Um dos piores jogos de corrida que já tive o desprazer de jogar na minha vida. O gameplay e controle dos carros é horrível

a estética inteira do jogo parece que foi feita por alguém com 30 e poucos anos querendo parecer "cool" para jovem de 14 anos do twitter e ainda te forçam a ter que aturar isso, não tendo como desativar essas animações toscas

a história e rádio são bisonhas, mas pelo menos dá pra mutar os dois, e as pistas se repetem toda hora

Eu acredito que pegaram pesado demais com esse jogo, claro que não é o grandioso retorno da franquia que todo mundo espera, mas é melhor do que qualquer NFS lançado depois do Most Wanted 2012, melhor até mesmo do que o Heat, conseguiu pegar todas as mecânicas dele e melhorar, acho que se a Ghost Games tivesse continuado na franquia uma hora eles iriam acertar a mão, mas já que não tiveram a chance, a Criterion chegou bem perto disso.

Começando pelo que mais reclamaram que foi a parte gráfica, eu também não curti quando o jogo lançou, mas jogando mesmo eu me acostumei e é até que bem bonito, os efeitos são bem variados e os personagens em cel shading lembram muito os filmes antigos da Hot Wheels, a customização de personagem teve uma baita evolução em comparação ao Heat, já os carros permaneceram a mesma coisa. Visualmente falando é um jogo bem similar ao Heat e os gráficos não têm nada que justifiquem ser de nova geração, mas com certeza não são feios.

A história é bem mista, eles tentam apostar em uma narrativa melhor e mais desenvolvida, mas as motivações são rasas, os personagens são extremamente mal escritos e tem uns diálogos que te deixam com vontade de morrer escutando, principalmente quando o ASAP Rocky entra em cena, os discursos motivacionais dele me deixavam mais triste do que feliz, sem contar os personagens comentando que a polícia prender eles por correrem em corridas ilegais é bullying??? A motivação da rival do protagonista é ridícula também, parece algo escrito por uma criança.

E já comentando sobre o ASAP Rocky, gostaria de parabenizar a Criterion pela PIOR trilha sonora de Need for Speed de todos os tempos, não tem literalmente UMA música que se salve, eu preferia jogar no mudo ouvindo música no Spotify ou algum vídeo do Youtube de tão ruim que são as músicas escolhidas, não digo que é obrigatório a franquia tocar Rock ou Pop de fundo, mas pelo menos toca alguma música decente, do 2015 pra cá foi uma queda impressionante, se a do Heat era ruim, a desse é o mais puro esgoto.

Agora que eu já falei a parte ruim, de resto o jogo brilha bastante, pode não ser a direção mais fenomenal da franquia, mas é a melhor direção desde o Rivals, é divertida, fácil e bem responsiva, mesmo com a física do jogo sendo a mesma merda dos anteriores. A inteligência artificial da polícia melhorou muito, cada tipo de policial tem uma forma de ser derrotado e seu carro não é mais trucidado igual no Heat, já seus oponentes também tiveram uma melhoria, porém o jogo abusa muito do rubberbanding, te forçando a jogar quase que perfeitamente se não você nunca mais alcança o primeiro lugar, além do fato do jogo quase sempre deixar os oponentes na sua cola a todo instante.

O jogo introduz um sistema de risco e recompensa muito melhor que o do Heat, aqui você precisa de dinheiro pra se inscrever nas corridas e se você for mal nelas, você pode terminar o dia com o saldo negativo e cada dia é valioso, pois o jogo possui um calendário aonde você vai se preparando pra grande final, é basicamente um mês pra se juntar o dinheiro necessário e correr no último evento. De início é uma mecânica bem punitiva já que seu carro não tá tunado, mas depois de alguns dias você se acostuma e é bem legal, outra paradinha maneira é a possibilidade de apostar dinheiro em algum corredor pra caso você derrote ele, você receba a grana da aposta, isso acaba criando uma dinâmica bem legal de rivais no jogo.

Eu achei um ótimo jogo e um bom Need for Speed, fui com a expectativa baixa e me surpreendi, talvez quem vá testar o jogo de mente aberta consiga gostar bastante, tá bem longe de ser ruim igual todos dizem. Acredito que se fosse um spin-off totalmente em cel shading, com um sistema de vida e social link dos personagens estilo Persona pra incentivar a rivalidade nas corridas e adicionar mais profundidade no enredo, o jogo seria melhor e teria sido mais bem aceito.

It's fine. Relatively lacklustre tbh. I was alternating between this and Forza Horizon 3 before realising there's nothing to do in Unbound after about five ours or one week cycle. I've seen everything. The whole map, all the track, and events. It's just so recycled and boring. I couldn't stand the police chases or the fact that for some inexplicable reason the game resets you after each race and plants a cop car directly on your ass. There's no racers to see in the open world, only events. There are pedestrians and the concept of a busy city at work I'm this game but there's absolutely nothing going on. It's dead. It doesn't jive with the bustling street art and street car scene the game implies exists between cutscenes and the world design. I want to like this game, I want to fool around with body mods and cool liveries on normal cars like I'm 11 years old playing Underground 2 again. But, man, the game makes it hard. The progression is slow and the content and map are baren. The driving is nice, and living up to its name, there can be a decent sense of speed, but it makes it so hard to incentivise you to finish. Even the story is some boring nonsense. Feels too caught between "let's make a Spiderverse inspired racing game" and "remember we're Need for Speed, an EA franchise so no risks". I hate this term but such a cocktease of a game. I didn't hate playing it but I don't want to finish it.

I've somehow managed to play the past 3 Need For Speed titles by complete accident. Not really much of a conscious effort on my part, more just the fact that there's always an arcade racer itch that I like to scratch every once in a while, that just so happens to loosely follow how often these games drop. And because of the current Steam Spring Sale that's going on as I'm writing this, $9 CAD was too good a deal to pass up. I'm conflicted, because while the game didn't exactly blow me away, it did in fact scratch that itch. Criterion have things like the physics of driving and the new implementation of burst nitro which are both really good things. Burst nitro works on both drift to turn (which has been common in the past 2 NFS'), but also actual grip driving which is awesome to see! But then there's also the tiered system of vehicles, where you'll inevitably encounter the moment of "If I upgrade this car more, it will no longer be in B class so I can't upgrade my car anymore." which feels incredibly fucking shitty. The story while seemingly pretty engaging at first, ends up being similar to the past 2 NFS' as well so there's not exactly much to write home about. The visuals which have been a major point of contention while discussing this game are something I really liked. It's quite a bold choice for all these fun cool effects and it was never going to be everyone's cup of tea anyway, so I'm really glad they even took that risk. Overall I feel like for the price that I paid for ($9 CAD) I definitely got my money's worth, but I do also recognize that people who paid $70 USD for this game and are now complaining that there might not be enough content, are valid for that opinion. The best way to really put it is if you like arcade racers or have even played NFS in the past, of course it's serviceable. It won't blow you away and I would definitely recommend getting it while it's on sale, but I did have a pretty good time with it. As for the future of the franchise, I'll probably end up playing the next one by accident too, so I guess I'll see y'all on the grid.

Excellent graphics and an interesting and engaging art style (even if sometimes distracting).
However, the story is mediocre at best. It is so short that it locks "story events" after a "weekly-type" progression that is made to give the impression that the game is longer than it actually is.

The logic of the game is: Sunday through Friday, you do "chores" or run different (yet always very similar) races to earn money. The main events (the ones that progress the story) all require a minimum amount, so you need to grind during the week to play the story.
Oh, and the iconic BMW M3 GTR GT is for multiplayer only :)
Terrible.

Unbound just feels like a stylistic but worse overall version of Heat, with frustrating chase mechanics and an aggravating leveling system that just hates the player making progress.

It is mechanically worse than Heat in every possible manner, with the night time risk reward mechanic even making a return from Heat but just feeling dull and poorly thought out as if they tried fitting it in after the game had already been made.

The whole experience is just frustrating and never feels like it picks up. The whole stylistic choice this game markets as its focal point just end up feel like zaney little touches that ultimately add nothing to the racing with these effects eventually blending into the background with the rest of the game.

Need For Speed: Style Over Substance.

Criterion are back after their work on ‘Most Wanted (2012) to give us ‘Need For Speed: Unbound’, yet again another refresh of the series. Unbound takes the framework of the previous game ‘Heat’ and improves on a few things as well as a dash of features from ‘Most Wanted (2012)’. I had my doubts about this game from the footage I saw prior to playing, but I ended up not hating it as much as I thought I would.

The gameplay centres around your character trying to trace down their stolen cars from their garage by winning weekly races. There are 4 weeks in total, 6 racing days a week, twice daily and then one big race day at the end of the week. You need to cough up a large sum of money to do the end of each week’s race and if you don’t have the cash you’re given the opportunity to grind the prior day until you do. By the end of week 4 you need to have at least 1 car of each class apart from class B. This structure added stress as I felt as though I was preparing for an exam and having the anxiety of “what if it comes to the last race, I have shit cars and no money?” If you’re reading this before playing the game then don’t worry too much. Play 2-3 races a day as well as the car drop off missions and you’ll have more than enough. I know that there will be seasoned players out there who could probably do this game on 1 race per week. Each race also lets you gamble some of your money depending on where you think you will place in the race.

I like how this game starts off with getting you to work up the ranks and places in the race rather than making you be 1st every time. People have commented on the unfair AI of the opposing cars but I would only sometimes see this when you’d be first and at the last checkpoint another car would rocket out of nowhere and pass you at 500 mph and win the race. If, like me, you're coming from the previous game ‘Heat’ where almost everything is destructible, well you’re going to be in for a big surprise because not everything is destructible here. This will become apparent when you will crash through one barrier but crash into another. In the heat of a chase or a race it is hard to distinguish what you can and cannot crash through so you will find yourself crashing a lot.

There is a huge car selection available and I was fortunate enough to get bonus cars from the EA play membership although I only used the “Fairlady” car. Once again you’re doing loads of customisations to maximise each class of car and get the best performance out of it. If you’re thinking of using Google/Reddit to decide on what best cars to have, take what they say with a pinch of salt. Either no one agrees on the same cars or they will recommend cars only available after completing the game.

A graphical change again for the NFS series with cell shaded characters and realistic backgrounds. As you don’t often see them side-by-side it’s not that jarring. One thing that I was unsure about at first was the animations coming out of your car and its tires as you drift or hit nitros but then I accepted it as a nice visual flare. It’s very much inspired by the new animated Spider-Man films.The realistic backgrounds look great as well as the raindrops on the cars.

One thing that has not changed throughout the NFS series is the writing. Oh god is it bad here. The problem is, it doesn’t seem self aware. It’s not deliberately cheesy, it's as if a middle aged person wrote a bunch of young people based on their interpretation of how they think they speak. The “trash talk” and patter in the game is absolutely dire. It’s the first time in the whole series I considered muting the voice acting volume. One time I was forced to hear a whole spiel from one of the characters before I could enter my garage. Before they could finish I was chased by the cops so had to then deal with a chase on top of the terrible dialogue. The game includes the real life rapper A$AP Rocky. He appears in the game as a character and his music is heavily featured on the soundtrack. One mission you need to drive him and his car from point A to point B twice. The worst part of this mission is having to hear him waffle shite for about 10 minutes.

The soundtrack is ok, a few classics and decent tunes in there but nothing with much energy that makes you think “fuck yeah” while battering through the streets at 200 mph.

Unlike in ‘Heat’ the cops are much easier to escape from and don’t have that bullshit busted gauge. Surprisingly I was never actually busted in my whole playthrough despite numerous prolonged chases. I absolutely hate the heat system in this game, I would have enjoyed it a lot more if the police were just confined to the races rather than when you’re traversing the open world. I know that this opinion may be controversial as one of IGN’s negatives in their review was that the cops were not featured in the online mode. I would get so frustrated shaking the cops and trying to stay out of their line of sight that I wanted to give up the game so badly. What was salt in the wound as well was that after a certain amount of time, if you cannot shake that one cop a timer will appear that once depleted will spawn 4-5 new cops around you. I feel like this is an absolute dick move from the game. I would also get frustrated at cops spawning right next to you in the open world and initiating a chase.

With all of the above, you may ask “so is this game worth it then for all of those niggles?” No, in my opinion it is not. There is a lot of work and stress for very little reward. Everything given to you for winning races is required for completing the main storyline. It feels like being paid in bricks to build a house rather than being given cool features to build a house. You can unlock some cool cars such as the BMW M3 from ‘Most Wanted (2015)’ which makes cameo appearances in most of the NFS games like Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars TV shows. This game marks the end of me playing all the Need For Speed game post ‘Underground’ for my article and let me tell you thank god I’m done. I’ve had ups and downs throughout the series and what a disappointing way to end my journey than with Unbound. This game would be vastly improved in my opinion of the writing was better and the cops weren’t so frustrating to manage.The only way I could recommend this game to someone would be if they have not played any of the other games but even then I’d recommend another such as ‘Payback'

No genre has suffered more within the past two generations of gaming than racing games. Need for Speed is a shell of its former self. Burnout is dead. Namco seems to have forgotten Ridge Racer, and Sony has abandoned MotorStorm and seems hellbent on ruining Gran Turismo. Sure, there’s other racing games out there like Forza, Project Cars, and The Crew, but they all feel so utterly inessential, coming and going without much fanfare except from the most hardcore of racing game fans.

Need for Speed: Unbound is fine. It’s better than Payback and Heat, but that’s the faintest praise I could possibly offer it. I just can’t get excited by it because Need for Speed used to be better than just fine. It used to be that a Need for Speed game would come out and it would be one of the best games of the year. Now a new Need for Speed game comes out and it feels like hardly anyone cares.

There is a series of dialogue early on in NFS: Unbound in which right after weaving in and out of traffic at 160 mph and putting hundreds of virtual civilians lives in danger on my way to winning an illegal street race and then forcing a cop to smash into concrete barrier at high speeds to escape his pursuit, a radio host comments on government corruption by noting that the mayor recently got a speeding ticket for going 45 in a school zone to which my protagonist responds by calling the mayor a hypocrite for trying to crack down on illegal street racing while speeding herself. This clumsy attempt at social awareness clashes severely with the fact that we are playing a game centered around illegal street racing and if you try to bring in any real sense of ethics or morality into the game, we are the clearly the bad guys as we endanger many a civilian for nothing more than money and a quick thrill. Social commentary is fine in gaming, but it's hard to make comments about the criminal justice system while the protagonist is doing blatantly reprehensible things. This is no Robin Hood-esque tale, we are not stealing bread to feed our family - we are just racing for money and because we like it - and being an orphan doesn't give you carte blanche to break the law. Sadly a large chunk of the dialogue in this game suffers from this same dissonance which prompted me to turn the dialogue volume down to where it wouldn't distract me from the main attraction which is the racing. And just as it should be, this is where the game shines. I'd also like to add that the street art style effects that burst out of your car when you drift, use nitrous, or generally do anything cool are surprisingly effective and add a kineticism and punchiness to the already action packed gameplay. The truth is though that the racing game market is pretty saturated and while this game is fun, it doesn't hold a candle to Forza Horizon 4 which came out 4 years earlier.