Need for Speed: Rivals Reviews
While the driving is superb and the visuals are stunning, the inherent limitations of Rivals' AllDrive concept begin to hamper the experience near the end. The result is a game that's three-quarters great fun, one-quarter miserable, frustrating slog.
Ferraris. That's where we came in. We said that's all you really needed to know about the game and that you should just go and play it. Having now shared various other thoughts, that recommendation still holds. It is wonderful to be able to race Ferraris around the gorgeous game map - as well as many other cars - and you're doing so within a structured, enjoyable game with fantastic handling, a super sense of speed (but not quite on a par with the very best) and the very on-the-edge mechanics which underpin this twitch racer. Unfortunately what keeps this title from hitting the heady heights it had the potential to reach are significant factors, like the forced end of racer sessions or impossible free roam type approach to the game. It also doesn't feel like the fastest thing ever. So a very good racing game, rather than a great one. Nevertheless it does make you long for Ghost Games' next attempt at Need for Speed.
Need For Speed Rivals is decently fun, but marred by underwhelming presentation, an insanely stupid story, unfair AI, and repetition.
A good arcade racer that is fun to pick up and play, but after awhile the lack of depth will leave you wanting more.
Overall, Need for Speed Rivals is a great game, but one held back by some disappointing, avoidable flaws.
For a game that touts speed in its name, Need for Speed: Rivals delivers on every front. It's gorgeous, fast and definitely furious.
Overall, Need for Speed: Rivals delivers the most solid racer to come from EA in a long time. The ability to play as both Cops and Racers is a welcome gameplay diversity that gives you the power to choose how to play the game. Back that up with a seamless multiplayer, a solid audio foundation, and killer visuals, and what you get is one of the best racing games to come out in recent years. Whether you choose to be a Cop or a Racer, either way you're going to have a lot of fun, which is what gaming is all about.
To be honest, we spent the majority of our time just cruising around the county, drooling over the views and picking off random racers that happened across our patrols. Need For Speed: Rivals had Marcus Nilsson as an executive producer – who's previously worked with EA and Dice on the Battlefield franchise. It's clear his philosophy for online gaming has carried over to Need For Speed – though there is an option for solo play, this game is a far better entity when you've got friends on the server. That's what it was made for, and that's where it excels.
Hit the road and make it your own, just a word of caution, I'll be out there to, gunning for you.
What is Rivals? It's the assertion that EA's true flagship for the core in the new generation isn't Battlefield, but Need for Speed. It's thrilling, it's beautiful, it's chaotic, and it's the best thing going on those expensive new black boxes you have. Ghost Games, the spawn of Criterion, really brought it.
In general, Need For Speed: Rivals is a great addition to the genre for fans of racing games. The merging of single and multiplayer experience seems to be a strong feature of next-gen gaming, and something we can expect a lot more of over the next few years, and the game is visually pretty stunning even if you do play it on current gen consoles instead of the slicker PC and next-gen options. But this "next-gen" feel is far from perfect for the moment. The issues with always-online and the relative sparsity of human players on the map is something that would need to be improved to make this game exceptional, rather than just solid.
A welcome alteration from the series' previous all-too-familiar line of games. Rivals blends the open-world driving enjoyment with high-adrenaline, high-speed racing with challenging mission sets and battles for supremacy.
Need for Speed Rivals is a fun, addictive racing title with seamless multiplayer integration, but stiff controls and occasional technical hiccups hold it back.
Need for Speed: Rivals is an exceedingly high-powered racer with all sorts of flash and panache. It insists that you pay attention; it demands that you continually seek out the next adrenaline rush, and it pushes you to take bigger and bigger risks. When there's a little too much overlap between the open-world action and the single events, I get irritated, but it's a worthy sacrifice.
The organic "lobby" structure of Rivals' open world is a promising idea, unfortunately mismatched with a low player limit and an imbalanced power relationship between the cop and racer. I suppose you could seek to defy the odds and play as a racer, but eventually the cops will find you, and they will wreck you—probably more than once. Don't be offended though; they're just doing their job.
Need For Speed: Rivals is an exhilarating thrill ride that's very nearly brilliant. The foundations for fun are present and correct, but last-gen compromises transform AllDrive from a game changer into a nigh-on dealbreaker.
Need for Speed: Rivals is a terrific entry in the series, taking the strongest elements of its predecessors to build something familiar but with its sights clearly on the future with regards to online integration. The lighting and weather effects look fantastic thanks to the next generation hardware and the sense of speed is as exhilarating as ever. The six player restriction is a tad disappointing, and minor issues such as the uninspired narrative and the frequent disorientation after resetting from a crash eat away at the experience slightly, but otherwise Rivals is a top notch racer you really shouldn't let pass you by.
Need for Speed: Rivals takes some of the best features from prior franchise entries and combines them with a seamless single-multiplayer mode to create an absolutely terrific, utterly bonkers race-and-chase game that looks and sounds as good as it drives.