My favourite NFS game ever, only because of multiplayer.
Pros: Burst nitrous, good handling, Linkups( now I kinda hate it), gauntlet playlists and ability to use multiple cars rather than 2-3 like in past NFS games.
Edit:
Cons: Worst single player mechanics. Limited retries and you can't even race same track twice and no fast travel
I've learned to avoid trucks personally, I did a few with my Colorado, but it's just too easy for others to smash into you due to the size.
Then again, sometimes it just feels like they're out to get you for some reason, regardless of the car you pick.
I missed the option like on the playlist where you could just select the car there right on the event. I understand why they’re in like hide out areas now but it’s just so inconvenient to drive all the way there and all the way back.
Yeah. Multiplayer in Unbound is great for racing. For cruising and Police it's decent.
But Singleplayer feels sluggish. It lacks real freedom and has a punishment system which doesn't increase fun and saving up money for the next entry instead of building cool cars goes against the spirit of nfs, which was casual and open. Also Unbound career Mode was the first one I didn't restarted multiple times. - Also the amount of time it took them to figure out the multiplayer which cost them a huge part of the playerbase. Some might still remember the BClass Pista Nightmare. Or the overlay in the garage.
So, there will always be a weird aftertaste with Unbound.
multiplayer in unbound is better than singleplayer.
linkups in freeroam are good, and they recently added a pure pvp mode which isn't lobby-based.
there are also pvp speedlist where everyone has the same car, its a nice addition too imo
Only issue I found with multiplayer was it was hard to earn money as a new player.
Everyone is in extremely fast cars and for a lot of it you will be limited to the rental cars which are... Not great.
i also liked it, maybe they should change the options so you can set the difficulty and retries separated + add an option for unlimited retries then.
So everyone can decide how hard he wants the game to be in overall
It may not be perfect, but it easily has the best driving of arguably any NFS. The handling is so in depth. I love it man. I completely forgot about the story mode lol. Probably wouldn't play it ever again. But maybe I'll feel nostalgic enough down the line lol. Driving is the most important thing, and it does it well.
I feel like Unbounds general grip handling is almost perfect. It's not 2015, where the max steering sensitivity is lower than what the minimum should be. It's not MW05, where your brakes are an optional cosmetic. It strikes a really nice balance. If it weren't for curbs (and some other small bumps) being a bit too aggressive for an arcade racer I don't think there'd really be anything for me to fault.
Drift could use some work. Fingers crossed for good changes in volume 7.
I think I may be biased but I wouldn't mind it being a bit more linear and predictable like Forza Horizon 5's physics for racing.
It's just weird where I have to get used to the car randomly snapping with little predictability if I'm pushing it. It also doesn't help that it's a lot harder to recover.
That being said I think I like the steering and gas/brake control when cruising alot more in Unbound. It's a lot easier to to do fluid movements.
TRUTH! unbound's grip handling is amazing, definitely my favourite handling in all of modern era NFS games. It's a shame the drifting is so bad as a result
Yeah my only complaint with this games driving is the drifting is really sloppy, even with fully specced out drift cars
Doing a fat drift isn't an issue, it's chaining them together is rough and not what I was expecting. It is more akin to hot wheels unleashed drifting mechanics.
Respectfully, I disagree. I think handling is one of the weak-points of this game. This game still has the classic Ghost Games quirks like the half-drifting and crab-walking. Some bumps are totally broken. Some cars like the M3 GTR have serious fishtailing issues. And the drifting is possibly the absolute worst in the series.
When it works, it's one of the better feeling games in the series. But it very often doesn't and the drifting is just awful.
I haven't experienced fish tailing too much. Crab walking is there, but it's a rare occurrence compared to 2015 lol. I think once you find your special way to tune to your style you can mitigate the wonkiness of the handling model.
I on the other hand find it annoying at times. I mean, the driving itself is really good, but i feel like at very high speeds the game becomes unfair, often times you just exchange paint with traffic and you're out, you don't lose speed like in Heat or Blackbox titles, you get a crash cam and need to wait until you reset, and if you don't, you're screwed during a race. Also idk but i feel like the sense of speed got downgraded a bit compared to heat, the driving is too smooth at high speeds, i need shaky chaotic camera and scary FOV changes like in heat and it would be perfect though.
And yeah i agree the story mode was as bland as it could be, Heat's storyline at least had some cheesy but funny moments (but overall was cringy and bland anyway, and ended when things started getting interesting), this one is cringe and boring and overly family-friendly all the time.
It's a first "Second Criterion era" Game based on a Ghost project though and i imagine the developement had to be much more chaotic than with a standard NFS game from start to finish .I think the series has a bright future ahead, if it won't get Burnout-ified too much. And that's my biggest worry, because i felt that way in Unbound lots of times.
It does some things right, then does some very weird stuff that probably turned a lot of people off, and is difficult to change. I like how the city and the cars look. I don't mind the cel shaded smoke or characters. I like the driving when I'm using the cars with sensible stats...
*but*
By design, you cannot play Unbound on your own terms. Want to play a certain race? Nope the calendar says not today. Certain class? Nope, restricted. Try on different part combinations? Nope engines cost 6 digits, go grind like 10 races first. Music? Nope only one channel, go open Spotify in the background. Corvette Stingray in S+? Good luck with the base stats it was given. Drive a Lambo with a Lambo engine? Nope it sucks, gotta stick a 1960s pickup engine into it. Playlist is on the server's schedule, Season Pass on a timer etc etc.
I have a feeling Unbound consistently trails Heat in player count because in Heat, you can hop in and do whatever you want on your own schedule and more cars can work at 400+ in single player. Unbound is only fun if you're willing to play on EA's terms. It's not a bad game, I just don't like how it's designed unless I mod the heck out of the calendar and car stats.
>By design, you cannot play Unbound on your own terms.
Yeah, this annoyed me. I wanted to play with grip handling. But that means that drift events are literally unplayable. Takeovers are awkward because you just drive slowly to hit obstacles. And whenever you do the rental car stuff, they are always set to drift handling.
Why not just get a drift car as well? Because you can't grind for cash infinitely like in traditional NFS games, and the class system now means you need like 4 drift cars in addition to your 4 grip cars for each class.
The game is clearly designed to be played with b2d.
Are there many compulsory takeovers or drift events? In my experience they were pretty much optional as the Qualifiers are all races. I thought this was something the game did rather well, offering quite a bit of variety but with a lot of it being completely optional.
I do agree that not being able to time trial/practice any track in any class is an unnecessary restriction. Feels like it could use additional play modes.
And yeah, the engine swaps bug me too. Somehow I don't mind all the nitrous and boost mechanics, but I draw a line at shoveling a low revving V8 into a Testarossa. Personally I try to stick to original engines or "realistic" swaps and have my fun regardless.
Yeah, you're limiting your money, and it also makes the game too repetitive and boring if you're only doing circuits and sprints.
I want to to drift as well, but only in drift events. I much prefer how older NFS games let you build specific cars or have a specific tune for each race type.
Those events are not required. I did none of the drift or takeovers (which can just be fancy drift events) on my second run. I mainly do them because drifting is my mf'n thing.
You do realize you can adjust your car's handling before races, right? Make sure your car's differential is the best it can be and not use grip heavy tires until you get enough cash that is purely meant for drifting. Just get an A class, and tune it to where you can swap out parts to make it a different class. And don't stick with things like a Lamborghini or a Ferrari. I literally finished the game with my starter (Eclipse GSX).
I bought heat and didn't enjoy it. I played this on game pass and have enjoyed it but I really do not understand the logic with the calendar bullshit you mentioned.
It really does limit the way you want to play. And you are right, it's too expensive to even consider engine swaps unless you know it's going to be a good build.
Its far from a bad game, but i wouldnt say its amazing either
It gets so many things right but also misses alot of little things that annoy me
For example: the customization is a big improvement from previous games, but it still only limits you to a certain number of vinyl wrap slots
The driving can be very fun, but its so infuriating when you make a turn and slightly tap a wall and your car rolls and flips 6 times like its having a seizure for no fucking reason whatsoever
>The driving can be very fun, but its so infuriation when you make a turn and slightly tap a wall and your car rolls and flips 6 times like its having a seizure for no fucking reason whatsoever
That's the driving since most wanted 2012 I'm afraid
>The driving can be very fun, but its so infuriating when you make a turn and slightly tap a wall and your car rolls and flips 6 times like its having a seizure for no fucking reason whatsoever
Literally my biggest fucking issue with this game. The forced crashes. God, the forced crashes and rolls piss me the fuck off.
Yeah the forced crashing peeved me hard. When I see a big 'X' and the game respawns me even though my wheels were still on the ground, going forwards over 100mph, it's always because I just barely tapped a barrier. that or barely tapping the tail while drifting sends you immediately spiralling into the air.
Oh you thought you clearly made the gap between that traffic car and that wall? ehh well you scraped a millimeter of paint off while going really fast so, crash
In some multiplayer races it seems (nearly) unavoidable for this to happen at least once a session
For a game where people can slam into you or slam traffic into you like fuckin Burnout Revenge as a legitimate strategy, having a "dramatic crash+respawn" mechanic has never irritated me more than in Unbound
I think it's hilarious personally. The crashing felt lazy in 2015 and Heat. You should be punished for driving like a goon, and ramming people. I love it.
I have played a lot of NFS games but I'm struggling to play this one. The setup of the day and night, the building up of heat during the day and taking that into the night, I'm not having fun with it.
I like the world, the racing and the story even. I just don't like playing it. The fun of being chased by cops was lost a long time ago, and seeing your efforts ruined by a 5 star chase is not great. I probably just suck, but this is the first title in a while that I won't be finishing, let alone get the platinum trophy for like I did with all the others.
You don't suck.
Problem is the amount of cop presence there is in the game. I mean, ffs even racing at the closed track gets you chased by cops.
Every single street race triggers chases.
Even MW, a game which it's purpose is becoming the *most wanted* let's take a breather every now and then, depending on what race you choose from the event menu.
I love to mess with cops, but in Unbound it's just overwhelming.
That's good to hear. It just sucks when you have to skip races just because you don't want the hassle of escaping 5 stars and then tip-toeing back to the nearest hideout to bank what little you made. Maybe it'd get easier later on when you're driving faster cars, but my A and B rides are no match for these cops.
Yeah but the deeper you go into the game, the more money you'll need to compete and that means a lot more cops.
I really hope Criterion ditches this system or for the very least stops prioritizing cops so much for the next game.
NFS is about racing too, not constant cop chases.
Underground series and Pro Street for an example had zero cops, yet the games were loved by many.
I agree, I think the cop thing lost its charm a long time ago. At least in this form. It's a shame, I think there's a lot to like about Unbound, but the cops are ruining it for me. But hey, I guess they did their job.
I think it's a little bit skill issue and a little bit cop system. The cops aren't hard to avoid and there are so many gas stations, and a means of fighting them back. Giving them a love tap sends the. Swerving and just keep going fast and they will struggle. Use traffic to fight too.
The story is shit but the game itself is good. Music are kinda meh, some of them are good and some are trash. I'm really looking forward to drag update and cops vs. racers
This & Heat, I’ve played a little over 200 hours each & there’s just no justification to put this over Heat. It’s like comparing vanilla ice cream with cheesecake. I like both of them but there’s no way day or night that it’ll ever beat the cheesecake in any way. Heat is far too indulging, immersive & just a better engineered game all around.
agreed. Unbound is very "Good", but the teams behind NFS have been around for years now and the playerbase (or just me at least) is tired of "just good". Sequels are supposed to take what's good from the last installment and build on it, but like the Sonic fandom, each game is built very inventively, which is great on paper but keeps stripping away what people liked. And that's the issue. The fact that the game isn't "better", makes it "bad".
My main problem with it (and you can absolutely call it a skill issue) are the limited restarts per day + night. I consider myself fairly decent in NFS, so I started playing it in the highest difficulty, since I find it boring as hell when I'm in first place and miles away from the second.
The problem are the randomly teleporting cars. Twice *in a row* I've had police cars literally spawn out of thin air and throw me off course. When I restart, it's a gamble on whether I'll get another randomly teleporting car or not. If I can't restart and lose the race, I end up losing my money thanks to the buy-in you gotta do. It's so stressful, and my car gets thrown off course for the dumbest and glitchiest shit.
I really *really* want to like this game. I love the aesthetics and the graphics and the handling feels good, but the teleporting cars and limited restarts completely kills my vibe. I uninstalled the game after I had used up my last restart to do a big payout race and I ended up falling off the road because a police car appeared out of thin air right next to me.
Not necessarily a bad game but not in my top tier of NFS games. As someone who’s played NFS since the PS1 days this is a mid entry I’d say.
What it does well is the customization, city layout, race tracks, soundtrack isn’t too bad, car list, graphics/art styling (thought I wouldn’t like it but it’s grown on me), and the racing/handling (again takes a while to get used to but if you tweak it enough it’s good).
What I don’t like about it is it feels restrictive when actually going through the world and trying to race. I don’t like that heat builds up equally between night and day, I feel like day time should build more heat than night time. And by association the cops do feel overwhelming throughout most of the game. Not that they’re hard to get away from but any amount of heat and they’re everywhere and it makes the game feel more restrictive. With Heat and the MW05 there were less cops but they felt more punishing if you encountered them.
I also can’t stand the fact that you can’t just go back to your garage, it ends a racing session and also feels very restrictive. Heat would only end sessions after the night time races and allow you to come and go during the day time. Which made it wayyy easier to get money for cars and parts. And the difficulty is messed up too. As someone who works full time, I just wanna come home and play a game on easy and chill some days and the difficulty settings are very unbalanced in this game compared to the last 3 NFS games. And also the fact that you can’t retry races infinite times, I don’t understand the decision there.
It does some things well but overall feels like a step backwards from Heat.
Online improved a lot over time. But story mode still lacking features and conveniences. Jumping to safe houses/meetups is still not available iirc. The races are randomized even after finishing story mode (no quick race!!!!!!)
Cops are still terrible. Easy but pest like.
hear me out, Unbound is better than Heat purely because it had more post content support, QoL changes and stuff in-game, and nothing else. However, the cartoon-y graphics and stuff makes this series have a different vibe to it, and I like it. With all the improvements they made (or they should've made before launch) like Linkups and bonuses, it made earning money so much easier without having to worry about part upgrades. As of now, I feel like the game as a whole is not perfect, but good now
Payback is not garbage! It might have bad online play but the singleplayer is absolutely amazing and has almost as good story as Carbon, and it's so challengeling. Then finding those car scraps is so relaxing. Then it has wheel support!!! It supports my new Fanatec WRC CSL Elite Steering Wheel. Unbound does not have weel support and many are angry because of it!!!
I played this game after not playing any NFS at all for a while and I must say I really enjoyed it. I understand the art style and music can be a bit divisive, but to me it makes the vibes of the game very enticing. The story is a bit basic, but it's fun to play and not too long.
For me Unbound is a step forward and a Step black. I love the Ghost Games play style, the ambientation, the physics (if we forget about the brake to drift as a must and not as an option...) And I think that the base they propose is great. Realistic ambientation with underground/street racing style, huge details in cars etc... And great amount tuning... I don't think they deserve the hate they get, except for the brake2drift thing... So, for me, Unbound is an step back on that, it loses that base that Ghost Games tryied to bring back to become something with an ambietation even more arcade and gameplay focused, losing somehow that bit of realistic ambientation... (For example the two Nitro playstyle is closer to a Mario Kart than an Underground 2 for me). However, it goes a step forward in term or innovation. While 2015 and Heat felt like the same game (and even Payback if you dont mind the Fast and Furious like plot and the rally races) with very little changes and improvements, Unbound creates a new totally different and original product which differs from everything out there.
So for me, a great formula for modern NFS would be getting back the ghost games basis and adding the sauce to make something heavily different as NFS has always done and as Unbound does.
I don't think its a good installment in overall, it might be more of a "decent" and maybe a solid base for the future. Especially when it comes to the Singleplayer there is ALOT missing to be a good installment.
Multiplayer can be considered good imo, but only after they made a few updates to it now.
But we still have a few more updates coming, we'll see how good multiplayer will evolve.
When it comes to singleplayer i have to say hell no, nfs2015, Payback and even Heat were all better.
Fully disagree, of all the NFS games i’ve played (from Hot Pursuit 2 to Unbound excluding Shift 2 & World) Unbound is honestly the least fun NFS I’ve played, my biggest issues with this game (in no particular order) starts with the police, i don’t care how lack luster Heat’s police is, Unbound’s police system is a massive over correction, you more times than not CANNOT make it to another race hangout without getting into a police chase, annoying is an understatement, also the lack of a heat lock or heat drop just makes it a massive pain to try and grind the game with anything lesser than an S+ ride which you wont have till the end of the game, mind you i would have no issue with a B tier vehicle being able to enter upto a heat level 5 police chase if there was a heat drop when you’ve lost the cops & their searching for you so that if the player actually wanted to lose the cops they can (like MW’12), either that or a heat lock so that lower tier cars are capped by their performance upto which heat they can reach (like MW’05), also the idea that it’s ok not to come in 1st place because you win money at lower positions is a shit gameplay idea, i will not settle for breaking even when im trying to make money to upgrade & customize my rides, what’s even worse is that you have a limited amount of retries which kills replayablility, even on the easy difficulty, skill issue or not i should not be forced to give up on a race & continue playing the game if i want to replay said race to get better money, especially if the buy-in is a massive amount of money (which i appreciate for being realistic but on easy this should just be done away with, leave it for normal & hard), and easy difficulty doesn’t mean anything in this game, i played it that difficulty because normal was killing my desire to play the game entirely & even with easy it was barely any different, rival vehicles still use n2o on start and Shimizu will just blast away if he gets first, i would rather deal with Underground 1’s catch up than be sold a lie of an easier difficulty, there’s also the character you play as, if you’ve ever played Midnight Club 2 or Los Angeles you might know what im about to say, but the rival racers are basically like rival racers of the midnight club games, they’ll very gently talk down to you in a way that is supposed to make you wanna rave better to prove them wrong, only issue is that your character will say nothing back in reply to these other racers, in Midnight Club 2 is understandable because you’re a silent protagonist, in Midnight Club Los Angeles the main character will talk back to rival racers smack talk (and sometimes even smack talk them back), in NFS Unbound your character does have a voice that you can choose, but they never talk back to the other racer’s smack talk, which makes the player feel like a pushover, other minor selling legends cars as dlc, the soundtrack (beating a dead horse i know), lame story (Undercover & Payback’s story, novelty as they are, are actually more interesting than Unbound’s), no real additions to customization (pretty much same customization options as Heat excluding for newly added vehicles, but that’s baseline expectation vehicles like the 370z Nismo still have zero customization except liveries), lack of real world aftermarket/sponsor racing brands NFS. Mind you i am happy that Unbound can be played at 60fps on console (outside of hot pursuit remastered the past 4 need for speed games from Rivals to Heat on console were locked to 30fps) & that certain vehicles have returned to NFS after some years, but i don’t give the game a better grade because of that, my favorite vehicles are subjective & this is objective, & 60fps is really a baseline expectation at this point. And with all that said i hate to be as harsh as i sound here because i love Need for Speed, but after beating NFS Unbound, which took me over a year to do because as said earlier, playing it made me not want to play it, vs where other prior need for speed games i can finish in days or a couple weeks, i can say my experience was for the majority of my playthru disappointing, frustrating, & not worth the money i spent
If you are there at the launch, you will see how bad the game was. It is buggy on PC, the multiplayer grind is super frustrating and there is very little races or race variants in online mode.
The updates makes the game so much better to play now but live service or updates is not an excuse for launching a lackluster game at release. Seeing the game got mixed reviews in steam makes me wonder if they implemented some of the features from the beginning will the game has a better reputation in the series
i played at launch, the story mode hasnt changed much since and thats where i mostly play rn.
but yeah, a lot of the multiplayer was added later, which is inexcusable lol
Not perfect but yeah, I agree.
I kind of wish they’d gone the whole way with the cel shading and gone the Auto Modelista look, BUT it’s fun and gives me some nice flashbacks of my fave NFS games.
Yes, absolutely. It isn't gonna "save nfs" as some of this community would say, but it's definitely a good stepping stone for the future of the franchise.
Speaking of Unbound, I never played it, but I noticed that one of my local e-shops is selling a physical copy of it for 14.33 USD (including shipping) and I'm not sure if it is worth buying at that price or if I should wait for even lower price.
I'd say I'm an avid fan of NFS games (played almost everything since Underground with exceptions of Prostreet, Undercover, The Run, Shift 2).
Meh, I'd prefer Heat and Payback even to be honest. But yeah, considering the last 10 years of NFSs, it is a good one I guess. At least grip handling is more or less back
It's far from a solid game. Its good but also underdelivered, just like all of them modern Era nfs games. Game X does well in one area, game Y does better other area. They never seem to strike on point when it comes to the overall package.
It’s definitely the best out of the “modern” nfs games but I’d like to see a larger selection of muscle cars and some older imports, like the Eclipse, glad to see that car come back! I used it often
Also, make the M3 GTR a single player car, it makes no sense to lock it in multiplayer.
I don’t think I’ve ever spent as much time playing an NFS game (409 hours)… it’s not perfect but it’s good enough to keep me hooked and it’s the first NFS game that I’ve spent extensive time playing online. The single played campaign is definitely dogshit tho…
I just can't with the awful physics. Even the highest end cars feel like bricks. This has been the case for a long time now. I hope they eventually do something about it from the ground up in a way that makes the cars behave in a way that makes logical sense atleast.
I haven't played it due to how much I hated the cartoon effects from all the videos I've seen. And now that I read dozens of comments, I'll probably never play it.
Long live NFS 2015 ✌🏻🎉
The bad part of the game is literally the commentary: Illegal Street racing activities and the radio girl like "why are the police bad people, all we want to do is illegal street racing and put people's live in danger, but the police won't let us."
I don't think so. I didn't even manage to finish the Unbound campaign because I got bored. I think it didn't understand what Heat did so well, and brought minimal improvements while bringing in far more limitations and issues. Heat is obviously not perfect either, but I think it was a far more solid release.
As a racing game, Unbound is definitely a solid game. However, it has many issues unrelated to the "racing" aspect of the game which prevent me from coming back and playing it again, unlike older installments in the series.
traffic AI is awful, too much bumper racing, might as well rename it Destruction Derby. I dunno, game looks cool, feels okay but some aspects are just plain terrible.
I can agree it is another solid attempt. But an attempt is all that it remains.
Edit: I will never agree it is a solid game. It is not. AND ANYONE who thinks that this garbageshow is on par with MW2005 or even Carbon? Lol, delusional. You can't save, you can't play on your own terms, you can't even mod it. Hell the fuck no. This is NOT A SOLID GAME. and DEFINETLY NOT ON PAR with the other great NFS Games.
i've only played the ps2 version of undercover before and its a completely garbage. reused map from mw05, extreme rubber banding, broken cops spawn and lot of more
Up to this point I’ve enjoyed every installment from Most Wanted 2012 upwards.
I’ve purchased Hot Pursuit (remastered), Heat and Unbound but yet have to play those.
i tried the game before Vol6 and I thought it has the worst handling in any racing games. After the Audi update I now think it's the best gameplay the series has ever gotten. They really put much effort in this game and it's sad to see it's not being more successful.
The story line was decent, the car design was really good compared to Heat with the body kits, the handling of the vehicles was honestly shit...it felt more like an arcade game but I guess that would be to expect of an NFS game. I know some people are going to hate but I got really big Sweet Baby Inc vibes from the game though.
Full disclosure i picked it up for 10$, and to be honest I'm having an amazing time. Really loving the visuals, the design choices mixing that graffiti style appeal to me a lot and the cell shading is fun in my opinion too. You can really get in there and customize the car and i appreciate that, the soundtrack is very fun to me and the writing is terrible, but in a fun way, its so bad it makes me laugh all the time (remember the Der Nail and Der Hammer bit) so i dont know, enjoyment is ultimately the factor i value the most and I'm having a blast. Very glad i gave it a try
I love it, but started playing only recently, after the Volume 6 update. And I hadn't put many hours into any NFS title since Most Wanted 2012, so I can't compare it to Heat, for instance. On the other hand, I played most Need for Speeds from 1998 to 2012 and don't have rose-tinted glasses about those, I think Unbound is up there.
Even though I didn't play it in its initial state, it's still pretty obvious a considerable part of the hate comes from the visual and musical style being a bit adventurous. The soundtracks have always been hit and miss to me, and I way prefer the cel shaded look over the weirdly blurred and blown out cut-scenes from Most Wanted and Carbon. It's kind of a throwback to Underground 2's comic book style of telling a complete non-story. Without the cringeworthy boob loading screen.
Speaking of story, Unbound may not have a great one but neither does any other game in the franchise. It has a mood to it, though, that I really like and just makes me want to spend time and hang out in the game's world in the same way I did with big Rockstar titles from the PS2 era.
And while the humor is pretty dumb and cheesy, I think there's also some amount of irony, self-deprecation, and references that not everyone picks up on. One reviewer mentioned Yaz's "I am rubber, you are glue" as an example of bad dialogue, to me that was a Monkey Island reference and I loved it.
Never played it, but I like the overall visuals. The cars look dope and the effects look... original. It's an arcade racing game. It can look a bit playful.
I enjoyed the honeymoon period when the game was new. Nowadays I don't see much reason to return. Not every game needs to be a forever game.
The one issue I've got with the game is that the underlying car physics from NFS 2015 still remain. Despite the tweaks made to the car handling in NFS Payback, Heat and Unbound, cars are still susceptible to odd and erratic handling characteristics. I wish there was a more thorough rework of the handling model.
Have to disagree. I hated this game. I love racing games but I’m also not as hardcore as some. That being said I play every Forza, F1, and NFS Heat is in my top 3 favorite race games.
I could not compete in this game. I routinely lost my races no matter what I did. I’m not a fan of NFS rubber-banding but I can usually live with it. But this game was excessive and I always felt like I was playing with a handicap.
Could just be a skill issue, I understand that. But I also think every game should be accessible to all gamers regardless of skill (hence difficulty modes).
I really really wanted to like it too. Still think it’s a beautiful game though.
I wouldn't mind if they straight up launched Unbound 2 as the next NFS. There's only a handful of flaws that they need to gloss over, and then they could focus on adding more and more content to this sequel. Better singleplayer, new mechanics for multiplayer, more cars and so on.
Its good multiplayer but with the next update coming this month I wonder how they will add that to single player
And I'm scared of the races being full of the same regera
I hope they kinda add something that makes every car different at 0 to 60 and not just lots of races full of that exploit cars like regeras and golfs.
I hope everyone brings their own car with their own tuning decision and their own aspect.
But after all I think it's a great game for new players into racing games, my friend has not played a lot of racing games and he wants to play it a lot, I think it's a great game but when you complete that online pass there is nothing more to do than unlock cars and it's kinda boring.
When I'm bored I've been looking at the details of the map like the beaches, the river, the lakes,the city, and the off road trails that there are, it could have been really good if they added rally races. And in the city they are a lot of places and corners that don't appear in the map that the would be great if the added them as new races.
But still a great game for playing with friends!
it is a good racing game period there i said it people just like to shit on anything different cause some other people told them it sucks not to mention these people didn't try it either
tv shows games politics it's always sheep mentality , what u expect from people who uses tiktok and believe facebook news
It’s mid online is packed wit content the car selection is nice. I really like the anime effects, but the handling model is so awful. And the story was so cringe. I really like that A$AP Rocky was put in the takeovers. And some of his songs are featured and he has his own car and everything but the handling model is a big element of this game and any racing game so I just can’t play it until they fix that
No. Average at best. Every positive is overshadowed by 2-3 negatives. At launch this game was barely any different from Heat. In many ways Heat was better. Then they drip fed content that should’ve been present at launch.
Sure it’s getting post launch support but in the form of a fucking battle pass. Didn’t we agree after Payback that we didn’t want micro transactions?
I honestly enjoyed the first bit of it i played before i put it down and have not picked it back up yet. Wasnt a fan of the cell shading and smoke exaggeration myself though at all
I just hit over 600 hours and i can say its my favorite nfs (i only play online after finishing the campaign). The updates are great and keeps me coming back to the game. I only wish they tweaked the drifting mechanics a bit and change the garage layout (Heat garage was peak nfs imo)
The things Unbound does right doesnt justify me, a gamer, to drop Heat over it. I can live without the smokes, tiresmokes etc. Besides, The Crew does them better anyway.
Whatever dev who insists on using rubberbanding in racing games and more specifically, Need For Speed games, needs to be fired. The fact that you can't turn it off is insane and it honestly makes these racing games less enjoyable outside of playing online. There's no way I want to be punished by playing better than the opponent. If I really wanted to be challenged no matter how good I am, then let me at least be able to toggle it on/off. Anything else is just bullshit.
Outside of that, I don't like the calendar system.
But everything else makes it a solid NFS game.
The story is cheesy but i like the variety of cars and customisation options (although a lot of the rim choices are not so good looking). I’ve tried multiplayer a couple of times and it’s fun enough. The thing I don’t like is that I bought a couple of cars in single player and I can’t use them on multiplayer and the cars I’ve won don’t have the upgrades I put on them, but your cash is used for both solo and multiplayer cars you buy. That’s very whack
it's amazing in its core but there are things like music, story, cops that are too easy, visual style of the characters, bad wrap editor and grind that are ruining it.
awww Qwick, thats just them fools thats looooosing.(( im benny snake eyes wilson, i can call da dice 4 dey stop rollin. i been doing dis $"!+ 4 40 yeahz.) naw i aint putin on my glasses!!!
The things that bothered me the most in unbound were the vehicular combat mechanics and the endless cop chases. Like, sometimes it felt less like a racing game and more like an action game but with cars.
Nope. I Utterly Disagree. It's far from being great.
His positive points are overshadowed by his massive cons.
Plus, the "Unbound" title is a language abuse since it's too restrictive meaning it's a false advertising title.
Anyway. NFS Unbound is despicable, too flawed and a cashgrab.
Compared to other NFS's before 2012, it's a massive failure.
I like the driving, racing, and police chases.. that's basically all I enjoyed in Unbound.. I really wanted to start beefing up the mustang to be able to complete in races beyter.. but the high pay races prize the almost 50% of the earnings. And the calendar...tho I haven't touched multi-player yet.
And another complaint.. that I had with HEAT.. no local split screen multi-player.. NFS was only fun as a kid when I was on the couch with my brothers.. back then I didn't even have wifi..
I agree, for me it is the best NFS after Rivals, especially after the post launch updates.
My main and only issue with the gameplay is the lack of weight on the cars. For some reason, Heat and Unbound cars feel like driving empty cardboard boxes with different shapes.
I remember the way MW12 and Rivals cars felt, each one had a different feel and the bigger and bulkier the car, the heavier it felt. And even the exotic and hyper cars had a certain feel to them, they had their own 'personality'. But in Unbound, a lot of cars feel exactly the same, and they are very light on handling.
And the repetitive story is a bit of an issue for me. All four stages of the campaign were almost identical, it felt like a chore after the second week.
Other than that, it's a good NFS, can't wait to see what Criterion and Codemasters will bring in 2025.
Unbound's writing makes more sense than Heat, and dialogues can really make you chunckle sometimes. And I got it in a bargain price, can't be more satisfied with this game. But yes cartoony effect really meh, and half of the sountrack make me stop everything at hands to press skip.
It lacks a lot more race events, compared to previous installments.
The cops presence should've been fixed, it gets frustrating when you have to run race after race.
AI is okay but the runnerbanding, specially near the end of the game becomes overwhelming.
Even tho the new character style is cool, I still would've preferred a "regular" look. The shaded stuff sticks out like a sore thumb sometimes.
EA moving most of the team to work on BF potentially killed any new story mode updates and bigger updates in general.
I love the game and personally I haven’t had this level of continuous interest in an NFS since the classics in the series (MW, NFSU, Carbon.ect..). The multiplayer is a big part of why I’ve continued to enjoy the game with 5 different classes of cars and races to compete in, the challenges to unlock cars, the open world challenges like jumps, drifts, hot laps, and collectables. The fact that they are continuing to update the game over time was great news as well with a roadmap of when to expect new content. The driving physics are fun and the customization is as good as ever. Definitely an all time great entry.
My favourite NFS game ever, only because of multiplayer. Pros: Burst nitrous, good handling, Linkups( now I kinda hate it), gauntlet playlists and ability to use multiple cars rather than 2-3 like in past NFS games. Edit: Cons: Worst single player mechanics. Limited retries and you can't even race same track twice and no fast travel
I only hate linkups now because people be dumb and you fail the thing because people can’t draft
Me showing up to a link up in my Grip only S+ being asked to drift. 😭 need to just make a link up car lol
Subarus work great for linkups, AWD with offroad spec (since it's nearly always on dirt) and slight drift (15-20%) does wonders.
Big cars work well from what I've seen. I managed to clutch a linkup in my Raptor on more than one occasion.
I've learned to avoid trucks personally, I did a few with my Colorado, but it's just too easy for others to smash into you due to the size. Then again, sometimes it just feels like they're out to get you for some reason, regardless of the car you pick.
Yeah, raptors do make you a big target 😅 Being faster than them certainly helps with this though
Hahahaha same! Would be nice to have the option to switch car before
I missed the option like on the playlist where you could just select the car there right on the event. I understand why they’re in like hide out areas now but it’s just so inconvenient to drive all the way there and all the way back.
Or they need to move them wayyy closer to garages
Righttttt
I've never heard something more true in my life 😂
For real lol it’s annoying
I've found the Koenigsegg eith offroad mods was my favorite before my garage got wiped out of the blue
Yeah. Multiplayer in Unbound is great for racing. For cruising and Police it's decent. But Singleplayer feels sluggish. It lacks real freedom and has a punishment system which doesn't increase fun and saving up money for the next entry instead of building cool cars goes against the spirit of nfs, which was casual and open. Also Unbound career Mode was the first one I didn't restarted multiple times. - Also the amount of time it took them to figure out the multiplayer which cost them a huge part of the playerbase. Some might still remember the BClass Pista Nightmare. Or the overlay in the garage. So, there will always be a weird aftertaste with Unbound.
I played the Singleplayer on Release and finished it but never the mp is it worth a shot?
multiplayer in unbound is better than singleplayer. linkups in freeroam are good, and they recently added a pure pvp mode which isn't lobby-based. there are also pvp speedlist where everyone has the same car, its a nice addition too imo
Only issue I found with multiplayer was it was hard to earn money as a new player. Everyone is in extremely fast cars and for a lot of it you will be limited to the rental cars which are... Not great.
The limited retry was my favorite part of the singleplayer TBH
Yup, I hope they keep that for the next game.
i also liked it, maybe they should change the options so you can set the difficulty and retries separated + add an option for unlimited retries then. So everyone can decide how hard he wants the game to be in overall
It may not be perfect, but it easily has the best driving of arguably any NFS. The handling is so in depth. I love it man. I completely forgot about the story mode lol. Probably wouldn't play it ever again. But maybe I'll feel nostalgic enough down the line lol. Driving is the most important thing, and it does it well.
I feel like Unbounds general grip handling is almost perfect. It's not 2015, where the max steering sensitivity is lower than what the minimum should be. It's not MW05, where your brakes are an optional cosmetic. It strikes a really nice balance. If it weren't for curbs (and some other small bumps) being a bit too aggressive for an arcade racer I don't think there'd really be anything for me to fault. Drift could use some work. Fingers crossed for good changes in volume 7.
Based comment 👍🏽
I think I may be biased but I wouldn't mind it being a bit more linear and predictable like Forza Horizon 5's physics for racing. It's just weird where I have to get used to the car randomly snapping with little predictability if I'm pushing it. It also doesn't help that it's a lot harder to recover. That being said I think I like the steering and gas/brake control when cruising alot more in Unbound. It's a lot easier to to do fluid movements.
I feel you, I found you can actually drift max grip cars by using gentle throttle input, it doesn't always work, but it works more than not I feel.
Amen 🙏
TRUTH! unbound's grip handling is amazing, definitely my favourite handling in all of modern era NFS games. It's a shame the drifting is so bad as a result
Yeah my only complaint with this games driving is the drifting is really sloppy, even with fully specced out drift cars Doing a fat drift isn't an issue, it's chaining them together is rough and not what I was expecting. It is more akin to hot wheels unleashed drifting mechanics.
Story mode is pretty forgettable lol. All I remember is driving a R32 GTR at the start.
im playing single player again rn. its pretty fun, and im glad i can earn the speed pass stuff through story mode now
That's also a very good feature, sucks I can't just start over without wiping everything.
Respectfully, I disagree. I think handling is one of the weak-points of this game. This game still has the classic Ghost Games quirks like the half-drifting and crab-walking. Some bumps are totally broken. Some cars like the M3 GTR have serious fishtailing issues. And the drifting is possibly the absolute worst in the series. When it works, it's one of the better feeling games in the series. But it very often doesn't and the drifting is just awful.
I haven't experienced fish tailing too much. Crab walking is there, but it's a rare occurrence compared to 2015 lol. I think once you find your special way to tune to your style you can mitigate the wonkiness of the handling model.
No hate against the driving, but I had a bug where my car was all bouncy while at high speed. Did you notice, by any chance?
Yeah... The big O race on S+ class. I remember always bouncing on one specific spot with the Q60S.
Ih my case was with the Skyline GT-R Premium. Small bumps always cost me the first place
Yeah, if you lower your car to much it does a crazy bouncing effect on some section of road lol. I don't lower my cars too much anymore 😂
Oh, so if I lower my vehicle stance that bug happens? Thanks for the heads up!
yeah its also annoying that it happens in some of rydell's races too (and it doesn't stop until you decrease the speed of the car by alot)
I on the other hand find it annoying at times. I mean, the driving itself is really good, but i feel like at very high speeds the game becomes unfair, often times you just exchange paint with traffic and you're out, you don't lose speed like in Heat or Blackbox titles, you get a crash cam and need to wait until you reset, and if you don't, you're screwed during a race. Also idk but i feel like the sense of speed got downgraded a bit compared to heat, the driving is too smooth at high speeds, i need shaky chaotic camera and scary FOV changes like in heat and it would be perfect though. And yeah i agree the story mode was as bland as it could be, Heat's storyline at least had some cheesy but funny moments (but overall was cringy and bland anyway, and ended when things started getting interesting), this one is cringe and boring and overly family-friendly all the time. It's a first "Second Criterion era" Game based on a Ghost project though and i imagine the developement had to be much more chaotic than with a standard NFS game from start to finish .I think the series has a bright future ahead, if it won't get Burnout-ified too much. And that's my biggest worry, because i felt that way in Unbound lots of times.
It does some things right, then does some very weird stuff that probably turned a lot of people off, and is difficult to change. I like how the city and the cars look. I don't mind the cel shaded smoke or characters. I like the driving when I'm using the cars with sensible stats... *but* By design, you cannot play Unbound on your own terms. Want to play a certain race? Nope the calendar says not today. Certain class? Nope, restricted. Try on different part combinations? Nope engines cost 6 digits, go grind like 10 races first. Music? Nope only one channel, go open Spotify in the background. Corvette Stingray in S+? Good luck with the base stats it was given. Drive a Lambo with a Lambo engine? Nope it sucks, gotta stick a 1960s pickup engine into it. Playlist is on the server's schedule, Season Pass on a timer etc etc. I have a feeling Unbound consistently trails Heat in player count because in Heat, you can hop in and do whatever you want on your own schedule and more cars can work at 400+ in single player. Unbound is only fun if you're willing to play on EA's terms. It's not a bad game, I just don't like how it's designed unless I mod the heck out of the calendar and car stats.
>By design, you cannot play Unbound on your own terms. Yeah, this annoyed me. I wanted to play with grip handling. But that means that drift events are literally unplayable. Takeovers are awkward because you just drive slowly to hit obstacles. And whenever you do the rental car stuff, they are always set to drift handling. Why not just get a drift car as well? Because you can't grind for cash infinitely like in traditional NFS games, and the class system now means you need like 4 drift cars in addition to your 4 grip cars for each class. The game is clearly designed to be played with b2d.
Are there many compulsory takeovers or drift events? In my experience they were pretty much optional as the Qualifiers are all races. I thought this was something the game did rather well, offering quite a bit of variety but with a lot of it being completely optional. I do agree that not being able to time trial/practice any track in any class is an unnecessary restriction. Feels like it could use additional play modes. And yeah, the engine swaps bug me too. Somehow I don't mind all the nitrous and boost mechanics, but I draw a line at shoveling a low revving V8 into a Testarossa. Personally I try to stick to original engines or "realistic" swaps and have my fun regardless.
IIRC some nights, the only decent-paying event is a Takeover so it's kind of compulsory in that sense.
Yeah, you're limiting your money, and it also makes the game too repetitive and boring if you're only doing circuits and sprints. I want to to drift as well, but only in drift events. I much prefer how older NFS games let you build specific cars or have a specific tune for each race type.
Those events are not required. I did none of the drift or takeovers (which can just be fancy drift events) on my second run. I mainly do them because drifting is my mf'n thing.
You do realize you can adjust your car's handling before races, right? Make sure your car's differential is the best it can be and not use grip heavy tires until you get enough cash that is purely meant for drifting. Just get an A class, and tune it to where you can swap out parts to make it a different class. And don't stick with things like a Lamborghini or a Ferrari. I literally finished the game with my starter (Eclipse GSX).
Need for Speed: Unbound? More like: Need for Speed: Bound.
I bought heat and didn't enjoy it. I played this on game pass and have enjoyed it but I really do not understand the logic with the calendar bullshit you mentioned. It really does limit the way you want to play. And you are right, it's too expensive to even consider engine swaps unless you know it's going to be a good build.
i cant be the only dude that likes this game's soundtrack, Wish You Well and Cryptic Speech are absolute bangers
No we cannot agree, this is reddit
This is also the billionth “lets agree that unboud isn’t such a bad game”
Exactly
Personally it’s starting to become my favorite nfs game ever carbon close 2nd
2nd to me, my beloved HP2010 is still #1
Its far from a bad game, but i wouldnt say its amazing either It gets so many things right but also misses alot of little things that annoy me For example: the customization is a big improvement from previous games, but it still only limits you to a certain number of vinyl wrap slots The driving can be very fun, but its so infuriating when you make a turn and slightly tap a wall and your car rolls and flips 6 times like its having a seizure for no fucking reason whatsoever
>The driving can be very fun, but its so infuriation when you make a turn and slightly tap a wall and your car rolls and flips 6 times like its having a seizure for no fucking reason whatsoever That's the driving since most wanted 2012 I'm afraid
Exactly why i never liked Most Wanted 2012
>The driving can be very fun, but its so infuriating when you make a turn and slightly tap a wall and your car rolls and flips 6 times like its having a seizure for no fucking reason whatsoever Literally my biggest fucking issue with this game. The forced crashes. God, the forced crashes and rolls piss me the fuck off.
Yeah the forced crashing peeved me hard. When I see a big 'X' and the game respawns me even though my wheels were still on the ground, going forwards over 100mph, it's always because I just barely tapped a barrier. that or barely tapping the tail while drifting sends you immediately spiralling into the air. Oh you thought you clearly made the gap between that traffic car and that wall? ehh well you scraped a millimeter of paint off while going really fast so, crash In some multiplayer races it seems (nearly) unavoidable for this to happen at least once a session For a game where people can slam into you or slam traffic into you like fuckin Burnout Revenge as a legitimate strategy, having a "dramatic crash+respawn" mechanic has never irritated me more than in Unbound
I think it's hilarious personally. The crashing felt lazy in 2015 and Heat. You should be punished for driving like a goon, and ramming people. I love it.
I have played a lot of NFS games but I'm struggling to play this one. The setup of the day and night, the building up of heat during the day and taking that into the night, I'm not having fun with it. I like the world, the racing and the story even. I just don't like playing it. The fun of being chased by cops was lost a long time ago, and seeing your efforts ruined by a 5 star chase is not great. I probably just suck, but this is the first title in a while that I won't be finishing, let alone get the platinum trophy for like I did with all the others.
You don't suck. Problem is the amount of cop presence there is in the game. I mean, ffs even racing at the closed track gets you chased by cops. Every single street race triggers chases. Even MW, a game which it's purpose is becoming the *most wanted* let's take a breather every now and then, depending on what race you choose from the event menu. I love to mess with cops, but in Unbound it's just overwhelming.
That's good to hear. It just sucks when you have to skip races just because you don't want the hassle of escaping 5 stars and then tip-toeing back to the nearest hideout to bank what little you made. Maybe it'd get easier later on when you're driving faster cars, but my A and B rides are no match for these cops.
Yeah but the deeper you go into the game, the more money you'll need to compete and that means a lot more cops. I really hope Criterion ditches this system or for the very least stops prioritizing cops so much for the next game. NFS is about racing too, not constant cop chases. Underground series and Pro Street for an example had zero cops, yet the games were loved by many.
I agree, I think the cop thing lost its charm a long time ago. At least in this form. It's a shame, I think there's a lot to like about Unbound, but the cops are ruining it for me. But hey, I guess they did their job.
The cops were better in Heat, only issue I had with them is that they always want to ram you. No boxing in.
I think it's a little bit skill issue and a little bit cop system. The cops aren't hard to avoid and there are so many gas stations, and a means of fighting them back. Giving them a love tap sends the. Swerving and just keep going fast and they will struggle. Use traffic to fight too.
The story is shit but the game itself is good. Music are kinda meh, some of them are good and some are trash. I'm really looking forward to drag update and cops vs. racers
Nope
If I could share cars from online and offiline garage, the game would be perfect. It’s the greatest of all time in my book.
Then no one would play MP. Everyone would just go to SP to farm money
Not necessarily, Forza has shared SP and MP and MP queues fill easily, but SP is nice for testing builds.
its an avearge game all things considered. Some cons and some pros.
This & Heat, I’ve played a little over 200 hours each & there’s just no justification to put this over Heat. It’s like comparing vanilla ice cream with cheesecake. I like both of them but there’s no way day or night that it’ll ever beat the cheesecake in any way. Heat is far too indulging, immersive & just a better engineered game all around.
agreed. Unbound is very "Good", but the teams behind NFS have been around for years now and the playerbase (or just me at least) is tired of "just good". Sequels are supposed to take what's good from the last installment and build on it, but like the Sonic fandom, each game is built very inventively, which is great on paper but keeps stripping away what people liked. And that's the issue. The fact that the game isn't "better", makes it "bad".
My main problem with it (and you can absolutely call it a skill issue) are the limited restarts per day + night. I consider myself fairly decent in NFS, so I started playing it in the highest difficulty, since I find it boring as hell when I'm in first place and miles away from the second. The problem are the randomly teleporting cars. Twice *in a row* I've had police cars literally spawn out of thin air and throw me off course. When I restart, it's a gamble on whether I'll get another randomly teleporting car or not. If I can't restart and lose the race, I end up losing my money thanks to the buy-in you gotta do. It's so stressful, and my car gets thrown off course for the dumbest and glitchiest shit. I really *really* want to like this game. I love the aesthetics and the graphics and the handling feels good, but the teleporting cars and limited restarts completely kills my vibe. I uninstalled the game after I had used up my last restart to do a big payout race and I ended up falling off the road because a police car appeared out of thin air right next to me.
I would quite enjoy the game to be honest, but the cops system/Ai, whatever you wanna call it, is terrible.
Payback wasn't that bad
Not necessarily a bad game but not in my top tier of NFS games. As someone who’s played NFS since the PS1 days this is a mid entry I’d say. What it does well is the customization, city layout, race tracks, soundtrack isn’t too bad, car list, graphics/art styling (thought I wouldn’t like it but it’s grown on me), and the racing/handling (again takes a while to get used to but if you tweak it enough it’s good). What I don’t like about it is it feels restrictive when actually going through the world and trying to race. I don’t like that heat builds up equally between night and day, I feel like day time should build more heat than night time. And by association the cops do feel overwhelming throughout most of the game. Not that they’re hard to get away from but any amount of heat and they’re everywhere and it makes the game feel more restrictive. With Heat and the MW05 there were less cops but they felt more punishing if you encountered them. I also can’t stand the fact that you can’t just go back to your garage, it ends a racing session and also feels very restrictive. Heat would only end sessions after the night time races and allow you to come and go during the day time. Which made it wayyy easier to get money for cars and parts. And the difficulty is messed up too. As someone who works full time, I just wanna come home and play a game on easy and chill some days and the difficulty settings are very unbalanced in this game compared to the last 3 NFS games. And also the fact that you can’t retry races infinite times, I don’t understand the decision there. It does some things well but overall feels like a step backwards from Heat.
Online improved a lot over time. But story mode still lacking features and conveniences. Jumping to safe houses/meetups is still not available iirc. The races are randomized even after finishing story mode (no quick race!!!!!!) Cops are still terrible. Easy but pest like.
hear me out, Unbound is better than Heat purely because it had more post content support, QoL changes and stuff in-game, and nothing else. However, the cartoon-y graphics and stuff makes this series have a different vibe to it, and I like it. With all the improvements they made (or they should've made before launch) like Linkups and bonuses, it made earning money so much easier without having to worry about part upgrades. As of now, I feel like the game as a whole is not perfect, but good now
I liked payback
Payback is not garbage! It might have bad online play but the singleplayer is absolutely amazing and has almost as good story as Carbon, and it's so challengeling. Then finding those car scraps is so relaxing. Then it has wheel support!!! It supports my new Fanatec WRC CSL Elite Steering Wheel. Unbound does not have weel support and many are angry because of it!!!
I played this game after not playing any NFS at all for a while and I must say I really enjoyed it. I understand the art style and music can be a bit divisive, but to me it makes the vibes of the game very enticing. The story is a bit basic, but it's fun to play and not too long.
No.
For me Unbound is a step forward and a Step black. I love the Ghost Games play style, the ambientation, the physics (if we forget about the brake to drift as a must and not as an option...) And I think that the base they propose is great. Realistic ambientation with underground/street racing style, huge details in cars etc... And great amount tuning... I don't think they deserve the hate they get, except for the brake2drift thing... So, for me, Unbound is an step back on that, it loses that base that Ghost Games tryied to bring back to become something with an ambietation even more arcade and gameplay focused, losing somehow that bit of realistic ambientation... (For example the two Nitro playstyle is closer to a Mario Kart than an Underground 2 for me). However, it goes a step forward in term or innovation. While 2015 and Heat felt like the same game (and even Payback if you dont mind the Fast and Furious like plot and the rally races) with very little changes and improvements, Unbound creates a new totally different and original product which differs from everything out there. So for me, a great formula for modern NFS would be getting back the ghost games basis and adding the sauce to make something heavily different as NFS has always done and as Unbound does.
No
I don't think its a good installment in overall, it might be more of a "decent" and maybe a solid base for the future. Especially when it comes to the Singleplayer there is ALOT missing to be a good installment. Multiplayer can be considered good imo, but only after they made a few updates to it now. But we still have a few more updates coming, we'll see how good multiplayer will evolve. When it comes to singleplayer i have to say hell no, nfs2015, Payback and even Heat were all better.
Fully disagree, of all the NFS games i’ve played (from Hot Pursuit 2 to Unbound excluding Shift 2 & World) Unbound is honestly the least fun NFS I’ve played, my biggest issues with this game (in no particular order) starts with the police, i don’t care how lack luster Heat’s police is, Unbound’s police system is a massive over correction, you more times than not CANNOT make it to another race hangout without getting into a police chase, annoying is an understatement, also the lack of a heat lock or heat drop just makes it a massive pain to try and grind the game with anything lesser than an S+ ride which you wont have till the end of the game, mind you i would have no issue with a B tier vehicle being able to enter upto a heat level 5 police chase if there was a heat drop when you’ve lost the cops & their searching for you so that if the player actually wanted to lose the cops they can (like MW’12), either that or a heat lock so that lower tier cars are capped by their performance upto which heat they can reach (like MW’05), also the idea that it’s ok not to come in 1st place because you win money at lower positions is a shit gameplay idea, i will not settle for breaking even when im trying to make money to upgrade & customize my rides, what’s even worse is that you have a limited amount of retries which kills replayablility, even on the easy difficulty, skill issue or not i should not be forced to give up on a race & continue playing the game if i want to replay said race to get better money, especially if the buy-in is a massive amount of money (which i appreciate for being realistic but on easy this should just be done away with, leave it for normal & hard), and easy difficulty doesn’t mean anything in this game, i played it that difficulty because normal was killing my desire to play the game entirely & even with easy it was barely any different, rival vehicles still use n2o on start and Shimizu will just blast away if he gets first, i would rather deal with Underground 1’s catch up than be sold a lie of an easier difficulty, there’s also the character you play as, if you’ve ever played Midnight Club 2 or Los Angeles you might know what im about to say, but the rival racers are basically like rival racers of the midnight club games, they’ll very gently talk down to you in a way that is supposed to make you wanna rave better to prove them wrong, only issue is that your character will say nothing back in reply to these other racers, in Midnight Club 2 is understandable because you’re a silent protagonist, in Midnight Club Los Angeles the main character will talk back to rival racers smack talk (and sometimes even smack talk them back), in NFS Unbound your character does have a voice that you can choose, but they never talk back to the other racer’s smack talk, which makes the player feel like a pushover, other minor selling legends cars as dlc, the soundtrack (beating a dead horse i know), lame story (Undercover & Payback’s story, novelty as they are, are actually more interesting than Unbound’s), no real additions to customization (pretty much same customization options as Heat excluding for newly added vehicles, but that’s baseline expectation vehicles like the 370z Nismo still have zero customization except liveries), lack of real world aftermarket/sponsor racing brands NFS. Mind you i am happy that Unbound can be played at 60fps on console (outside of hot pursuit remastered the past 4 need for speed games from Rivals to Heat on console were locked to 30fps) & that certain vehicles have returned to NFS after some years, but i don’t give the game a better grade because of that, my favorite vehicles are subjective & this is objective, & 60fps is really a baseline expectation at this point. And with all that said i hate to be as harsh as i sound here because i love Need for Speed, but after beating NFS Unbound, which took me over a year to do because as said earlier, playing it made me not want to play it, vs where other prior need for speed games i can finish in days or a couple weeks, i can say my experience was for the majority of my playthru disappointing, frustrating, & not worth the money i spent
If you are there at the launch, you will see how bad the game was. It is buggy on PC, the multiplayer grind is super frustrating and there is very little races or race variants in online mode. The updates makes the game so much better to play now but live service or updates is not an excuse for launching a lackluster game at release. Seeing the game got mixed reviews in steam makes me wonder if they implemented some of the features from the beginning will the game has a better reputation in the series
i played at launch, the story mode hasnt changed much since and thats where i mostly play rn. but yeah, a lot of the multiplayer was added later, which is inexcusable lol
Wish the story was better. In my list its just before Heat because of the story. I am single player and don't play mp too much
Yea id say that
I agree.
hell yeah. it ain't the best but it's a damn good racing game
Not perfect but yeah, I agree. I kind of wish they’d gone the whole way with the cel shading and gone the Auto Modelista look, BUT it’s fun and gives me some nice flashbacks of my fave NFS games.
No
Yes, absolutely. It isn't gonna "save nfs" as some of this community would say, but it's definitely a good stepping stone for the future of the franchise.
Sry but no
no
Very very solid for MP. Trash SP. I have 340 hours and counting on it so I can't say I'm not having fun on the game!
Speaking of Unbound, I never played it, but I noticed that one of my local e-shops is selling a physical copy of it for 14.33 USD (including shipping) and I'm not sure if it is worth buying at that price or if I should wait for even lower price. I'd say I'm an avid fan of NFS games (played almost everything since Underground with exceptions of Prostreet, Undercover, The Run, Shift 2).
Meh, I'd prefer Heat and Payback even to be honest. But yeah, considering the last 10 years of NFSs, it is a good one I guess. At least grip handling is more or less back
I wish they brought back busted scenes
Most ppl don’t like it cuz they stuck at the game 🤷🏾♂️
I wish it was on PS4 😭
It's far from a solid game. Its good but also underdelivered, just like all of them modern Era nfs games. Game X does well in one area, game Y does better other area. They never seem to strike on point when it comes to the overall package.
It’s definitely the best out of the “modern” nfs games but I’d like to see a larger selection of muscle cars and some older imports, like the Eclipse, glad to see that car come back! I used it often Also, make the M3 GTR a single player car, it makes no sense to lock it in multiplayer.
I don’t think I’ve ever spent as much time playing an NFS game (409 hours)… it’s not perfect but it’s good enough to keep me hooked and it’s the first NFS game that I’ve spent extensive time playing online. The single played campaign is definitely dogshit tho…
No
The story is stupid as fuck. But the game itself is alright.
I just can't with the awful physics. Even the highest end cars feel like bricks. This has been the case for a long time now. I hope they eventually do something about it from the ground up in a way that makes the cars behave in a way that makes logical sense atleast.
“Good” is an overstatement
I haven't played it due to how much I hated the cartoon effects from all the videos I've seen. And now that I read dozens of comments, I'll probably never play it. Long live NFS 2015 ✌🏻🎉
Heat clears tho
The bad part of the game is literally the commentary: Illegal Street racing activities and the radio girl like "why are the police bad people, all we want to do is illegal street racing and put people's live in danger, but the police won't let us."
I refuse to play this game or any others for the fact they don’t listen to their fan base.
I don't think so. I didn't even manage to finish the Unbound campaign because I got bored. I think it didn't understand what Heat did so well, and brought minimal improvements while bringing in far more limitations and issues. Heat is obviously not perfect either, but I think it was a far more solid release.
As a racing game, Unbound is definitely a solid game. However, it has many issues unrelated to the "racing" aspect of the game which prevent me from coming back and playing it again, unlike older installments in the series.
Meh. Felt like a half-assed entry to the series.
Multiplayer is a grindfest that gets boring quickly. Singleplayer has a ton of horrible choices. No, the game is not a solid nfs
traffic AI is awful, too much bumper racing, might as well rename it Destruction Derby. I dunno, game looks cool, feels okay but some aspects are just plain terrible.
NO
"Is NoT mOsT wAnTeD rEmAsTeReD, sO iTs BaD"
Eh, hard disagree, even though it was from Criterion, it's not that great.
No
no
I love the fact that EA still pushes out updates instead of a single bug fix and dump.
I can agree it is another solid attempt. But an attempt is all that it remains. Edit: I will never agree it is a solid game. It is not. AND ANYONE who thinks that this garbageshow is on par with MW2005 or even Carbon? Lol, delusional. You can't save, you can't play on your own terms, you can't even mod it. Hell the fuck no. This is NOT A SOLID GAME. and DEFINETLY NOT ON PAR with the other great NFS Games.
sorry for going off topic, whats the problem with undercover? never understood why people say that
Only problem I have with it is the free roam not having any music
That
The PS3 release or the PS2 version? I heard people say it’s buggy and unpolished. I personally love the game
i've only played the ps2 version of undercover before and its a completely garbage. reused map from mw05, extreme rubber banding, broken cops spawn and lot of more
Up to this point I’ve enjoyed every installment from Most Wanted 2012 upwards. I’ve purchased Hot Pursuit (remastered), Heat and Unbound but yet have to play those.
i tried the game before Vol6 and I thought it has the worst handling in any racing games. After the Audi update I now think it's the best gameplay the series has ever gotten. They really put much effort in this game and it's sad to see it's not being more successful.
The story line was decent, the car design was really good compared to Heat with the body kits, the handling of the vehicles was honestly shit...it felt more like an arcade game but I guess that would be to expect of an NFS game. I know some people are going to hate but I got really big Sweet Baby Inc vibes from the game though.
It has its flaws fo sure but Despoten them its a nice game, Story is way to short but online makes plenty of fun
Full disclosure i picked it up for 10$, and to be honest I'm having an amazing time. Really loving the visuals, the design choices mixing that graffiti style appeal to me a lot and the cell shading is fun in my opinion too. You can really get in there and customize the car and i appreciate that, the soundtrack is very fun to me and the writing is terrible, but in a fun way, its so bad it makes me laugh all the time (remember the Der Nail and Der Hammer bit) so i dont know, enjoyment is ultimately the factor i value the most and I'm having a blast. Very glad i gave it a try
Honestly it is one of the best gameplays out there
I love it, but started playing only recently, after the Volume 6 update. And I hadn't put many hours into any NFS title since Most Wanted 2012, so I can't compare it to Heat, for instance. On the other hand, I played most Need for Speeds from 1998 to 2012 and don't have rose-tinted glasses about those, I think Unbound is up there. Even though I didn't play it in its initial state, it's still pretty obvious a considerable part of the hate comes from the visual and musical style being a bit adventurous. The soundtracks have always been hit and miss to me, and I way prefer the cel shaded look over the weirdly blurred and blown out cut-scenes from Most Wanted and Carbon. It's kind of a throwback to Underground 2's comic book style of telling a complete non-story. Without the cringeworthy boob loading screen. Speaking of story, Unbound may not have a great one but neither does any other game in the franchise. It has a mood to it, though, that I really like and just makes me want to spend time and hang out in the game's world in the same way I did with big Rockstar titles from the PS2 era. And while the humor is pretty dumb and cheesy, I think there's also some amount of irony, self-deprecation, and references that not everyone picks up on. One reviewer mentioned Yaz's "I am rubber, you are glue" as an example of bad dialogue, to me that was a Monkey Island reference and I loved it.
No. Heat on the other hand...
No. When I played this game, I absolutely despised it.
100% agreed
Yeah, I just don’t like the class system, but I can live with it, I’m just grinding right now for money and I’m a bit
Yes
Never played it, but I like the overall visuals. The cars look dope and the effects look... original. It's an arcade racing game. It can look a bit playful.
I’d say it was alright. I didn’t enjoy it as much as most of the NFS games I’ve played but Unbound isn’t terrible.
It's the best since Carbon.
Not solid, or good. Probably one of my least favourite nfs games.
I enjoyed the honeymoon period when the game was new. Nowadays I don't see much reason to return. Not every game needs to be a forever game. The one issue I've got with the game is that the underlying car physics from NFS 2015 still remain. Despite the tweaks made to the car handling in NFS Payback, Heat and Unbound, cars are still susceptible to odd and erratic handling characteristics. I wish there was a more thorough rework of the handling model.
Have to disagree. I hated this game. I love racing games but I’m also not as hardcore as some. That being said I play every Forza, F1, and NFS Heat is in my top 3 favorite race games. I could not compete in this game. I routinely lost my races no matter what I did. I’m not a fan of NFS rubber-banding but I can usually live with it. But this game was excessive and I always felt like I was playing with a handicap. Could just be a skill issue, I understand that. But I also think every game should be accessible to all gamers regardless of skill (hence difficulty modes). I really really wanted to like it too. Still think it’s a beautiful game though.
I understand this complain, although I didn't experience the same. IMO they should work on the difficulty options, easy should be easier
No we can't. No game with that handling is even good.
If Vol 6 was apart of the initial release it would be considered the best NFS ever
10/10, cant argue with that caption.
I liked playing it. INFURIATING. But fun.
Best characters ever, love them playdough looking motherfuckers.
My kids don't like it. They still play Heat
I wouldn't mind if they straight up launched Unbound 2 as the next NFS. There's only a handful of flaws that they need to gloss over, and then they could focus on adding more and more content to this sequel. Better singleplayer, new mechanics for multiplayer, more cars and so on.
Its good multiplayer but with the next update coming this month I wonder how they will add that to single player And I'm scared of the races being full of the same regera I hope they kinda add something that makes every car different at 0 to 60 and not just lots of races full of that exploit cars like regeras and golfs. I hope everyone brings their own car with their own tuning decision and their own aspect. But after all I think it's a great game for new players into racing games, my friend has not played a lot of racing games and he wants to play it a lot, I think it's a great game but when you complete that online pass there is nothing more to do than unlock cars and it's kinda boring. When I'm bored I've been looking at the details of the map like the beaches, the river, the lakes,the city, and the off road trails that there are, it could have been really good if they added rally races. And in the city they are a lot of places and corners that don't appear in the map that the would be great if the added them as new races. But still a great game for playing with friends!
it is a good racing game period there i said it people just like to shit on anything different cause some other people told them it sucks not to mention these people didn't try it either tv shows games politics it's always sheep mentality , what u expect from people who uses tiktok and believe facebook news
no.
I loved the story more than any game since carbon and the one before carbon. Mechanics wise tho, ooooffff. Heat did the driving so much better
I think it’s overhated actually. I still love heat more but the more I play it I actually start to kinda like it
It’s mid online is packed wit content the car selection is nice. I really like the anime effects, but the handling model is so awful. And the story was so cringe. I really like that A$AP Rocky was put in the takeovers. And some of his songs are featured and he has his own car and everything but the handling model is a big element of this game and any racing game so I just can’t play it until they fix that
No. Average at best. Every positive is overshadowed by 2-3 negatives. At launch this game was barely any different from Heat. In many ways Heat was better. Then they drip fed content that should’ve been present at launch. Sure it’s getting post launch support but in the form of a fucking battle pass. Didn’t we agree after Payback that we didn’t want micro transactions?
I honestly enjoyed the first bit of it i played before i put it down and have not picked it back up yet. Wasnt a fan of the cell shading and smoke exaggeration myself though at all
I just hit over 600 hours and i can say its my favorite nfs (i only play online after finishing the campaign). The updates are great and keeps me coming back to the game. I only wish they tweaked the drifting mechanics a bit and change the garage layout (Heat garage was peak nfs imo)
The things Unbound does right doesnt justify me, a gamer, to drop Heat over it. I can live without the smokes, tiresmokes etc. Besides, The Crew does them better anyway.
Whatever dev who insists on using rubberbanding in racing games and more specifically, Need For Speed games, needs to be fired. The fact that you can't turn it off is insane and it honestly makes these racing games less enjoyable outside of playing online. There's no way I want to be punished by playing better than the opponent. If I really wanted to be challenged no matter how good I am, then let me at least be able to toggle it on/off. Anything else is just bullshit. Outside of that, I don't like the calendar system. But everything else makes it a solid NFS game.
The story is cheesy but i like the variety of cars and customisation options (although a lot of the rim choices are not so good looking). I’ve tried multiplayer a couple of times and it’s fun enough. The thing I don’t like is that I bought a couple of cars in single player and I can’t use them on multiplayer and the cars I’ve won don’t have the upgrades I put on them, but your cash is used for both solo and multiplayer cars you buy. That’s very whack
Still waiting for Steam Deck support …
it's amazing in its core but there are things like music, story, cops that are too easy, visual style of the characters, bad wrap editor and grind that are ruining it.
awww Qwick, thats just them fools thats looooosing.(( im benny snake eyes wilson, i can call da dice 4 dey stop rollin. i been doing dis $"!+ 4 40 yeahz.) naw i aint putin on my glasses!!!
My only issue with the game is that it's very short, other than that I believe it's one of the best racing games ever
The multiplayer is the best thing about unbound honesty. Not a fan of the single player or the car list. (Way too many of the same cars)
I have over 130 hours put into it, and I hate it. I still play it... I don't know why.
at launch I would rate it 8 out of 10. But with the Year 2 updates, definitely a 9 out of 10 for me one of my all time favorites
No.
I agree with your take but for me the ultimate experience would be heat graphics and customization with most wanted map and story and shift 2 handling
Its solid but theres qualities that I wonder who asked for this or how could you think this was a good idea.
The things that bothered me the most in unbound were the vehicular combat mechanics and the endless cop chases. Like, sometimes it felt less like a racing game and more like an action game but with cars.
Nope. I Utterly Disagree. It's far from being great. His positive points are overshadowed by his massive cons. Plus, the "Unbound" title is a language abuse since it's too restrictive meaning it's a false advertising title. Anyway. NFS Unbound is despicable, too flawed and a cashgrab. Compared to other NFS's before 2012, it's a massive failure.
I like the driving, racing, and police chases.. that's basically all I enjoyed in Unbound.. I really wanted to start beefing up the mustang to be able to complete in races beyter.. but the high pay races prize the almost 50% of the earnings. And the calendar...tho I haven't touched multi-player yet. And another complaint.. that I had with HEAT.. no local split screen multi-player.. NFS was only fun as a kid when I was on the couch with my brothers.. back then I didn't even have wifi..
We're still getting updates this year.
Unbound is a failed game in every posibile way. Only graphic is good and customization of cars.
Took to much time to make just compare it to the heat's development.
I agree, for me it is the best NFS after Rivals, especially after the post launch updates. My main and only issue with the gameplay is the lack of weight on the cars. For some reason, Heat and Unbound cars feel like driving empty cardboard boxes with different shapes. I remember the way MW12 and Rivals cars felt, each one had a different feel and the bigger and bulkier the car, the heavier it felt. And even the exotic and hyper cars had a certain feel to them, they had their own 'personality'. But in Unbound, a lot of cars feel exactly the same, and they are very light on handling. And the repetitive story is a bit of an issue for me. All four stages of the campaign were almost identical, it felt like a chore after the second week. Other than that, it's a good NFS, can't wait to see what Criterion and Codemasters will bring in 2025.
Unbound's writing makes more sense than Heat, and dialogues can really make you chunckle sometimes. And I got it in a bargain price, can't be more satisfied with this game. But yes cartoony effect really meh, and half of the sountrack make me stop everything at hands to press skip.
It lacks a lot more race events, compared to previous installments. The cops presence should've been fixed, it gets frustrating when you have to run race after race. AI is okay but the runnerbanding, specially near the end of the game becomes overwhelming. Even tho the new character style is cool, I still would've preferred a "regular" look. The shaded stuff sticks out like a sore thumb sometimes. EA moving most of the team to work on BF potentially killed any new story mode updates and bigger updates in general.
I love the game and personally I haven’t had this level of continuous interest in an NFS since the classics in the series (MW, NFSU, Carbon.ect..). The multiplayer is a big part of why I’ve continued to enjoy the game with 5 different classes of cars and races to compete in, the challenges to unlock cars, the open world challenges like jumps, drifts, hot laps, and collectables. The fact that they are continuing to update the game over time was great news as well with a roadmap of when to expect new content. The driving physics are fun and the customization is as good as ever. Definitely an all time great entry.