NEED FOR SPEED – Xbox Series X review
A fan of Need for Speed from the first hour (1994), I have to admit that various works in recent years have left me increasingly unmoved and sometimes disappointed. with Need For Speed Unbound and Criterion Games (Exhaustion) controls, we are rediscovering the joy of playing a hugely successful opus…
With the ability to change many settings (difficulty, sound environment, display, etc.) in detail, we therefore start the adventure with a rather well-written story mode. Moreover, we will start customizing our pilot (male or female) with a lot of things there too (clothes and accessories in collaboration with different brands like Vans, Fila, etc.).
And often in this type of game we are offered to start with a car that you choose between 3 very different cars (Lamborghini Countach, Dodge Charger, Nissan Silvia). Our character is a new employer of a certain Rydell, and of course we will have to participate in various street races with a small history of competition. Dialogues are frequent, on the phone or with passengers or passengers. Some passages suggest a GTA with a map to explore, places to reach, and roaming cops…
NFS is not NFS without cops, and we always have the spirit of the chase, even in the middle of a race. The authorities are quick and organized, we hear them talking on the radio, and the longer we delay them, the more they come until you are arrested, which will cost you your cat… These leaks are dynamic and often intense. , a real pleasure.
As in some works of the saga, we find the spirit of tuning with many customization possibilities, both aesthetic and performance improvements. If the game is more of an arcade, you can actually change a lot of special parts of the engine, wheels, transmission, etc. This aspect is really complete and will please the fans, while those who enter the game will be able to take advantage of these features. game anyway. But hey, it’s always better to have a more competitive car to evolve in the game.
Another feature of this work is the graphic aspect. While environments and vehicles are treated realistically, we have drifting or speed effects treated in cell exchanges with lots of color and mood. We can also change the effect of smoke clouds or nitro streaks, like in Rocket League, for example. The result is very nice and even the sound effects can be changed!
Through the map, you can navigate to various events of the day that are important to the progression of the story, as well as graffiti to find, radars to flash, jumps to perform, and more. You can enter additional challenges like… things you see in competition (Forza, Horizon for example). Although very urban and not very open, we discover a great freedom on the map. You can go almost anywhere and break many elements of the landscape. You can’t run over passers-by, we’re not in the GTA either!
We benefit from two rooms with different events and two atmospheres, day or night. We’re really going to get more sour at night with more risk when it comes to the police. So we progress day by day through the calendar to progress through the various qualifiers. Some races will require a certain engine power and we will have different racing styles: endurance, drift, capture, etc. A bit more cool in races: you can bet to win more or less money by beating your chosen opponent. its level. Unlike some titles, the game is certainly modeled on the single-player mode, but offers a multiplayer mode with separate progression, including a wallet. So the two don’t mix and that’s a bit of a shame.
The Criterion Games leg is always particularly spectacular with crashes, but at this point I’d rather we get more out of it, like in certain Burnouts. Similarly, we can send opponents waltzing through the scenery, but without a few short cutscenes to enjoy the moment.
This Need For Speed Unbound is beautiful, rich, fluid, well written… it’s one of the best episodes of the saga in a long time, and that’s nice. It has all the ingredients we love about Need For Speed, which bodes well for the rest of the franchise.
