I understand Need for Speed Unbound
Who am I and why the Need for Speed series is important to me?
I’ll start from the beginning – I, already a typical gamer, grew up on the early games in the series. The first for me was Need for Speed Hot Pursuit II with cut out videos and music, but I loved it as passionately as Electronic Arts money. Of course, as a child, I was touched by the underground hype train and the wonted bridge – masterpieces, living legends, tears of the gods with a taste of nostalgia and a mother’s kiss. They are also the last pillars of arcade racing, extinct representatives of the titans of the genre, mind-blowing digital art filled with liquid plasma in my fragile eyes. Why is this – as you can see, I am unbiased to the legacy of this series and simply listed well-known facts that will NOT in ANY way affect my impressions of the new part that was released in 2022. But they were influenced by NFS 2015, Payback and Heat.
Sound and style
The game meets with an excellent beat and style. I’ll immediately make a reservation about these two taste things:
— The music and soundtrack are perfect for THIS game. In quiet times there are beats or passive tracks, during races the rapper pumps at speed very well. I not a fan rap, but given music to given the gameplay flows as organically as possible. This is truly an achievement for the latest parts of NFS: in 2015 the sound was not bad, but it felt as if the tracks were recorded last at 3:49 in the morning; Peyback is also good, but absolutely nondescript – it won’t get stuck in your head longer than the song lasts; in Heat is blatantly narrowly focused in the Latin style and with only 1 really cool track (if anyone is interested, I’ll write in the comments). The rest of the sounds are also pleasant – you can hear the characteristic gear shift, the growl of your holes, holes, holes, the howl of the turbo, and of course, the explosive nitrous oxide.
— The style and atmosphere of the underground are present in a very colorful package. The cel shading style of the men is obvious. I have no problems with this, no uncanny valley effect, no disgust. I created a nice-looking character in stylish clothes. Cloth. It’s branded here and that’s important (lol, in a racing game). The fact is that I really like brands in games that exist in real life (that’s why I only like racing with licensed cars) and it was all the more pleasant to see that you could put PUMA, Vens, FILA, etc. on your bobblehead. d. The last time I saw this was only in the old Test Drive Unlimited. It is also worth mentioning the effects of smoke, nitrous, brakes that are made in the same cartoonish style – this is a very cool solution, in my opinion, which looks appropriate in the game, and also does not become boring over a long time. Not adopting this style is your choice, you will lose a little in reality, but life could be more fun with it. As for the rest: fonts, interface, tuning and the rest – everything is in hip-hop aesthetics. When the game hits everything in one direction, it starts working for the game and that’s great.
Gameplay and graphics
The graphics are very good. Of course, cars wet from rain at night are very exciting, but the picture at ultra is not exactly next gen. Sometimes you catch the Heat vibes from the picture and it seems to me that an old PS 4 Pro could handle it just fine. What pleased me was the support for AMD FSR and the competent use of blur. Let’s talk about the latter in more detail – I usually turn off this function almost everywhere in order to avoid soap, but here it is implemented very well and gives a tangible sense of speed. In general, the picture combined with the style chosen by the developers gives a purely positive impression.
The gameplay was a very pleasant surprise. I was extremely worried that according to the physics of cars it would be Heat, but I was wrong. This is something new, but with the philosophy of the previous game – the car is tuned to you. She is not an iron, she has character and you need to rein it in or, on the contrary, give her free rein and just stay in the saddle. Thanks to manual tuning, you can drift every turn as if you were on ice, but you can also adjust the car to the grip by turning off all the sliding and start driving like in Forze, using the brakes correctly and releasing the gas pedal in time. It’s also nice to see how the suspension works and the influence of everything under the wheels.Everything is fine with the core of the cars and it is mounted on a rather interesting skeleton.
After certain plot twists and turns, you need to start your racing career from scratch. To break into the top and punish those responsible for the troubles of the past, you need to win a super race, before which you need to go through 4 qualifying races. Every visit at the end of the week. It requires a car of a certain class and an entry fee. Now, every time you leave the garage, you rewind the day and night after which you need to win money (not necessarily first places) and not give everything you’ve accumulated to the cops, who after each race will increase their interest in you.
What about racing: circuit, sprint, drift, gymkhanna from payback (takeover), as well as events from characters – evading the police in a certain car, racing against the clock in someone else’s car and giving illegal guys a ride so that the cops don’t burn them. In general, it’s quite varied, the tracks are not boring, the dynamics with the cops increases. Everything is very good. Except that drifting without a car set up for it is very difficult.
What about the cops: not brutal like in Heat and not autistic like in 2015. Very easy for the first 2 stars and super satisfying from 3 and above. Moderately difficult to learn how to avoid, but can be fun. The only spoiler is the frequency of their patrols along the roads and the game turns into some kind of stealth in cars to get from point A to point B (there is no fast travel).
Everything is cheerful, dynamic and very good. Driving cars is pleasant and fun. The dynamics and balance of interest in the game are at a very high level and with a pure heart I can say that this is the best arcade racer after Forza in a very long time. I highly recommend it for all fans. But there are two more things that need to be discussed.
Cons and doubtful points
Obviously there is no Russian localization. Very unstable difficulty at the beginning of the game. In the prologue, the races are not so important, so there is no point in worrying too much about the pedestal, but when you are already trying to fight with others on your unpumped tarantass, they pull up pretty well. And considering that in many races you need to invest in the opening ones and you have a limited number of restarts, this is very nerve-wracking. Also, the optimization is of course better than Heat at the start, but it still lags – I personally experience drops in FPS and occasionally there are staters of unknown origin, and in Steam discussions they write about problems with running on processors with less than six cores and various kinds of freezes. But all this is not critical.
For fans of Underground and Most Wanted
Guys, let go of these games already. If for you this is the best thing that was invented in arcade racing, then you are just ducklings and you simply don’t like new games, not because they are bad. Over the past 7 years, not a single bad Need for Speed has been released. Yes, they had problems at the start, but for 2022 they feel very good:
— Need for Speed 2015 is a game with a wonderful party atmosphere at 2 am, when the roads are empty of hard workers and good friends who share your mania, without epic, drama and stress. The last race with all my friends and idols is generally one of the most heartwarming things I’ve done in games.
— Need for Speed Payback is a fast and furious racing adventure. Some plot and dynamics of what is happening are quite captivating. The races are fun and varied. If there were more “missions” it would actually be candy, not a game. Yes, with stupid characters, yes with a trivial plot, but it’s fun!
— Need for Speed Heat is a stable racing game with unencumbered gameplay and plot (even though it is there). That game where you can just get stuck while listening to a podcast. There are a lot of cars, everything can be finely tuned.
These are good games, worthy of the love of fans, each in its own way. Yes, they have mistakes, but they still have the same cheerfulness and enthusiasm since THOSE oldest NSF. This series of games is one of the most experimental and it tries to surprise with something every time, that’s why it’s beautiful. I really love Forza Horizon and it’s the best arcade racing game, but how many times do they release the same thing – gameplay polished to perfection with insignificant changes. But is "perfect" really fun??
I loved Need for Speed Unbound and I sincerely want people to love it too, so that they stop poisoning good games for 10 seconds of the first teaser, so that they stop eating the hatred that their favorite bloggers tell them, so that they start enjoying a really good game. Give yourself a chance to have fun, this part is definitely worth it.
Exclusively written for stopgame.ru
Best comments
Guys, let go of these games already. If for you this is the best thing that was invented in arcade racing, then you are just ducklings and you simply don’t like new games, not because they are bad.
That’s it! Let it go and then buy the deluxe edition of NFS 2015. Did you see that BMW from Most Wanted is on the cover?? And even in the pre-release screenshot there is also this BMW! The main thing is to buy. True, we updated the design there a little to show how cool this car is. Well, there’s a “Slide for glory” sticker on the windshield, a “Grip Enemy” sticker on the bumper… I mean, it wasn’t on the cover or in the screenshot? It will be a pleasant surprise for you) No? OK. If you really don’t like it, then go into the editor and delete them yourself… What kind of windshield mounts? I mean, the wrong locks on the hood? I mean, a race car shouldn’t have headlight washers? I mean the hood is not like that? You also tell me that the rear bumper is not the same… You probably just didn’t let go completely, duckling. And we will transfer this version of the car from game to game at least until 2022 with minimal changes, well, we will add a frame, we will also add a window and ties that were not in MW 2005, but we don’t care, and we will receive free advertising in the form of videos with titles, for example, “Legendary BMW from Most Wanted in NFS Unbound”. You let go, but we won’t let go, because nostalgia sells games better, and we love players)
Well, after I’ve finished this rather stupid banter, I’ll ask you this question:. Who should really let go of Underground and Most Wanted? Player or series? It’s just that the same NFS 2015 was advertised as almost Underground 3. BMW from Most Wanted was sold in the Deluxe edition of NFS 2015. Then they released the Legends add-on, which brought back Eddie and Melissa from Underground, added car skins from Underground 1, Underground 2, Most Wanted, Carbon and ProStreet, and also added music from many old parts. True, Eddie’s character was rewritten so much that he is unrecognizable. Most of the skins were fantasies on the theme, and not reproductions of skins from old parts, especially the cars from Prostreet. And the music was generally a clownery. For example, one of the two songs from Underground 1 in NFS 2015 was the music that plays in the intro to Eddie`s posse. And from Underground 2, NFS 2015 includes the music from the splash screen that plays when U2 starts, as well as the one that plays in the first screensaver in your career. There was nothing more from U2 music. Personally, I think this whole supplement is mediocre on almost every point. Then there was Payback, in which for owning NFS 2015 you were given Skyline Eddie. There was also Aki Kimura, who was the drift king from ProStreet. Moreover, if in ProStreet Aki Kimura was a member of the Touge Union team, which participated in the races organized by Noise Bomb, then in Payback Aki Kimura is a member of the Noise Bomb team, which seems to hint that this was all written, to put it mildly, carelessly and without checking the facts. Also in Payback, through abandoned cars you could get a BMW from Most Wanted and a Nissan 350z from Underground 2. Cross’s voice was also in one of the missions. And in Heat, in general, the main villain in the last mission escapes in a BMW from Most Wanted. By completing other missions you can get Eddie’s Skyline and Nissan 350z from Underground 2. And the entire city in Heat was painted with the logos of old NFS parts. And this is how a person can let go of Most Wanted, if when buying one game, he is offered to buy a version with a BMW from Most Wanted, when playing another, he can complete an additional mission to get a BMW from Most Wanted, and when playing a third, he has to chase a BMW from Most Wanted in one mission? And even the screenshot in your article dedicated to the fourth game shows that? BMW from Most Wanted. So I’ll repeat my question. Who should really let go of Underground and Most Wanted? Player or series? In my opinion, if a series doesn’t want to stop exploiting the nostalgia of older entries in the series, then the only option for a player is not to release the game that he likes, but to release the series that tries to exploit the nostalgia of the game that he likes. And then discontent will be replaced by indifference, and the vacated space in the soul can be filled with another game. It’s really a pity that it’s not of this genre.
Your opinion is the https://winzcasino.uk/withdrawal/ ultimate truth? Other people shouldn’t have a different opinion? Some may not like the music, some may not like the control model, AI, car roster, plot, style… Yes, damn it, anything could become a stumbling block for the player. But you’re fine because you closed your eyes to the shortcomings. It’s just that what’s normal for you means that it’s normal for you, and not for everyone. And if we take the same Payback, which is normal for me, then another player, when he gets to the local leveling system in it, will say: “Well, screw it,” and at this time, I guess you’ll be happily spinning that roulette. You would think that it was one of the monetization systems that was sharply revised after the wave of discontent that hit SW Battlefront 2 and Payback. And Payback became normal for me, because I came to it about a year after the release due to the consequences of a wave of dissatisfaction from people who were not normal. But the most important thing is that the game is ok for you, and they are all haters with duckling syndrome, trained by bloggers.
and I’m sure that it’s EA’s marketers who insist that “put a BMW looking for a MV in here, the fans love it,” this doesn’t change the essence of the picture.
It was EA marketers who insisted that this BMW must be mediocrely made? Adding a window to it was also a decision by marketers?
Well, they rewrote it, so what?? This is Joel from TLoU? As if in the underground he was a deep character with a touching story.
Really. After all, in NFS 2015 they rewrote him into a deep character, and did not just change his character, so that he would not stand out too much from other opponents, who are actually real people, and they cannot behave with you the way your opponents behaved in previous games in the series.
In payback, you described the same thing in fact, but I played straight in the year it came out and I couldn’t remember this guy, not very strong in charisma, and for me it was just another person to achieve victories.
Which confirms my words that they did it carelessly, and instead of Aki Kimura there could have been any other random racer.
And homage is the inscription “Need for speed nitro” on the container or the main villain, the policeman, running away from you in a BMW from Most Wanted? As for me, one of the Nissan Silvia paint jobs in NFS Shift is an homage to ProStreet, and not that after completing the main Heat storyline they give you a car from another game.
What else can I say if you go to the vinyl settings from the community, there you can generally make a Lancer from a carbon fiber cover, an RX-7 from a street, a Skyline from a payback. Fortunately, the external setup has become very good.
What does this have to do with it if the same custom vinyls can be found, for example, in Forza Horizon? User-generated content is user-generated content. Even Assetto Corsa can add vinyls from NFS.
Nevermind. This should have been warned in advance. After all, in a rare game you can paint it in the style of the one-color Skyline from the Payback cover)
But at the same time you added a screenshot to your article from this particular BMW.
You yourself determine what to get pleasure from – if you want from the game, then you will get it, but if you are ONLY interested in the fanservice component, then this is where the duckling works against you.
As I wrote above, everyone whose opinion does not coincide with yours are haters with duckling syndrome, trained by bloggers. You’ll have to live with it.
Briefly about my attitude to the game’s soundtrack, one capacious photoshop with a fair amount of jokes.
Played a 10-hour trial on Xbox Series X, completely drowning out all the music in the game, t.To. I can’t stand rap at all. I played typical heavy music with a medium BPM in the background – it just got on the way.
As for the visual style of the game – everything is fine, except for the cel shading – the characters look somehow different from the realistic environment. And I couldn’t get used to the animation effects around the car even after 4 hours of playing: they simply distract and interfere, blocking traffic a couple of times. I really want to turn them off, but I can’t.
This! As a person who grew up on MW 2005 and Carbon – they were good games, but the light did not converge on them like a wedge. The whole point of the Need for Speed series is that each new part does something new. Not always successful (what experiments are there without failures??), but most often it turns out well. Heat, 2015, even The Run (yeah!) were cool. Unbound definitely looks interesting, I’ll definitely play it. And from what I see so far, I feel that it will suit me. And at the same time, nothing prevents me from loving Carbon with all my heart and consistently replaying it once a year. Keep it simple, people 🙂
Sorry for not reading everything, but I like these guys. Based on your taste, overcoming habits, images of the past and public opinion and getting high from the game – this is worth a lot)
You wrote everything based on the facts, although I have rarely met NSF lore experts (no joke) and to answer your question – the player must let go. I wrote that all the latest NSF games are good, and the fact that the publisher, and I’m sure it’s EA marketers, insist that “put a BMW in here, the fans love it,” it doesn’t change the essence of the picture. In 2015, I was simply pleased to go through Eddie’s races, some even challenged me since they ran parallel to my career. Well, they rewrote it, so what?? This is Joel from TLoU? As if in the underground he was a deep character with a touching story. In payback, you described the same thing in fact, but I played straight in the year it came out and I couldn’t remember this guy, not very strong in charisma, and for me it was just another person to achieve victories. And he made someone gossip about himself and remember the game with him, I don’t remember that payback was advertised with his face. Heat does not abuse nostalgia at all, but makes homage. I’ve been getting these cars there and they’re just garage decoration. Moreover, in the unbound there is a mission to steal a legendary BMW with a hint that this is an order from Razor.
What else can I say if you go to the vinyl settings from the community, there you can generally make a Lancer from a carbon fiber cover, an RX-7 from a street, a Skyline from a payback. Fortunately, the external setup has become very good.
As a player, I have long since let go of these parts and I no longer salivate over the legendary BMW. Well, there is and there is, now it’s to criticize the finale for the fact that there are chocobos in every part? Let’s scold the witchcraft for which almost every one has a captain price? And this makes the game worse as a game? of course not. You yourself determine what to get pleasure from – if you want from the game, then you will get it, but if you are ONLY interested in the fanservice component, then this is where the duckling works against you.
The music is very repulsive, of course it’s great that the tracklist includes compositions from different countries, but the narrow focus of the genres as a whole does not allow this feature to be revealed, and when in the garage, while setting up your iron horse, the French sound sounds (probably) more like a cough mixed with barking, you want to either drown it out or leave the garage as soon as possible, and the tracks in Ukrainian were quite surprising, I wanted to stop during the race and listen to see if they were glitching my ears. In general, the music in this game passed me by (especially when I previously played Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy with its gorgeous selection of tracks). Even the very controversial music from Heat, in comparison, sometimes sounds better and more melodic (and great tracks in the downloads). Otherwise, the only painful point for me is making money with this betting system and time restrictions, especially when compared with the same heat, where you can easily raise 100k in a few races. Further, the game has only advantages (well, if the visuals and plot don’t bother you, I personally don’t), it plays cheerfully, fun and interesting.
I agree with this. Time flies(
There is such a thing. If the style and music suits you, then it suits you very well and everything works for the game, but I understand you perfectly – if it doesn’t suit you, then you can’t force yourself, I’m glad that you still give the game a chance to entertain you. The developers wrote that cartoon effects would be disabled, but I didn’t find a setting as such, the best I can come up with is that there is a cartoon gray without any effects.
Gameplay is good so far. Almost exactly the same, “Criterionsky”, but with a number of reservations that it’s a different time and the project is about something else.
And yes, thanks for the advice))
I have an idea to buy the game at a discount, somewhere around 30-40 bucks, but I still have to wait until then)))
The last NFS that I personally liked was NFS: Rivals due to its similarity to Hot Pursuit (2010) and Most Wanted (2005) in terms of mechanics.
For me, 2013 was like yesterday)
The only thing that puts me off even trying unbound is the “cartoon” characters.
Their problem is that (drum roll) they are not cartoony at all. These are actors filmed live, with about 8 layers of post-processing applied to them. Looks as ugly as possible. If the characters were actually drawn, it would look much better.
Rivals is the only NFS I have problems with. On two different processors and on two different video cards it crashes for me every 10-20 minutes, it’s not possible to play because it also resets the progress of races. Maybe when I get my hands on RTX video cards I’ll try it again, because it looks nice.
Hello! If you love these genres and cannot stand others, then you will be disappointed and it is better to immediately turn off the music and turn on your playlist in the background. The music for the most part is a kind of rap, modern type of hip-hop and something like club music. I don’t listen to this apart from the game, but in it, as part of the ambiance, this playlist works for me.
I’ll start from the beginning – I, already a typical gamer, grew up on the early games in the series. The first for me was Need for Speed Hot Pursuit II with cut out videos and music, but I loved it as passionately as Electronic Arts money.
And who then am I, familiar with the series from the first part?? I can say that up to and including Underground the series was developing, the games were different and were not afraid of experiments. And then came some fashionable, stylish, youth “Fast and Furious” films with improved graphics and a minimum of changes.
I have no complaints about the series, just like any FIFA, EA stupidly won’t risk this brand. But I still hope to someday see a cool racing arcade from the Criteria under the Burnout brand. =)
Hmmm, no negativity. Just look at the ratings of the latest NSF! Unbound I don’t argue is better than the last 3.
I played all the last parts and I really regret it. And I wouldn’t give a ruble for them. It’s a shame there is no refund on playstation.
I just want to “not be the same”. We’re tired of the "same" games. Fallen Order still gave hope that sometimes even people like EA can take risks. =)
It’s clear. It’s a shame there isn’t as much variety as there used to be. Once upon a time, thanks to NFS MW 2005, I fell in love with metal
He was a long time ago. 2013. This is not the last 7 years! Hot take about 7 years of NFS sucked out of thin air.