story in a porno but something about it was rubbing me the wrong way until now. I was reading some stories from people who were unlucky enough to get stuck in a street takeover and it made me realize that street racers and takeover kiddies are fucking assholes and a cancer on car culture, which is something this game will desperately tell you is not the case.

There's nothing wrong with having an anti-police sentiment in your stories but it feels icky to take advantage of this sentiment to try and justify one of the only activities out there that are very illegal for a good reason. These are characters written like they're skateboarders and graffiti artists that are getting unjustly attacked by police yet they aren't spraypainting the side of a billboard or doing skate tricks on the sidewalk, they're driving 2-3 ton death machines on wheels at 130+ MPH on public roads in the city! One of the characters you meet even has a little chat with you about how the police are harassing them because of "racial profiling" yet in the game you can see this exact character alongside every other character in game smash through fences and guardrails, driving very fast on sidewalks, and smack headfirst into oncoming traffic. Using a very serious topic like that to try and justify something as dangerous as street racing and takeovers just feels really slimy to me.

Most games (or media in general) that have a story about outlaws who do crimes and bad things generally try to not justify what they do as 100% right, I mean just look at the past NFS games that have also done this better with way more simple stories. Hell, the game before this, Heat, handled it way better by showing that the police were super corrupt and doing shady shit. Maybe this kinda thing would work more in a Prostreet sequel where former street racers are still getting harassed despite going legit instead of a story that's just Most Wanted '05 with more plot beats and a really odd sounding convo with A$AP Rocky that sounds more like an interview than a little chat. Other than that, the game is fun when the AI isn't ass, has probably the best soundtrack out of the post-2015 reboot era games, and the multiplayer is really fun if you aren't pitted with the typical racing game douchebag rammer. Also I like the artstyle of the game, but I wish it went whole hog into looking more cartoony like Auto Modellista.