Need For Speed: Unbound - Dec 02 2022

[K]

I played it a bit more last night, and I'm starting to dig it. The way you slow down when drifting works in conjunction with the boost you get when you drift, so you scrub off a bit of speed going into the corner and then use the boost you get to power out of it. Slow in, fast out.

[MattyP]

11 hours ago, dumpster said:

No kids can afford that.  

To be fair that is for the "Palace Edition" although I note that it is the default version pre-selected on the store!!!! Regular version is £70. Have I missed something recently? Have EA aligned with Sony's first party prices? Its also £70 on the Xbox store and £60 on steam. 

 

Not that I'm going to buy it this is a prime candidate for ending up on GamePass/EAPlay after Xmas. 

[dave7g]

13 hours ago, scoobysi said:

I’m warming to this, some enjoyable racing, although I do feel I’ve played it before. In fact I’d swear there are sections of the road taken directly from both NFS HP and Heat.

 

If only you could turn down the graphical effects, the rear light trail is quite cool but the wings on a jump and tyre smoke are horrible. At one point I couldn’t even see where I was going because of some graphic above the car.

Driving feels a lot like hot pursuit more than any other NFS.

[Mr Majestyk]

Yep, driving in this is better than previous games and I'm trying to tune out the annoying story stuff. I won't be buying it but will probably rinse the trial.

[Valver]

3 hours ago, MattyP said:

Not that I'm going to buy it this is a prime candidate for ending up on GamePass/EAPlay after Xmas. 

 

Err, it already is?  Well the 10 hour trial is available if you are a GamePass subscriber

[MattyP]

27 minutes ago, Valver said:

 

Err, it already is?  Well the 10 hour trial is available if you are a GamePass subscriber

Meant the full game...  The trial is what I've been playing... 

[scoobysi]

I remember DIRT turned up ridiculously quick on GP, put me off buying Codemaster Racers on release. I think it tends to be 6 months to a year before a game normally appears on EA Play but maybe it’ll depend on how successful it has been.

 

In terms of price this just seems way off the mark when WRC Generations is £39.99 vs £69.99 for this. Even with EA Play discount and some cheap credit it still works out at a pricey £53.

[SteveH]

What are the green circles that appear on the mini map in close proximity to your cars location as you are driving around?

[Sarlaccfood]

5 hours ago, MattyP said:

Have EA aligned with Sony's first party prices?

Yeah and a few other companies have too for triple AAA current gen stuff. 

[MattyP]

1 hour ago, scoobysi said:

I remember DIRT turned up ridiculously quick on GP, put me off buying Codemaster Racers on release. I think it tends to be 6 months to a year before a game normally appears on EA Play but maybe it’ll depend on how successful it has been.

 

In terms of price this just seems way off the mark when WRC Generations is £39.99 vs £69.99 for this. Even with EA Play discount and some cheap credit it still works out at a pricey £53.

Think that is the issue I have with a price point of £70.  It would have to do something exceptionally different to make it worth that much. In the days when you have the likes of Forza Horizon 4 or 5 on GamePass for example. Even Burnout Paradise is part of GP or available much cheaper. OK different games but if I'm honest this just isn't worth it for me. But then I've played a fair few arcade style racers before I guess and it takes a bit to impress. 

[Sarlaccfood]

40 minutes ago, MattyP said:

Think that is the issue I have with a price point of £70.  It would have to do something exceptionally different to make it worth that much. In the days when you have the likes of Forza Horizon 4 or 5 on GamePass for example. Even Burnout Paradise is part of GP or available much cheaper. OK different games but if I'm honest this just isn't worth it for me. But then I've played a fair few arcade style racers before I guess and it takes a bit to impress. 

That’s our use case though and doesn’t really affect pricing. 
 

From EA’s business point of view, the NFS series is more like FIFA and COD rather than WRC Generations. It’s aimed straight at the normies who buy (or are gifted) a couple of games a year.
 

Before COD, NFS was regularly the Xmas number 1 game.

[scoobysi]

21 hours ago, SteveH said:

What are the green circles that appear on the mini map in close proximity to your cars location as you are driving around?

I think it means there’s a collectible within the vicinity and once you get near/within sight of it it becomes an icon on the map e.g. billboard, street art etc.

[SteveH]

4 minutes ago, scoobysi said:

I think it means there’s a collectible within the vicinity and once you get near/within sight of it it becomes an icon on the map e.g. billboard, street art etc.

 Cheers. I did figure out earlier actually. I was just too busy tear arsing around for it to fill in what should be there, so was just seeing circles everywhere. Thanks

[scoobysi]

Starting to think I’ll be sad when the 10hr trial ends (I’m about half way). Now that I’ve got a Mustang to tear around in and I’ve started looking for billboards, wall art, bears etc while earning money in the day night cycle for the meet at the end of the week, it feels like a proper Criterion game. The characters, world, music and even graphic effects have started to gel with me much more. Don’t judge a book by its cover I guess.

 

Handling is great, I’ve not had to tweak anything and it seems pretty rock solid, can’t say I’ve noticed any pop-in ***, tearing or come across any bugs.

 

Still need to try out the online/multiplayer.

 

*** there is once you get out of the City into the mountains

 

 

[dvdx2]

Ok - get past the prologue and it all opens up - burnout paradise style

[deerokus]

There's a really nice cover of Where is My Mind on this soundtrack.

[SteveH]

17 hours ago, scoobysi said:

 

 

Handling is great, I’ve not had to tweak anything and it seems pretty rock solid, can’t say I’ve noticed any pop-in ***, tearing or come across any bugs.

 

 

 

 

If nothing else, I'd try it with the deadzone for the steering turned right down if I were you. It's set at something nuts like 20%. The Steeringfeels a lot tighter to me once you turn it down. 

[scoobysi]

1 hour ago, SteveH said:

If nothing else, I'd try it with the deadzone for the steering turned right down if I were you. It's set at something nuts like 20%. The Steeringfeels a lot tighter to me once you turn it down. 

I’m using a DualSense rather than a wheel, so maybe not the same issue with deadzone.
 

[SteveH]

8 minutes ago, scoobysi said:

I’m using a DualSense rather than a wheel, so maybe not the same issue with deadzone.
 

Ah I'm on Xbox just using a controller, but the Dualsense could be set up quite differently. 

[moosegrinder]

Ah balls. This is really good. The yoof stuff isn't as risible as I'd been lead to believe really. Or I'd prepared myself for it. Whatever. It's good looking and I like that drifting isn't just a cast of tapping LT and holding RT but you need to balance it. Hurm.

[scoobysi]

The racing is really good, the yellow instant nitrous is a nice touch, stay in the slipstream to build it up and then use it or lose it.

 

I take it there’s no way to change your car other than going back to the garage and ending that part of the day? Meaning you can only race one class e.g. A or B but not both without moving it one from day to night or vice versa?

[K]

13 hours ago, SteveH said:

If nothing else, I'd try it with the deadzone for the steering turned right down if I were you. It's set at something nuts like 20%. The Steeringfeels a lot tighter to me once you turn it down. 

Jesus, if there’s one thing you need to know before playing this game, it’s this. The handling feels transformed once you reduce the deadzone on the sticks. The default is 22%! That’s absolutely mental.

 

I know there’s almost a tradition where Need For Speed games have bizarrely awful default handling settings, but this feels almost like sabotage. 

[JPR]

2 hours ago, scoobysi said:

The racing is really good, the yellow instant nitrous is a nice touch, stay in the slipstream to build it up and then use it or lose it.

 

I take it there’s no way to change your car other than going back to the garage and ending that part of the day? Meaning you can only race one class e.g. A or B but not both without moving it one from day to night or vice versa?

 

You can select your car when you enter an event for a different class. Warning though, that's the car you will be in after the event. I swapped to my slow A car at the end of the night in week three when I was heat level five and the map was swarming with police, took ages to escape them.

 

I'm really enjoying this so far but my biggest complaint would be the police. They seem stuck to you and will follow you off a cliff, can do a handbrake turn quicker than I can and are ridiculously fast. The one that always bugs me isn't getting behind them with nitro to boost into them and they just pull ahead when you do.

[scoobysi]

4 minutes ago, JPR said:

You can select your car when you enter an event for a different class. Warning though, that's the car you will be in after the event. I swapped to my slow A car at the end of the night in week three when I was heat level five and the map was swarming with police, took ages to escape them.

Doh, why didn’t I realise this, cheers. I’m still in week 1 so your slow A car is my fast car 😁.

 

*** probably as I haven’t bought another car either as didn’t think I’d be able to use them both.

 

 

[Sarlaccfood]

I love the visual style in this, but the wee red trails off the taillights make me sad thinking what a modern Ridge Racer could be like. 

6/10

 

[Ry]

This gets tedious as hell the more it goes on. 

 

Having to drive miles to events or to go to garage to adjust/change car is so bloody annoying. 

 

Not to mention you just want to  race and as you drive to an event you end up near the event location and it's covered in cops and you spend what feels like an age to lose 5 cops and a chopper before you can actually do the event. And by that time you have had to drive miles away from the event you wanted to do. So make that drive back but oh wait....there's cops everywhere. 

 

It makes the game unbearable. 

[scoobysi]

39 minutes ago, Ry said:

This gets tedious as hell the more it goes on. 

 

Having to drive miles to events or to go to garage to adjust/change car is so bloody annoying. 

 

Not to mention you just want to  race and as you drive to an event you end up near the event location and it's covered in cops and you spend what feels like an age to lose 5 cops and a chopper before you can actually do the event. And by that time you have had to drive miles away from the event you wanted to do. So make that drive back but oh wait....there's cops everywhere. 

 

It makes the game unbearable. 

I try and avoid the cops mostly, which is not too bad if you use the radar. If you pass one use your nitrous and often you’ll be out of range while they’re still spotting. I agree it’s annoying at times though, there are just too many of them floating round the map.

 

I generally use the drive to meets to pickup a few collectibles on the way, so don’t mind that, and will often get distracted, which is probably why I won’t get to the end of week 1 during the trial.

[Strafe]

Played a couple of hours on the gamepass EA free trial thing. I’ve never played a NFS game having thought they were generic EA stuff. This is pretty good. Well, the races at least are thrilling and once you get to grips with the handling there’s a fair bit of skill involved from what I can tell.

 

The art style jars slightly at first but it feels unique and characters aside, has nailed the line between cartoon and realism in a way I haven’t really seen before.

 

The open world seems a bit boring - all that’s happened with it so far is that I use the map to find a race, drive all the way over there and hope I don’t accidentally clip a cop car on the way through.

 

The music isn’t usually my thing but quite enjoying it here, it makes the races feel very cinematic.

 

The narrative is…ok? My friend who sits in the car with me who I’ve decided has cost me several races (none of the other competitors have passengers, why am I carrying the extra weight), has gone from happy go lucky to extremely bitter very quickly. I’m hoping to dump her out the passenger door at high speed as soon as possible though one suspects she’ll turn into an antagonist sooner rather than later.

 

My driver is quite funny. She was listening to the radio about the Mayors plans to increase the local police force and lamenting that more ‘racer hating cops’ would be on the roads, like said racers are an innocent oppressed people, unfairly bullied by authority.
 

I’d just come out of a race which involved at least 3 high speed collisions with civilian drivers - one of which I caused by shunting another racer into oncoming traffic - whose only crime had been travelling to work or wherever during the same time we held our highly illegal and incredibly dangerous street race. One of the same street races that see tens of thousands of dollars worth of public property regularly smashed up by our cars. 
 

I know this is very much against the spirit of the game but I can’t help but be on the cops side here. The racers of need for speed need to be stopped.

[dave7g]

On 03/12/2022 at 00:48, deerokus said:

There's a really nice cover of Where is My Mind on this soundtrack.

If only they had Orange Cassidy as a hidden character. He'd be way better than the lame character you play as.

[Robo_1]

On 04/12/2022 at 19:35, Ry said:

This gets tedious as hell the more it goes on. 

 

Having to drive miles to events or to go to garage to adjust/change car is so bloody annoying. 

 

Not to mention you just want to  race and as you drive to an event you end up near the event location and it's covered in cops and you spend what feels like an age to lose 5 cops and a chopper before you can actually do the event. And by that time you have had to drive miles away from the event you wanted to do. So make that drive back but oh wait....there's cops everywhere. 

 

It makes the game unbearable. 

 

Well, that's 70 saved. You've pretty much described all my worst fears for these open world racers. Thanks for the heads up!