The Need For Speed ​​series, being the longest-running car simulator (turned into an arcade like Burnout), has experienced three major revolutions in its entire history. The first can be called Underground from Black Box, which shifted the focus of the series from exotic cars and racing towards underground competitions of publicly available (in the West, of course) cars. The game was a serious competitor to Midnight Club 3 from Rockstar financially, although from the standpoint of the game itself there was nothing outstanding about it. Strong racing cars with wide tuning possibilities, visual and technical. Nice “motor” EAGL versions 3 and 4. Monotonous but charming night city landscape. And no police. A good game that shouldn’t be overrated.

The second revolution was staged by Slighty Studios, returning the motley arcade to the gloomy simulator in Shift. After the rather controversial Undercover, such a turn seemed like a breath of fresh air, and the program was a success, which made it possible to release its sequel without mentioning the NFS trademark.

You can, of course, add the https://xcasinocasino.co.uk/bonus/ atypical The Run to the “reshaping of the genre”, but this project is one-off, and in general it was received controversially, although Black Box, at least, at least tried to move the series forward, to combine familiar mechanics with innovations like QTE and walking. No, the third revolution was the transition of the series into the calloused hands of Criterion Games, known for its Burnout series, which ended as a high-quality automotive mayhem in 2008 with the release of Burnout Paradise. I have more than once heard in player reviews of this project dissatisfaction with the replacement of an impeccable set of dizzying races with a free world, where you have to spend 10 minutes searching for something to get involved in. A crooked map, wandering along a tangle of roads – and as a result, the game’s dynamics lagged behind the best representative of the series, Burnout Revenge, by an amount incompatible with life. But at the same time it played well over the Internet, which ensured its popularity. If I were EA, I would not be in a hurry to trust one of my main series to such developers – after all, Midnight Club, Crashtime, Forza and some other titles that were played more lively than other parts of NFS clearly raised their heads in the racing market. But the decision was made – and in 2010 a new Burnout Paradise was released… that is, NFS Hot Pursuit, conceived as a restart of the NFS series. In fact, we got a plotless (and in games from Black Box, starting with Underground, there was some semblance of a plot that spurred interest in the passage) “Burnout with the police,” which wandered from game to game until it reached the heroine of my story.

NFS Rivals. Developed by Ghost Games with the assistance of Criterion Games, the game advertises the Frostbite 3 “engine” as suitable for racing games. No, the idea to make NFS on a dynamic Battlefield framework did not belong to “ghosts” or even “critics”. The first game in the series on Frostbite was The Run, but at least there was a touch of action, so you can understand the motivation of Black Box. But the “motor” is a “motor”, and other than that the game has practically no differences from the same Hot Pursuit. And this means:
1. You won’t be able to start the game until you watch a half-hour video about how racing is played, and about some of the game’s features. This sin migrated straight from Burnout, and it is completely unclear why the boring videos of Captain Obvious could not be replaced with textual reminder instructions. Apparently, in the West, the number of those who can read has decreased to a critical minimum, and even the alphabet is explained to schoolchildren there in the form of videos. Maybe even the same Criterion. Agree, it’s not very pleasant to spend half an hour out of an hour of free time watching an unskippable video for the narrow-minded.
2. There is no plot as such. Like this – there are videos with a plot, but there is no plot. I understand that racing games need a plot like a hedgehog needs a quilted jacket, but then why use commercials?? Maybe it would have been better to add a documentary video about the cars, like in the first parts of NFS?
3. Car tuning is extremely simplified; the only visual parameters that change are the paint and stickers.
4. The action takes place in an urban village, where, however, the traffic police officers are very playful. They ram your car, use EMP and other prohibited techniques. True, you can use these techniques too. There are 11 of them in total, you buy and improve them, and then put them in two slots on the car. These technologies personally raised questions for me back in Hot Pursuit 2010; it wouldn’t have been easier to slobber a machine gun on the roof? No, from the point of view of game mechanics this is very interesting, but turning a racing arcade, the essence of which is racing, into a fighter simulator on wheels is already too much.

What else can be noted in the interesting program? Well, you complete “tasks” (Speedlist), after which new cars are unlocked for you (75 copies in total). Like this. Not for completed races – but for the fact that you scored 75,000 points in one race, for example. Everything would be fine, but completing tasks is overshadowed by the fact that winning a race and earning points is not enough – you also need to “bring” these points to the shelter, while the police are “pressing” you from all sides. If you are arrested, all points are lost. A real challenge for the player, especially at later levels, when your “chase level”, which determines the police’s interest in you, becomes higher. But there is one unpleasant moment here too. The game cannot be paused. What is this? Such things happen online, but there it is understandable – in Warface you are storming, say, an enemy base with a team and then one of the squad members paused and went to dinner. Indignation guaranteed. But here I’m the only one playing! And my belly, for example, may itch, or my wife will call, or someone from work will call me. And that’s it – game over. Earned points go down the drain. The dog apparently rummaged through the AllDrive system, which, according to the developers, “blurs the line between single-player and online play.”. Yeah, I erased it. Pause button from the gamepad.

From the point of view of the audiovisual component in the game, not everything is smooth either. The soundtrack is good as a background, but you don’t want to listen to it separately. I remember Underground, where Static-X, Junkie XL, Story Of The Year, and other games from BlackBox were noted, providing a cheerful alternative, just in tune with the dynamics of the game. Although who cares. Well, in terms of graphics, the game was first released on PS4, and obviously they pushed it onto the previous generation. And it’s very original – they lowered the resolution of the picture and are happy. There is often a mess with textures. However, it is worth noting some of the visual charm of the game even in this form – you travel in real time, the time of day changes, the wind rises, it rains. Beautiful. Only we have already seen all this in Midnight Club L.A. about five years ago. Albeit on a less perfect “engine”.

I think I understand where the series is heading – to social networks and online. But this is aimed at schoolchildren and students. Well, a normal adult will not press buttons in front of the TV without a break, driving away his family, because there is no pause. And because the 100 thousand earned needs to be taken to the garage at the last blow, when a convoy of police cars follows on the heels. And the wonderful times of half-hour get-togethers in company, “along the same route,” are gone forever. It’s very sad. In the end, games are created not to live in them, but to diversify our leisure time. What NFS Rivals, unfortunately, can’t do.