Need for Speed Unbound - Review

The Need For Speed franchise has been around for a long time with the first game being released back in 1994 for the 3DO, a console I have always wanted but have never managed to get my Cheetos encrusted hands on. The game that kicked it all off “The Need For Speed” was focused on being more of a simulation and a love letter to the cars it represented rather than the arcade racer that we know today, NFS has been through a lot of changes in the 25+ years the franchise has existed, going from being a sim to slowly introducing more arcade elements through the years, bringing cops into the game, taking them out and then bringing them back in, customisation of cars has also been expanded and enhanced through the many years of the franchises lifespan, not to mention that the series has gone from being a barebones racing game through to the open world style of game we know it as today, all of them pail into insignificance with the makeover the series has had this year. Need For Speed Unbound attempts to blur the lines between realistic graphics and animation and blend them together into a stylised and fluid racing experience that embraces the fashion and art that goes hand in hand with street car culture.

The first thing that will hit you right in the face when you jump into Unbound is the strange mix of cel-shaded and realistic graphics can be quite jarring, not only at first but throughout the whole game. I admire the bold choice that Criterion has gone for here but I am not sure that it actually works, at times the game looks absolutely beautiful with both the car models and the city backdrop looking stunning in places that is until you zoom off down the street and cel-shaded flames and emojis start shooting off your tires immediately breaking your immersion, the two styles of graphics mixed together just don’t work for me and I think that Criterion should of went all in on one style or the other rather than trying to slap them both into a blender and mix them together.

As far as the games story goes it is your same old Need For Speed tale, you are new to the street racing scene and are trying to grind out your way to the top, most of the story revolves around Rydell and his garage and your journey to gain reputation by winning races and completing missions across Lakeshore City. The story is told through various cut scenes and conversations you have with other characters riding with you in your car and over your phone, there are also various bits of radio chatter that cut in and out of the game portraying the political battle going on in the city, these bits kind of remind me of the kind of advertisements you would get in a GTA game, it feels like they are trying to add depth and liveliness to a city that unfortunately is devoid of both. The dialogue feels like it was written by the marketing team at Kraft, it is absolutely full of cheese, there so many forced references to street culture that listening to some of the lines reaches the epitome of cringe at times, my favourite line being “If I had wings I would fly”, no shit Sherlock.

This is a racing game however and not many people play them and expect a ground-breaking story, as it is the story does a good enough job of pushing the plot along and urging you into taking on more challenges and races. The game features a pumping upbeat soundtrack full of hip hop and EDM music with a fair share of it being foreign which I found to be a good decision as it introduced me to a few tracks by artists that I have never heard of before and enticed me to explore their music catalogues, environmental sounds are also of a high calibre with all of the cars in the game sounding great and the whipping of the wind against your cars frame further enhancing the sense of speed you get from flying down the streets in the game.

Need for Speed Unbound sticks the same day/night cycle as its predecessor and mostly to the same type of gameplay loop. Your garage and safe houses (unlocked by completing challenges) serve as your central hub where you can customise your character and your car and upgrade you’re the components of your car, they also serve the purpose of allowing you to bank money you currently have on you because if you get busted by the police with money you haven’t banked then you might as well wave bye bye to that money. Once you leave the garage you can navigate the city by accessing the map and make your way to several of the racing events and challenges that are being held around the city. Some of the races require a buy in cost in order to be able to participate in whilst others may require a certain tier of car in order to be able to enter, before each race you can check out the layout of the track, the other racers you will be participating against and even wager money against your opponents that you can beat them during the race.

Each race has a pre-determined amount of heat that you will gain from participating in them, the more heat you gain the more attention you will attract from the police, some of the best parts of the game are the police chases and the challenge of trying to shake off the fuzz in order to make your way to a safe house and bank all the cold hard cash you just won in your last race. Win races, complete challenges, bank money, upgrade car or buy new cars, that’s the basic premise of most racing games and it is the same here, it is a tried and tested formula and it still works. There are a vast array of options to spend your cash on here from streetwear from many real life brands, through to body customisation kits and performance parts that make your car go faster.

Driving games live and die by their physics and control systems and I am happy to say that Need For Speed Unbound passes this test with flying colours. The cars control beautifully in this game especially once you master the drifting mechanics, the thrill of drifting around corners at breakneck speed and straightening up to hit nitrous and blast out the other side of the corner never gets old. The AI in the game is also no joke, at times this game can be a challenge, even entering races where your car outranks your opponents by several points your opponents will be no pushover and winning most races will require not only that you master cornering and your use of nitrous but that you also know every shortcut on the track, even on the lowest difficulty setting the game is not a cakewalk and I think this is a good thing as I find that most racing games go from absurdly easy to impossibly hard as you scale through their difficulty levels, Unbound seems to provide a challenge no matter which difficulty level you select and this helps you learn to drive better and master the various circuits throughout the city.

Need For Speed unbound is a good game, one that is most likely worth your money if you are a fan of the series or arcade racers in general but it is let down by its mish mash of visual stylings that end up feeling forced and break immersion from the game more than they should, of course any type of art is subjective and other people may find the games visual style to be fantastic especially if you are a fan of anime. The games story is paced well and you really have to earn your way through the ranks in Lakeshore City, you will lose a lot of races before you actually work your way up to winning one but the level of satisfaction you get from tuning your car to be perfectly in tune with your driving style and then going out and driving a perfect race is very pleasing, Criterion really nailed the level of challenge in this game.

Lakeshore City itself feels surprisingly empty for a game with such an in your face graphical style, there are other cars on the road and pedestrians walking around but they both serve little to making the city feel alive, I can’t quite put my finger on why Lakeshore feels so empty even when you have 4 cops on your tail and you are flying down a freeway the city still feels like a ghost town. The driving model is fantastic and very satisfying and there is a lot of fun to be had conquering challenges and building up your bank to upgrade and buy new cars, there certainly is a lot to do here and I never found myself becoming bored. However, I also found that Unbound didn’t actually urge me to come back to it for another session after I had finished playing, its great while you are playing it but I certainly didn’t find myself coming back to it as often as I thought I would.

The Score

7.0

Review code provided by Electronic Arts

The Pros

+Fantastic driving model, cars control beautifully

+A vast amount of cosmetic and functional upgrade options and cars

+Challenge level and sense of progression is spot on

The Cons

-Lakeshore City feels like a ghost town at times

-Story and dialogue are utter cringe

-Graphical style of the game may not be to everybody’s taste