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Need for Speed Retrospective #22
Not only the first NfS game I was willing to finish in a while, but one I actually enjoyed all the way through. It's nowhere near the heights of the series, but after contemplating to give up on this retrospective more than once recently, it was a huge relief to finally be playing a competent and confident product again instead of something cobbled together in the last possible minute.
As the reboot title might suggest, they went back to the Underground/Carbon era look that the series is most known for. And despite building heavily on these earlier titles, I like how different and recognizable 2015 is. The permanently rainy and foggy night-time world looks and sounds absolutely stunning and the first-person cutscenes, as cringeworthy as they might be, are a decent stylistic fit.
Even in the gameplay department, it seems they were going down the remake/sequel route for Underground 2, my favourite game in the series. Comparing the two titles side-by-side, I can see that 2015 is doing remarkably well in many regards, though sadly lacking in others. Where unlocking and exploring new areas was a huge driving factor in NFSU2's gameplay, 2015's open world is wholly accessible from the start. Fast travel (even to unexplored areas) is immediately enabled and hidden secrets are close to nonexistent. All this makes the open world appear much smaller than it is and, frankly, quite useless.
Despite these points and some minor issues with the difficulty curve, I enjoyed 2015 quite a bit. After ten bumpy years of hit-or-miss games in the series, I am finally feeling optimistic again.
(One final point: This game has absolutely no business requiring a constant internet connection. Both idea and execution are terrible.)
Not only the first NfS game I was willing to finish in a while, but one I actually enjoyed all the way through. It's nowhere near the heights of the series, but after contemplating to give up on this retrospective more than once recently, it was a huge relief to finally be playing a competent and confident product again instead of something cobbled together in the last possible minute.
As the reboot title might suggest, they went back to the Underground/Carbon era look that the series is most known for. And despite building heavily on these earlier titles, I like how different and recognizable 2015 is. The permanently rainy and foggy night-time world looks and sounds absolutely stunning and the first-person cutscenes, as cringeworthy as they might be, are a decent stylistic fit.
Even in the gameplay department, it seems they were going down the remake/sequel route for Underground 2, my favourite game in the series. Comparing the two titles side-by-side, I can see that 2015 is doing remarkably well in many regards, though sadly lacking in others. Where unlocking and exploring new areas was a huge driving factor in NFSU2's gameplay, 2015's open world is wholly accessible from the start. Fast travel (even to unexplored areas) is immediately enabled and hidden secrets are close to nonexistent. All this makes the open world appear much smaller than it is and, frankly, quite useless.
Despite these points and some minor issues with the difficulty curve, I enjoyed 2015 quite a bit. After ten bumpy years of hit-or-miss games in the series, I am finally feeling optimistic again.
(One final point: This game has absolutely no business requiring a constant internet connection. Both idea and execution are terrible.)
Need for Speed Retrospective #21
There's lots to like about this mobile title. It's absolutely amazing how much fun and engaging gameplay No Limits gets out of basically four buttons/inputs. The drifting and boosting mechanics are fantastic and different objectives and obstacles bring loads of variety. From a pure gameplay perspective, I enjoyed this much more than any other automatic-driving game I've played. Visually, the game looks stunning. The devs played it safe by going for the fan-favourite Underground era look, but they absolutely nailed it.
So why the bad rating?
No Limits, like many other free-to-play games, quickly reaches a point where it basically renders itself unplayable unless you pay for it. And No Limits is particularly aggressive in this regard. Every dark pattern you've ever heard of is present in this game. There's deceptive currencies, there's misleading UI design, there's FOMO, there's gambling. So much gambling, in fact.
Reaching this point, I was robbed of any will to further engage with this distortion of a videogame. It's a tragedy that we as a capitalist society decided to let greed hamper our art like this.
There's lots to like about this mobile title. It's absolutely amazing how much fun and engaging gameplay No Limits gets out of basically four buttons/inputs. The drifting and boosting mechanics are fantastic and different objectives and obstacles bring loads of variety. From a pure gameplay perspective, I enjoyed this much more than any other automatic-driving game I've played. Visually, the game looks stunning. The devs played it safe by going for the fan-favourite Underground era look, but they absolutely nailed it.
So why the bad rating?
No Limits, like many other free-to-play games, quickly reaches a point where it basically renders itself unplayable unless you pay for it. And No Limits is particularly aggressive in this regard. Every dark pattern you've ever heard of is present in this game. There's deceptive currencies, there's misleading UI design, there's FOMO, there's gambling. So much gambling, in fact.
Reaching this point, I was robbed of any will to further engage with this distortion of a videogame. It's a tragedy that we as a capitalist society decided to let greed hamper our art like this.
Need for Speed Retrospective #20
Booting up a new Need for Speed game really is like a box of chocolates. With its always-online mentality, glossy wet look and esoteric storytelling, Ghost's first outing is once again something completely different.
As for the MMO-like qualities, the game Rivals most reminded me of was Ubisoft's The Crew, which came out only one year later and is now sadly defunct. The cool thing about The Crew, though, was its vast, exciting and explorable world. Here, we get little more than a series of tunnels in which we sporadically meet other players minding their business. Even the series' own Need for Speed: World handled the open-world aspects much better.
To my great dislike, the racer/cop split from the Hot Pursuit subseries is back and once again amounts to little more than the necessity to do the same content twice, as perfectly exemplified by the two identical unskippable tutorials the game starts with.
Despite my personal hatred for authorities and the complete lack of visual customizability, the gameplay on the cops' side might actually be superior. On the racer side, the fact that I couldn't even pause the game combined with the cops on constant lookout for me made the game unnecessarily stressful. At each safehouse I took a deep breath of relief, evaluating if going back out there was even worth it at all. After a couple of hours I naturally decided it wasn't and never bothered with the game again.
Booting up a new Need for Speed game really is like a box of chocolates. With its always-online mentality, glossy wet look and esoteric storytelling, Ghost's first outing is once again something completely different.
As for the MMO-like qualities, the game Rivals most reminded me of was Ubisoft's The Crew, which came out only one year later and is now sadly defunct. The cool thing about The Crew, though, was its vast, exciting and explorable world. Here, we get little more than a series of tunnels in which we sporadically meet other players minding their business. Even the series' own Need for Speed: World handled the open-world aspects much better.
To my great dislike, the racer/cop split from the Hot Pursuit subseries is back and once again amounts to little more than the necessity to do the same content twice, as perfectly exemplified by the two identical unskippable tutorials the game starts with.
Despite my personal hatred for authorities and the complete lack of visual customizability, the gameplay on the cops' side might actually be superior. On the racer side, the fact that I couldn't even pause the game combined with the cops on constant lookout for me made the game unnecessarily stressful. At each safehouse I took a deep breath of relief, evaluating if going back out there was even worth it at all. After a couple of hours I naturally decided it wasn't and never bothered with the game again.