Need for Speed Retrospective #20
Booting up a new Need for Speed game really is like a box of chocolates. With its always-online mentality, glossy wet look and esoteric storytelling, Ghost's first outing is once again something completely different.
As for the MMO-like qualities, the game Rivals most reminded me of was Ubisoft's The Crew, which came out only one year later and is now sadly defunct. The cool thing about The Crew, though, was its vast, exciting and explorable world. Here, we get little more than a series of tunnels in which we sporadically meet other players minding their business. Even the series' own Need for Speed: World handled the open-world aspects much better.
To my great dislike, the racer/cop split from the Hot Pursuit subseries is back and once again amounts to little more than the necessity to do the same content twice, as perfectly exemplified by the two identical unskippable tutorials the game starts with.
Despite my personal hatred for authorities and the complete lack of visual customizability, the gameplay on the cops' side might actually be superior. On the racer side, the fact that I couldn't even pause the game combined with the cops on constant lookout for me made the game unnecessarily stressful. At each safehouse I took a deep breath of relief, evaluating if going back out there was even worth it at all. After a couple of hours I naturally decided it wasn't and never bothered with the game again.
Booting up a new Need for Speed game really is like a box of chocolates. With its always-online mentality, glossy wet look and esoteric storytelling, Ghost's first outing is once again something completely different.
As for the MMO-like qualities, the game Rivals most reminded me of was Ubisoft's The Crew, which came out only one year later and is now sadly defunct. The cool thing about The Crew, though, was its vast, exciting and explorable world. Here, we get little more than a series of tunnels in which we sporadically meet other players minding their business. Even the series' own Need for Speed: World handled the open-world aspects much better.
To my great dislike, the racer/cop split from the Hot Pursuit subseries is back and once again amounts to little more than the necessity to do the same content twice, as perfectly exemplified by the two identical unskippable tutorials the game starts with.
Despite my personal hatred for authorities and the complete lack of visual customizability, the gameplay on the cops' side might actually be superior. On the racer side, the fact that I couldn't even pause the game combined with the cops on constant lookout for me made the game unnecessarily stressful. At each safehouse I took a deep breath of relief, evaluating if going back out there was even worth it at all. After a couple of hours I naturally decided it wasn't and never bothered with the game again.