Unbound will not save the arcade-racing genre… but it was close
I honestly don’t remember when I last enjoyed an NFS title. I grew up playing (amongst many other things) Hot Pursuit 2, Underground 2, Most Wanted and my all-time favourite racing game – Carbon. The last NFS titles I bought were Undercover and Hot Pursuit 2010, which were also solid. The thrill and excitement of driving dangerously while street racing is something, which we won’t find outside NFS. And I’m glad to say I did indeed have fun playing Unbound… for the first few hours. Soon after, the more I played – the more I find my experience tedious and in some cases infuriating.
Let’s start with the positives. I suppose most of you have already seen the numerous videos shitting on the OST. I can say those videos are completely taken out of context by selecting only certain parts of songs and only the 6-7 truly terrible songs – out of 72! A huge amount of the songs are bangers with a wide variety of lesser-known Western and Eastern European artists. The controls are good enough, but not as good as some of the older games. I like the changes to race rewards. Unlike other racing games, finishing first is not the only way to be rewarded or continue the story. The main goal is to earn a certain amount of money to continue with the story. You will lose money for placing poorly but good positions are always rewarded well. It never bogs down to repetitive perfectionism and keeps moving. The car customization system is also decent. There are plenty of options to individualize your ride. Moreover, they finally added the option to share your wraps with the community.
Now for the negatives. Unbound will test your tolerance for bullshit. The crash system is atrocious and it can easily ruin any enjoyment. Crash cams arrest control for several seconds and completely wreck the momentum of the race while the crash detections feel… unfinished. Sometimes trading paint will ruin your chances of placing in a good position, but a head-on collision can barely change your health bar. Most of the time crashes have zero physical sense. Moreover, the difficulty in Unbound feels very cheap and artificial. A.I. drivers with low scores somehow manage to dominate without you even having a chance of beating them. You can drive perfectly without making even a single mistake but an A.I. driver can still take the first spot with more than 250-300 meters lead. On top of that, you get a limited amount of restarts for the day and night (the story progress into days of the week and each day is divided into day racing and night racing). There is no fast travel so you have to drive to different events. Which wouldn’t be a problem if the police system was good. They are pests added to extend the game, nothing more. The map is also very bland with nothing distinctively interesting in it. You also can’t drive in a straight line through hills or shortcuts because of the absurdities of the destructible objects. The distinction is unclear between things that will evaporate on contact and things that will break you. The cherry on top for me personally is all the clutter that is on the screen. The tracks do look very detailed but having so many objects and effects on the screen makes it very hard to focus on the race and it was the main reason for all the frustration I had while playing Unbound. I’m personally not against the anime-like effects, a lot of effort was put into them but combined with everything else they feel unnecessary and too distracting.
Of course, it wouldn’t be published by EA if there were no shitty “DLCs”. Most of them are cosmetics but what made me laugh out loud was the “DLC” for 5€ which marks all the collectables (260!!!) and activities (190!!!). I will be honest – I bought it, installed a fast travel mod, got all the missing collectables, finished the missing activities and refunded it.
In conclusion, I find it very hard to recommend NFS Unbound. I bought the EA Racing Bundle on sale for ~20€ just because I wanted to get Hot Pursuit Remastered (which costs around the same price). It can be a good racing game, but it’s fundamentally flawed. It can be a better experience with some mods but it’s still a far cry from the golden Black Box era.
I honestly don’t remember when I last enjoyed an NFS title. I grew up playing (amongst many other things) Hot Pursuit 2, Underground 2, Most Wanted and my all-time favourite racing game – Carbon. The last NFS titles I bought were Undercover and Hot Pursuit 2010, which were also solid. The thrill and excitement of driving dangerously while street racing is something, which we won’t find outside NFS. And I’m glad to say I did indeed have fun playing Unbound… for the first few hours. Soon after, the more I played – the more I find my experience tedious and in some cases infuriating.
Let’s start with the positives. I suppose most of you have already seen the numerous videos shitting on the OST. I can say those videos are completely taken out of context by selecting only certain parts of songs and only the 6-7 truly terrible songs – out of 72! A huge amount of the songs are bangers with a wide variety of lesser-known Western and Eastern European artists. The controls are good enough, but not as good as some of the older games. I like the changes to race rewards. Unlike other racing games, finishing first is not the only way to be rewarded or continue the story. The main goal is to earn a certain amount of money to continue with the story. You will lose money for placing poorly but good positions are always rewarded well. It never bogs down to repetitive perfectionism and keeps moving. The car customization system is also decent. There are plenty of options to individualize your ride. Moreover, they finally added the option to share your wraps with the community.
Now for the negatives. Unbound will test your tolerance for bullshit. The crash system is atrocious and it can easily ruin any enjoyment. Crash cams arrest control for several seconds and completely wreck the momentum of the race while the crash detections feel… unfinished. Sometimes trading paint will ruin your chances of placing in a good position, but a head-on collision can barely change your health bar. Most of the time crashes have zero physical sense. Moreover, the difficulty in Unbound feels very cheap and artificial. A.I. drivers with low scores somehow manage to dominate without you even having a chance of beating them. You can drive perfectly without making even a single mistake but an A.I. driver can still take the first spot with more than 250-300 meters lead. On top of that, you get a limited amount of restarts for the day and night (the story progress into days of the week and each day is divided into day racing and night racing). There is no fast travel so you have to drive to different events. Which wouldn’t be a problem if the police system was good. They are pests added to extend the game, nothing more. The map is also very bland with nothing distinctively interesting in it. You also can’t drive in a straight line through hills or shortcuts because of the absurdities of the destructible objects. The distinction is unclear between things that will evaporate on contact and things that will break you. The cherry on top for me personally is all the clutter that is on the screen. The tracks do look very detailed but having so many objects and effects on the screen makes it very hard to focus on the race and it was the main reason for all the frustration I had while playing Unbound. I’m personally not against the anime-like effects, a lot of effort was put into them but combined with everything else they feel unnecessary and too distracting.
Of course, it wouldn’t be published by EA if there were no shitty “DLCs”. Most of them are cosmetics but what made me laugh out loud was the “DLC” for 5€ which marks all the collectables (260!!!) and activities (190!!!). I will be honest – I bought it, installed a fast travel mod, got all the missing collectables, finished the missing activities and refunded it.
In conclusion, I find it very hard to recommend NFS Unbound. I bought the EA Racing Bundle on sale for ~20€ just because I wanted to get Hot Pursuit Remastered (which costs around the same price). It can be a good racing game, but it’s fundamentally flawed. It can be a better experience with some mods but it’s still a far cry from the golden Black Box era.