Need for Speed: Unbound

[coopasonic]

Need for Speed is back and it feels like they've learned some lessons from their recent games.

It comes out officially tomorrow, but has early access and a 10 hour preview for EA Play users (read as GamePass subscribers, because who else has an EA Play sub?). I have put about 7 hours into it over the past couple days and I am not hating it.

The story has actually been kind of interesting. There is some variety of races, some good and some meh and a decent variety of collectibles that get you money among other things, and also activities similar to Forza Horizon games, speed zones, drift zones, jumps and speed traps.

One of the more interesting mechanics is the heat system. Every day your heat resets. You start in the day with zero heat, do races and activities and end with say 1.5 heat. You head in to the night which has races with bigger prizes, but also higher heat gain. Once you get to 2 heat the cops are looking for you actively in cruisers and SUVs. At 3 heat Corvettes are added to the patrols and at 4 heat you get helicopters. I am not sure what 5 heat brings yet.

Escaping a cop chase (outrun, outmaneuver or destroy) gets you money, getting caught means you lose all the money you've earned since you last hit the safe house. Oh and hitting the safe house ends the current session, progressing time to the next day or night cycle.

All of the good races with decent payouts have buy-ins as well and coming in back of the pack may mean you lose money on the race. You can make that eve worse with side bets. You basically bet any one racer that you will beat them specifically and depending on your cars rating vs theirs the amount will vary, but don't get too greedy because if you would win more, then you may lose more. hah, back of the pack, I'll just retry if I don't make it. The game gives you 4 retries per day. Use them wisely.

The game also changes up the visuals with kind of anime styled characters layered on more realistic car and background scenery, also there are visual effects that kind of remind me of Cyberpunk Edgerunners.

Anyway it has me curious and I ended up buying it this morning as I had less than 3 hours left in my trial and I need to see more.

[jztemple2]

Sounds oddly interesting. Keep posting impressions!

[Rumpy]

Does the art style look better in motion? Because the graffiti isn't exactly enticing me to it. In fact, I'm kind of disappointed it's gone yet again in the street racing direction, as those are the ones I've enjoyed the least.

[Sudy]

Could they be any more generic with their names? I could have sworn a game from 2004 had this title.

[Chraolic]

Could they be any more generic with their names? I could have sworn a game from 2004 had this title.

I think that was Underground? Or maybe Undercover? But yeah, they do tend to blur together nowadays.

[coopasonic]

Sounds oddly interesting. Keep posting impressions!

For an hour or so I completely hated it. There was a race with a $12k buy in and first place awarded a car (1990 mustang worth 29k in game). About 5 seconds into the race the game crashed. I load it up again and my $12k I am no longer in the race. I have to pay another $12k to join the race, which is a LOT this early so it was rather upsetting. I suspect this is to keep people form using ALT-F4 to game the Retry system, but it's really annoying to have a crash take my cash.

Does the art style look better in motion? Because the graffiti isn't exactly enticing me to it. In fact, I'm kind of disappointed it's gone yet again in the street racing direction, as those are the ones I've enjoyed the least.

On the art style, I think that is very subjective. I don't really like it and hope they give us an option to turn off the "graffiti" effects, but it doesn't really hamper my enjoyment of the game.

On the street racing bit, I think legal racing is covered pretty well with lots of other games and street racing allows for a better mix of car types even within races and also allows for the collectibles, challenge activities, police chases, open world missions... none of that really exists comfortably in a game like Gran Turismo.

Marvel's Midnight Suns is distracting me for now. We'll see if Unbound can win my attention back any time soon.

[Rumpy]

I think they should bring back the undercover concept of working undercover to arrest and take down a ring. Either way, I think the series needs a serious refresh and shakeup. I was watching some footage of this last night and aside from the graffiti, it looks the same as Heat and Payback.

[coopasonic]

Quick update. I am close to the end story-wise, or at least what I expect to be the end. I have 12 cars, spread across all performance tiers including a couple of Lamborghinis. I haven't bought a single car other than the one they make you buy at the start. I won them all in races, plus one for completing 3 stars on all of the speed traps. The cops are generally a joke as long as I am in an S/S+ car but it's still fun running away form them and smashing them.

The one thing this game gets that Forza Horizon games miss is a sense of progression. Making my way from a stock Civic Type R to a maxed out Aventador was a lot of fun with some cool cars along the way. My character in FH5 has hundreds of cars and millions of dollars but no real appreciation of any of it. My Unbound character worked hard for what he is and there is story for every car in his garage.