Need for Speed Reviews
Need for Speed is a great option for someone looking for a casual racing game. If you want to have the ultimate racing experience though, you are better off looking elsewhere.
Electronic Arts' newest PC racing game is gorgeous, and offers lots of customization options, but it's super-buggy and features some of the most annoying characters in video game history.
With completely acceptable racing, cringe-inducing cutscenes and a questionable online mode, Need for Speed for PC is a worthwhile racer, if not the best one available. You won't regret your purchase, but you're not likely to be recommending it to all of your friends either. Maybe wait for a sale, but rest assured that this is a well optimized port of a decent, if not amazing racer.
Like the stereotypical school heartthrob, Need for Speed is vapid but beautiful and strangely exciting. It's a surprisingly enjoyable arcade racer, but one that's more for casual downtime than for a serious commitment.
Just how many fist-bumps you're willing to sit through may determine your longevity with its achingly desperate attempts to be millennial and street (the loading tips are a confusion of Twitter and WhatsApp or whatever it is the kidz are into these days), but perfecting your drift by practise and tweaking is an extremely rewarding – if ridiculously arcadey – fun time.
Either you never thought Need for Speed was top of the arcade racing pack or (like me) you at least think they abdicated the crown a long while back. I don't anticipate much dispute there, and this Need for Speed is unlikely to put them back on top. A lot of love's been put into this PC port, but the game that's been ported over is a mediocre arcade racer at best.
I can finally say I have a new favorite racing game.
Neither fast nor furious
Given the lack of content, the game feels like a work-in-progress with some poorly conceived features and contrivances that only diminish the game's few strengths.
Need For Speed promises so much yet fails to deliver to any high standard. While it is one of the most gorgeous street racers you'll set eyes upon, cringeworthy live action cutscenes, an empty world and a lack of singular gameplay direction mean it's nothing more than another average addition to the series.
Need for Speed is fast, fun and good looking. Godspeed.
Need for Speed is an excellent racing title with a laid back attitude and plenty to enjoy – if you can get past a few of the glaring design choices that is.
The online requirement seems pointless, but it's an enjoyable racing game overall.
Need for Speed is an entertaining racing game, strangely, being a reboot, it doesn't quite manage to do some things in the best possible way. For instance, we can't pause the game, there is no in-car view, no rear-view mirror and the mini-map is too far from my field of vision, trying to look at it will most likely result in a crash. For a full priced game it feels like it's missing some content, the online mode is there for no reason at all. The different events we can compete on eventually feel very repetitive. Luckily there are daily missions we can complete that do add some variability. The IA is cruel, it always catches up, no matter what. EA has promised to fix this in an update along with adding Neon lights and other customizables to the already very complete and amazing customization system. Can't wait for the patch to hit so that these little quirks are fixed and the game is improved overall.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
New Need for Speed could be called a succesor of the Underground sub-series. It looks really good thanks to the Frostbite engine, but there are some unnecessary mistakes that drag the gameplay down.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
I spent a lot of time wondering exactly who Need For Speed was aimed at.
Need For Speed was an okay try at rebooting the series. It comes with positives like the newly added features to the franchise such as daily challenges, wrap editors and the play styles which I really liked more than any other addition. The visuals and sounds in Need For Speed were stunning, and a real high point for the game. There are also some negatives like having no pause button plus the always online gameplay which was an odd decision to make. If you are a racing fan it's a recommendation from me, but non racing fans might not be that accepting for this reboot. I do however look forward to the future if the mistakes of this game are improved in the sequel.
Need For Speed is an okay racer. But with the likes of Forza 6, Project Cars and others that completely out performed this one, it's very hard to recommend.
It all looks pretty nice and tries very, very desperately to be cool, but the actual game behind the graphics isn't close to being polished enough for a recommendation. The always-online requirement which is apparently only there because you have to be online to be able to share snapshots (seriously, that's the claim) is an absolute abomination but you'll be able to live with it, at least until EA kill the servers in a year or two and you won't be able to play the game anymore. Need for Speed isn't unplayable by any means, but there's a laundry list of things that can – and often do – stop that playing time from being very enjoyable.
Who would have thought that Need for Speed is still going strong after two decades and given the last few instalments of this franchise, it's good to see the game go back to basics without the over the top arcade experience which the series has become.