The Need for Speed franchise has been hit-or-miss since its "Underground" days, with one entry shining, while a subsequent one sinks into the abyss. Electronic Arts' newest Need for Speed ($59.99), a series reboot, falls into the second category. The game has good driving mechanics and lots of car customization options, but its god-awful story, online-only gameplay, underwhelming multiplayer, horrible bugs, and extensive load times prevent the title from reaching its potential. I reviewed Need for Speed on PC, but it's also available for Xbox One ($200.00 at eBay) and PlayStation 4 ($799.95 at Amazon) .
Run Me Over Instead
The only Need for Speed story that's worse than the one in this game is the Need for Speed story offered in the 2014 film starring Aaron Paul. You play a racer who's friends with characters that represent Sprint, Style, Crew, Build, and Outlaw, the five game modes. You and your buddies race in those contests to climb the ranks.
The story is told in a first-person perspective, and is shot in live action. The camerawork and cinematography are beautiful, but the entire experience is bogged down by your buddies' extremely "dudebro" archetypes. The dialogue is horrid; the word "bae" is used in earnest twice within the first five minutes. The guys are unlikable, and they made me groan every other line they spoke. The music doesn't help matters, either. Bland, cookie-cutter electronic music litters the soundtrack, but the score isn't a complete waste: Mass Effect 2's "Afterlife" theme occasionally plays in your garage.
Road Warrior
When you participate in a certain game mode, the buddy that represents that mode usually informs you of the event and joins you. Sprint races are point A to point B contests. Style races are drift competitions in which you aim to accumulate enough points to be declared the winner. Crew pits you and your AI friends against other racing cliques. Build is a race in which your car's modifications are put to the test against an opponent's mods. Outlaw races incorporate each of these modes, plus add police chases. Each race that you win increases your REP level, which lets you unlock new challenges and car parts. Need for Speed lets you progress through the painful story by solely racing in a particular mode, but more often than not, you'll find yourself playing through each one as the modes are extremely brief.
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Why You Should Game on a PC
Fortunately, the actual racing is quite thrilling. Blazing down streets, hugging corners, and being chased by the police is extremely fun. Plus, the AI isn't a pain to race against; I only encountered a few instances of rubber band comebacks.
Unfortunately, multiplayer doesn't add much to the experience. In fact, Need for Speed is online only, which means you must have an Internet connection to play. If your ISP has a bad day, you won't be able to play. You can invite friends to drop into your game, or race with random players driving around the map. The online races are the same as the single-player campaign races, which makes you wonder why Need for Speed needs a constant Internet connection.
Car Customization
Need for Speed boasts a solid collection of vehicles, but the car count isn't as robust as Forza Horizon 2's ($79.99 at Amazon) . Up to four cars can be bought and stored in the garage, the location where customizations takes place. You can paint a car or apply a wrap that changes its color and decals, but the customization options go much deeper.
Performance customization lets you replace stock parts, such as air filters, cooling systems, and intake manifolds, with more expensive parts that increase your ride's speed and horsepower. Visual customization is pretty neat, too. You can swap external parts, add flairs, and even upgrade your trunk's lid. Unfortunately, some externals can't be swapped until your REP reaches the required level. Even then, a lot of cars don't have certain parts available for swapping, which defeats the purpose of the deep customization element of the game.
Handling Tuning lets you customize how the cars handle the road to accommodate your specific play style. You can tweak the front and rear tires, steering range and response, and other options to make drifting easier or tighten tire grip. These tweaks make Need for Speed stand out as the series installment with the most polished driving mechanics, as you can tailor them to your liking.
Need for Speed (for PC)
Bugs and Specs
Horrific bugs nearly ruin this game. Roads vanish and drop your car into darkness. In fact, a particular sprint race, Skarkodie Speed, made me rage quit because the roads wouldn't render.
On that note, the game takes far too long to load. You'll stare at the start screen for more than a minute before you can dive into the game. Plus, every time you have an accident, the game loads as it returns you to your most recent checkpoint. That takes fairly long, too. Going to the garage prompts another lengthy load, as does choosing races. It's all very frustrating.
Still, my Nvidia GeForce GTX 960-powered gaming PC smoothly handled the game when the title worked as it should. Need for Speed blazed across my screen at a smooth 60 frames per second.
The game is playable in 4K resolution, too, which is a plus for those with compatible monitors. The tweakable options include ambient occlusion, textures, and shadows. On the High setting, Need for Speed is a gorgeous game that's noticeably more detailed than its console counterparts. The cars look sleeker, and the environments crisper. I was particularly impressed with the raindrops running down the windshield.
Need for Sale
Need for Speed is a decent racer when it's firing all cylinders. The driving mechanics can be adjusted to your liking, and most cars are heavily customizable to appeal to the gearhead audience. But terrible bugs and an underwhelming multiplayer keep it from being truly worth a recommendation. The most disheartening thing is you'll be hard pressed to find a better contemporary arcade-style Racer available for PC, as the options are scarce. If you want to have some racing fun, get a copy of Burnout Paradise or Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast. They're older games that still look and play quite well.
Electronic Arts' newest PC racing game is gorgeous, and offers lots of customization options, but it's super-buggy and features some of the most annoying characters in video game history.
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