Need for Speed Unbound Reviews
Need For Speed Unbound is anything but. EA's latest is a bog-standard entry in the racing series with a muddled presentation and a limited feature set.
Need for Speed Unbound is an arduous experience, and not one I'd recommend if you're looking for an arcade racer. The only good aspects are the refined handling system and the aesthetic customization of your cars, which is really brought to light via community creations. However, this experience is quickly overshadowed by the boring open-world, a meaningless collect-a-thon, unbalanced AI, and some of the cringiest story and dialogue I've experienced. It's The Room of racing games.
As a result, Need for Speed Unbound feels like it comes to a stop before it ever gets going. The polish in the moment-to-moment gameplay cannot be ignored, but as a whole, Need for Speed Unbound is just another forgettable entry in the long-running franchise.
After so many years, the Need for Speed series has taken different forms. But now the series took one of the worst. There is a lack of new ideas and motivation. The story is really written very poorly, the interaction between the characters is often stupid, and the schematic career starts to bore you very soon. Add to all this the shallow online multiplayer. Unbound is an example of a game where form won out over function.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
While the latest entry in the Need for Speed franchise is capable of presenting some great arcade racing thrills, NFS Unbound is an uneven experience that can often leave players feeling disappointed. Some may be able to overlook its flaws and enjoy what the game does well, but it still lives in the shadows of the best entries in the series. This paints a worrying picture for a franchise that already has been struggling to reclaim its glory days for years now.
Need for Speed Unbound is a game quite interesting to drive, visually appealing and have countless cars to choose from (although we wont't ever have the money to buy them!). However, it becomes fatal and boring due to the repetition imposed, either by the racing, running from the police, or even the frustration of having to decide which tracks to do with all the nuances that entails. With the help of a good soundtrack, we can almost smell the Underground but unfortunately it's not quite there yet.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Need for Speed Unbound is the best-looking game in EA's arcade racing series, but it still falls short in several areas and cannot be called one of its strongest titles.
Review in Greek | Read full review
Need for Speed Unbound is an average-at-best arcade experience. With the headlights firmly set on street racing, It’s hard to enjoy the action when the turning controls are just not quite there, but the focus on tailing, drifting and near-misses to gain NOS is highly engaging. Well, except when a random NPC driver casually rams your car out of nowhere. Still, there is an extensive amount of customisation and a few open-world activities to take part in like time-trial deliveries, speed gates and escaping cops, though not to the same extent and depth as Forza Horizon 5.
EA, this ain’t how you move units. This series need to take a cue from the unique styling of the visuals and either needs to revamp the feeling of playing NFS in the next one, or someone needs to put this damn thing down behind the barn like Old Yeller and let Criterion get back to making Burnout games (which is really what we all want anyway.)
Need for Speed Unbound is a beautiful street racing game that features a cool soundtrack and welcome cross-platform play, but frustrating car physics and CPU drivers sully the experience.
If you’re looking for a game to kick back and play race after race with a sizable campaign and other options including an online mode, Need for Speed Unbound has plenty to keep you busy and entertained.
The best Need For Speed in a decade – but that says far more about the moribund state of the franchise than it does this workmanlike new entry.
Need for Speed Unbound ended up feeling like a step sidewards for the franchise instead of forward. It’s still trailing behind other arcade racers in the genre despite having a strong, stylish presentation.
I can live with many of Need For Speed Unbound’s faults. Admittedly, there were fleeting moments when I enjoyed the routine of earning cash, upgrading, outrunning police, and climbing Lakeshore’s underground racing ranks. But, when a Need For Speed game spits in the face of people that use wheel and pedal setups, it’s tough to feel a need for anything other than a need to play a better game. There’s a foundation here to build upon, but EA and Criterion have their work cut out for them if they ever hope to compete with the giants of the racing game scene.
Need for Speed Unbound has the racing and the world down pat, but the game is marred by too many roadblocks and a heaping helping of tedium.
Need for Speed unbound offers some genuinely cathartic, high-speed thrills, but it does little to turn heads besides wearing its flashiest colours.
It is ironic how a product called "Unbound" is, on the contrary, still so harnessed by the canons of traditional open world racing games, resulting all too similar to its direct predecessor. Need For Speed Unbound is an overall valid title, provided however that you approach it without too many pretensions.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The game works nicely and gets a little better as you get further in. The only real issue is that I, like many other old-school NFS fans, had high expectations from it, but in the end, we got a mediocre Need for Speed game and hands-down what I feel is the worst racing game Criterion made so far.
I really hope we see more from Criterion and its take on the NFS franchise, because this just feels like the starting few laps rather than the full tour.
Multiplayer is also a fun addition to Need for Speed Unbound that allows players to bet other players and unlock cars that become available in both the game's story and multiplayer modes. Racing other players feels satisfying but would be more interesting if Unbound's world was more interactive and had a larger variety of activities. While Criterion has successfully returned to the genre, it feels like the developer is being held back from delivering a truly colorful and over-the-top experience it's previously achieved in games like the Burnout series. The team should take the driving mechanics and the cartoony visual flairs from Need for Speed Unbound and turn those features up to the next level in their next arcade racer.