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Need for Speed gets a much-needed boost - Need for Speed Unbound Quick Review

39K View2022-12-11

PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

Play it! As someone who’s been playing Need for Speed games since the late ’90s, this is what I’ve been waiting for. Need for Speed Unbound is the first game in EA’s long-running racing franchise in three years, but more notably it’s the first good game in the series since 2013’s PlayStation 4 launch title, Need for Speed Rivals. After a decade spent spinning its tires, the anime-infused style of Unbound is exactly what Need for Speed needed.

TIME PLAYED

I’m somewhere around six hours deep into Need for Speed Unbound. That’s been plenty of time to get to know the new open-world setting of Lakeshore City and to begin digging into its underground street racing scene, although I’ve definitely got lots left to do.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• The racing (duh). If they screwed this part up, I sure wouldn’t be singing its praises. But Need for Speed Unbound is the first game in the series developed by Criterion Games since 2012’s Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and to put it bluntly, Criterion Games knows how to make a damn racing game. Everything about the car handling, race design, and customization feels perfectly tuned and pleasing for arcade racing fans like myself.

• Style. While the cars and the world have a realistic look, the characters and special effects in Need for Speed Unbound show off a lovely cel-shaded style. It looks like a blend between a high-end anime and some of the most impressive graffiti art I’ve ever seen. I was worried the mix of cartoony visuals with the more grounded cars and city would feel at odds, but if anything it just makes the effects stick out and feel more special.

• Over-the-top antics. Like the best arcade racing games, Need for Speed Unbound isn’t just about racing. No, it’s also about doing chaotic, crazy stunts that would get you killed in the real world. Unbound uses a classic system where your car’s NOS boost meter fills up as you drift, draft, and pull off other dangerous moves like near misses and driving on the wrong side of the road. Once my boost was full, I would blast ahead of the pack, take insane jumps, and look for off-the-beaten-path shortcuts. Races are all-adrenaline, all the time.

• Police chases. While not every Need for Speed has it, going up against the law is one of my favorite parts of this series. Unbound embraces that, with a heat system where the more risky street racing you do in a single day, the more cops will become aware of you and become more aggressive in their attempts to take you down. Having cops impact both my time driving around the open world and the races themselves added an exciting layer of uncertainty to every event.

WHAT SUCKS

• The story. Plot has never been Need for Speed’s strong suit, but bless ’em, they keep trying. Unbound isn’t the worst racing game story, but its lightly Fast & Furious-inspired tale hasn’t pulled me in. Worse, though, is the moment-to-moment dialogue, which sounds like it was written by a middle-aged game developer desperately trying to appeal to Gen Z. I felt bad for the voice actors—it sounded like they were barely holding back laughter for some of these lines.

💬 Street-racers, sound off: What’s your high-speed car of choice? Leave a reply below!

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