Need for Speed: Rivals(PS4)I picked this game up for $40 during the black Friday sale before I moved to Japan. I played it for awhile back then got bored with it and put it down. So already we’re off to a bad start.. but recently I picked it back up again and finished it. So here is my review.
GraphicsI’ll start off on a positive note here and say the graphics are good. Although it is definitely not the best looking PS4 game you can get out there, it's adequate enough to say it can be a PS4 game. In saying that though it is not far off from what the PS3 version looks like either. Don't expect to be wow'ed with this after playing other far better looking PS4 games. Aesthetically too it’s a bore. You wont find much inspiration here past the sight of your car majestically flying off a cliff into the ocean.
You also ofcourse get the classic super graphixz EA glossy filter spread over everything with the annoying random flashes of lighting that try way to hard to be cool.
GameplayWhere do I begin..
What starts off as basically a quasi Burnout style game of cops and racers, it evolves into something much worse. The game fails to captivate anyone with abit of intelligence past the first few hours. It’s a simple experience that you wont find much replay value in.
Game mode races include; as a Racer: Do a race against time, Do a race getting away from a cop and lastly, Do a race against others.
As a cop: Race to a destination, Catch a single racer and finally, Catch multiple racers. Wow..captivating stuff.
Here’s where it falls apart.
You have this big open world, it’s so big you will need to use the quick travel feature in the map constantly to get to an event that you want, effectively ruining the point of a big open world.
The world is very samey. Making remembering where something is or was on the map pretty hard.
Besides the races, the only other objective to do is to do jumps around the environment which do nothing but give you frustration cause half the time you’ll just end up crashing your car and needing to find a repair station or worse yet, you do a jump, crash and have to start over a race because you lost everyone and your car is destroyed.
Random normal cars are EVERYWHERE. Making it hard to have a fun race or capture another car without worrying about if theirs a car around the corner you’re going to hit going 140mph. Other cop cars are also in the way at the same time. If you are playing as a cop, you’ll just wish they left you alone to take out the racers because 9 times out of 10 they are useless.
Rubber banding is blatantly apparent.
You hit a cop, it slows him down for a second and then suddenly he’s caught right back up to you as if it didn't matter what you did. In races you catch up and pass everyone, you drive waaay in front getting a huge lead on the race, but suddenly they all catch up to you as if they always were as fast as you were.
You play as a cop, same deal. Racers you hit will bounce back and run away faster then ever because you hit them.
Which brings me to the next point.
You leveled up? Have a new car unlocked that you paid for with your ridiculously unlimited pool of credits? It doesn't matter you will not benefit from your upgraded car.
Not only because of rubber banding, but because the faster your car, the more wanted you are by default or as a cop, the faster your racers become. Effectively negating the purpose and advantage of getting a new car.
And the races and racers themselves scale to your current cars level.
So you really might aswell stick with around a level 2 car that will fly under the radar more, is easier to control, is slower so you can avoid the constant normal cars in the way and so you are infact tougher aswell because ofcourse the faster you hit something the more damage you take.
The controls themselves are also a very basic arcady affair. Brake around a corner and turn the wheel to drift automagically.
Shoot the electric thing at the other car. Etc. You have seen it all before. It’s very repetitive.
SoundThe sound effects are OK at best. The music is awful and I disabled it after hearing the same songs over and over again. The sound design also does nothing to really impact gameplay either, you’’ hardly be able to hear other racers engines or tires over your own so you might aswell turn the volume down entirely and just play some of your own music over it. Your own music will probably be the best thing about playing this game. It gives me a chance to catch up on podcasts too.
StoryJesus Christ it’s bland.
“I am a racer… you are an obstacle.” *car zooms by
“I am the law… you will be brought to justice.” *Sirens go off
*Cue EA style, Michael Bay inspired lighting and futuristic computer sounds with a cut away to a news chopper
Then literally rinse and repeat that 10 times over with the same generic one liners.
Theirs no main character, protagonist. Theirs no plot. Theirs nothing to motivate you to see the next cut scene. Theirs not even a phone call from a friend while you drive around telling you to meet up for a race. It couldn't be more under-imaginative and anti-story.
I would have left this section out of the review, but because it’s such an eye sore to watch it’s part of the experience and thus part of the review.
In the end, it's a bargain bin game plain and simple.
I give it a generous..
1.5/
5Unfortunately though I am just a few hours away from getting the 100% platinum trophy so im going to do that and then sell the game.