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terryblount · 6 years ago

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Need For Speed Heat PC Review

I was one of the idiots that actually bought Need for Speed 2015. It was during the first post-release sale, and many reviews seemed happy with it. Meanwhile, I had no idea that I was willingly forking over my hard-earned cash for a total, irrecoverable train wreck congealed into a game. Turns out it was not just the worst racing game I ever played: it was perhaps one of the worst games I owned.

My disgust might’ve been skewed by sentiment since I have been playing this series before I was even a teenager. Still, it was impossible to look past the spectacular mess that Electronic Arts had made with their once great franchise. NFS 2015 was so bug-ridden, so hopelessly off the mark from what it was supposed to be, that I outright refused to play Payback. A wise choice as it turns out.

Now comes Need For Speed Heat as a last chance for Ghost Games to prove they can breathe new life into a series that has been driving on fumes for far too long. Like other franchises trying to make a comeback, Heat is likewise a return to form and makes an earnest attempt to appeal to the golden age of Underground/Most Wanted. Has it been successful? Kind of… maybe. Let me explain.

A Race To Save The Franchise

The Need For Speed franchise is in a really weird place at the moment. Since the first entry in 1994 this series has repeatedly set the bar for how an arcade racing game should play, look and feel. In every game EA somehow struck a perfect balance between making games that look gorgeous enough to feel realistic, yet the driving physics never failed to offer players that addictive rush of raw speed.

The problem is that developers such as Criterion, Codemasters and Turn 10 had been paying close attention to the constituents of this golden formula. It wasn’t long before they not only perfected some of NFS’s original mechanics, but actually made it their own within their respective games.

Great to see old favorites

Furthermore, it didn’t exactly help that every new release in the NFS series seemed to be more lackluster and out of touch than the last since Ghost Games took on the mantle in 2013. Where NFS once held the throne, this well-beloved arcade veteran inevitably found itself being outrun by its competition and with too many disappointments in the portfolio to bank on fans’ nostalgia.

Thankfully, this must have been the wakeup call that both EA and the developers needed for a last chance at a NFS renaissance. If all else, the removal of everything that stood against the identity of this series, and the return of an emphasis on underground tuner culture, shows that Need For Speed Heat is, above all, a game that really wants to please and appease fans.

Feeling the Heat

With Need For Speed Heat Ghost Games have wisely decided to go back to the drawing board and focus on the most important aspect of any racing game. Not the cars, not the driving physics, and definitely not the story. Instead, they started, rather than ended, with the one thing that ties all these building blocks together: The game’s setting.

If the game was in New York, I’d bet they would have called it Skyscraper City. Great place to race in though.

Heat takes place in a tropical city located somewhere on America’s southeast seaboard, which they named Palm City. Hilarious nomenclature aside, a city close to the tropics is a great locale for hosting a racing game. Just like Paul Walker (R.I.P.) and Vin Diesel, the player can once again cannonball down the sun-scorched streets lined with palm trees in their custom tuner specials or thundering muscle cars.

Given the location it is to be expected that the game is equally capable of replacing bright, blue skies with torrential downpours which can actually give the world a totally unique feeling to more fair-weather races. Whereas NFS 2015 was so rain-soaked it was almost depressing, Heat has a pleasantly dynamic weather and time-of-day cycle that actually feels natural.

What chu gonna do, what chu gonna do when they come for you…

The day-night cycle of this tropical racing paradise has a function too. If you’re into Dexter, Bad Boys, or just turned on any television in the 80’s, you must be aware of how the cops in Miami are the ultimate badasses of the American police force. You therefore have an idea what the player is thrown into with races taking place right in the middle of their jurisdiction.

It is here that the player meets lieutenant Mercer and his band of intercepters who have taken it upon themselves to stop anything with rims and a spoiler dead in its tracks. Fortunately, they are willing to turn a blind eye towards racing in the day because these events are legit races and drifting competitions with safety barriers and closed streets in which the player can compete to earn some decent cash.

At night, however, the streets turn into a nocturnal racing haven where players have the opportunity to earn more rep than money which, you guessed it, unlocks all sorts of goodies, cars and upgrades for you to spend said cash on. Except now, the Five-0 will be utterly relentless in hunting your speeding arse down, and the player has to employ some swift driving to shake the black cruisers with flashing lights.

I used to press Alt+F4 when this happened in older games. Was seriously tempted to try it here.

The police chases play a much bigger role in Heat as opposed to the last couple of games. Your car has a set amount of damage that it can endure before being rendered immobile, at which point the player is treated to a big, red BUSTED cut scene. What makes this prospect particularly harrowing is the fact that all that rep you earned over the last hour disappears like a fart in a hurricane upon being caught.

I played the original Most Wanted at least four times, but I have misgivings about the police AI in this game because they are just a tad overpowered. Heat never really clarifies how you are supposed to shake them and my little starter Nissan rarely stood a chance during the early stages of the game.

Their ungodly acceleration and cars seemingly made from Vibranium meant that the cops never quite rose above being an annoyance. The prospect of loosing your rep does add to the tension of chases, but the lack of the ability to fight back properly meant that I was happiest to avoid police encounters altogether. Sorry folks, Hot Pursuit 2 and Most Wanted still holds the crown.

My way or the highway

My grievances with the law aside, I liked how nothing felt out of place, and every aspect of the gameplay feels like it was born from within the game’s world and setting. I could even endure the agonizingly generic plot which involves the player and a new gang of misfits sticking it to the man by starting up their own crew. For what the plot lacks in originality, it at least fits the game’s overall theme.

Pick your character, and start your crew. I am just so glad there are no fist bumps.

As for the actual racing itself, well, Heat is a mixed bag at times due to how Mr Frostbite handles driving physics. Despite Ghost Games doing what they can, this engine just doesn’t feel like it was supposed to be used in racing games. It still feels like a first-person shooter engine that has been jerry-rigged to play like a racing game.

This can get hilarious during character customization!

As such, the cars do occasionally feel a bit strange in term of how they stick to the road. Everything from my Beemer to the turbo charged Corvette had this peculiar, floaty sense of handling in terms how they move over the tarmac. It reminded me of driving a vehicle in an online, multiplayer game close to something from the Battlefield franchise.

Getting those Underground 2 vibes here

Still, the circuit races, the sprints, the tight time trials, and even the drifting make for decent auto sport and I mostly enjoyed crushing the competition. The developers have designed Heat with wide, open tracks that have no intention of breaking the player’s speed, yet the controls are responsive enough to maneuver around those unexpected sharp turns. It works, and it feels good.

The middle of the road

Heat is not exactly a huge graphical upgrade from, say, NFS 2015, or even Payback, and I felt that old Mr Frostbite should have been pushing slightly higher frame rates for what was on my screen. Yet, this is still a good looking car game no matter which way you slice it. The whole world is delightfully reactive to rain, and superb lighting adds up to some beautiful shadows and reflections, particularly at night.

On that note, I was looking forward to the awesome vehicle customisation suite making a return, and it was great to get back into it. It still lacks the freedom and scope of older entries, but it is basically impossible not to put together a bitchin’ ride. The ability to download vehicle wraps from the other players in the community is another big win here, and once again I was blown away by the creativity of some players.

Yeah I totally made thi- OUCH! – okay I downloaded this

Unfortunately, the music selection is still one area that Ghost Games needs to work on. While a few catchy reggaeton and hip-hop tracks keeps things going during the chilled moments of gameplay, the racing lacks that ‘head-banging’ factor that kicks the player’s adrenaline up one notch. Heat would have been the perfect game to benefit from a healthy injection of music with a bit more potency.

The return of Need For Speed?

Given that Need For Speed Heat finds itself at the end of a fifteen-year-old legacy, it is really difficult to review this game in isolation. From a purely objective perspective, this was most of what I could want from flashy, fast-paced, arcade racer in market that was suspiciously anemic this year. This game has been built around tried and trusted themes in its genre, and it reaps the benefits.

You can choose every time you leave the garage

On the other, Heat plays it a little too safe at times in its effort to appease fans, and probably EA’s stockholders. While I understand that Ghost Games could all but afford another flop, their palpable fear of pushing boundaries makes the gameplay feel formulaic. While this is a good racing game, it feels like many others I have played, and Heat might have a hard time standing out in public memory.

At the end of the day, Heat is definitely a sign that Need For Speed is back on track, even if the game lacks its own identity. If anything, its very existence feels like a small victory. Despite throwing all the weight of their corporate greed behind their golden boy franchise, this game serves as a harsh reminder to EA that gamers are always willing to spend on what they like.

No cringeworthy cutscenes

Nice control scheme

Great setting

Shared community content

Car selection

Not always online

Police still suck

A bit formulaic

PC Optimisation

Difficulty spikes

PC Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an XBox One controller

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