Need for Speed - Unbound

I was on the fence about this. All this bollokology has made me leave the fence and run the opposite direction. Must be my age, i'm not the target audience for these games anymore...

NFS: Fashion Police

I do indeed, and I shall give it a go. But if they're already promoting the fashion side of things, I've a feeling everything in-between the racing will annoy me. I shan't be spending money!

They're not selling it...

I do also like that they insist on showing the handful of proper modifiable cars, and very few of the far-more-abundant supercars.

But yes, no longer the target audience. I'm seeing a lot of that lately. Must be getting old. Suppose I am 4 years over the average now. Grumble grumble.

That racing does look kind of fun, in fairness!

Just another reminder for those with Game Pass Ultimate - a ten hour trial will be available on Tuesday the 29th.

I'm playing this at the moment, and I'm getting NFS Heat vibes from it. It looks great on the Series X.

Popped an achievement too.

I played an hour or two of it and its very "meh". Not being able to turn off the awful animation effects really puts me off and the animated characters plus the cringy dialogue really doesn't help. Definitely wouldn't buy it but might play it again if it's on game pass

They put up a post saying effects can be turned off then put out another post saying tire smoke and light trails can't be turned off but everything else can

You just didn't stunt on the opps enough is all.

I like the effects, reminds me a lot of the comic book aesthetic from something like infamous when it was in full flow. The city vibe is similar too, it's the first thing I thought on the first race that I was driving around infamous.

The chatter is the usual street racer nonsense.

Playing it on steam deck and it plays okay.

When do you get to tune the cars? So far all I can do is change the appearance of it.

Eurogamer seem to really like it too. Call it the best NFS in a generation.

I tried an hour or two, and like Tazzimus I'm wondering when you get to modify the car outside of paint/decals. But the characters are annoying, the contrast between anime and realistic is too jarring for me at the moment, so will try and turn them down. But the forced "cool" stances pre/post races... ugh. The racing seems like it could be good, but will need a bit more to get used to it, seems very slow at the moment, but not in a "I'm driving a slow car" way, more this car feels slower than it should because they want to the more powerful ones to feel better. I dunno. Something feels off. I'll finish the demo but I'll probably wait for inclusion on GP/PS+.

It's getting harder not being the target audience anymore... As someone said, please just let Criterion release another Burnout. Screw the official brands and all the wasted expense of licensing, and instead concentrate on making a good game that's fun to play, like Paradise. Or just remake Burnout 3 with a modern engine. Stupid EA.

Edit: And sure enough, with a couple of more hours, I can see why people are saying it's a good arcade racing game. The racing is starting to get fun. It's more arcadey than usual, but looks like you can change the grip/drift up to your own preference. The races/betting is a good system, I just can't care for the characters which is a shame. Still not sold on the anime effects, and the anime characters are just not even nice to look at imo. Seems so out of place. Have been playing with the volume down for reasons, so I'm not getting most of the chatter that's happening and not reading the subs either. But the racing is digging its nails into me. I even enjoyed a race in a Lambo, which is nearly a first. Still want a new Burnout though.

So finished the campaign. Nothing spectacular, quite poor really but the characters got less annoying in the middle but were back to form in no time. It was something to keep you moving forward. That's it. Genuinely tries to make you feel sorry for street racers who just wanna race... in 2 tonne 200mph lumps of metal through busy streets. I must have killed at least 100 people from my crashes alone.

Anyway, managed to play all the way through even the super/hyper car phase. Helped in no small part by a reward mental looking GT-R being able to beat the aforementioned moneypits. Changing the Handling from the pause menu/garage makes the same car go from icky sticky tyres to bald hand-me-downs with a few clicks. Makes the game a bit too easy for the racing if you're 100% grip. And found the 4WD far better for drifting than RWD...

Racing is the highlight, pure arcade fun with in-game actions rewarding busts of boost which can make a huge difference (+2 boost if you near miss a cop, handy when you crash). Definitely reminded me of the pure racing in Burnout, and still makes me pine for a Burnout 3 remake.

Modifications seem plentiful for the popular cars, with the Legendary being mad versions, the GT-R and Silvia being standout madness. But I was thoroughly shocked to see single choice options for the EK9 Civic. Very disappointed. But there's a grand smattering of cars to satiate the appetite for mods.

End-game lets you free roam and still do the weekly type races, just gives a grand total earned at the end of the week. Online prompts you've to start from scratch, and don't think I've much interest in that side of it. I'll probably trade it in and pick it up cheap digital to finish out the map, because it is a fun game overall. They did some magic with making the really fast cars seem drivable while keeping the slower ones feeling fast (something to do with the camera shake I believe), except for that time I went from an S+ race to a A race... that felt slow, naturally.

I definitely recommend it if you get it cheap, you can ignore the story and go directly to work online instead if you'd prefer to just race/earn cars, as they're completely separate. Seems you get to keep the reward cars from story for online, but as far as I can tell once you change the livery it's gone. Anyway, 4 Mosts out of 5 Wanted.