Date played: November 23rd and 24th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10
I've been a long time Need For Speed player. It all started with the original on PC in 1995 when I started high school. NFS2 kept us busy a few years later. I fell in love with the series with NFS3: Hot Pursuit on Playstation though, where my friends, brothers and I had tons of fun chasing each other as cops. High Stakes was kind of boring... Then when Porsche Unleashed came out, a good friend of mine was completely obsessed with the brand, so I played a ton of that one. To this day, I still have the stupid theme song from Hot Pursuit 2 stuck in my head every once in a while, the best NFS game on PS2. I played and enjoyed Underground, the first in the series to offer an open world. I skipped Underground 2, but was back to the series with Most Wanted, one of my first games on 360. I then took a huge, multi-year break from the series, skipping Carbon, Pro Street, Undercover, Shift, Nitro and World. It took Criterion to get me back with the confusingly titled Hot Pursuit. Again, I took a break and skipped Shift 2 and The Run. Criterion got us confused again by releasing another game called Hot Pursuit, my favorite in years. This year, Need For Speed welcomes me into a new generation of consoles once again with Rivals.
Rivals is pretty much Hot Pursuit with a new name. The big difference is that now, the game map is automatically populated with 5 other players that run their own events. There is a cop and racer campaign and I chose to go as a racer. The game generates playlists where you have to accomplish specific tasks to level up, for example, win a race, beat a time trial and side slam an opponent. Once complete, you level up and gain new cars, customization options and tuning.
There are weapons too, like EMP, jammers and other weird attacks that can used against cops and racers. I haven't played a lot, but I'm liking what I've played so far. Also, while the game looks pretty damn good, I'm disappointed that it doesn't run at 60 FPS and does not include any sort of split screen racing...
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10
I've been a long time Need For Speed player. It all started with the original on PC in 1995 when I started high school. NFS2 kept us busy a few years later. I fell in love with the series with NFS3: Hot Pursuit on Playstation though, where my friends, brothers and I had tons of fun chasing each other as cops. High Stakes was kind of boring... Then when Porsche Unleashed came out, a good friend of mine was completely obsessed with the brand, so I played a ton of that one. To this day, I still have the stupid theme song from Hot Pursuit 2 stuck in my head every once in a while, the best NFS game on PS2. I played and enjoyed Underground, the first in the series to offer an open world. I skipped Underground 2, but was back to the series with Most Wanted, one of my first games on 360. I then took a huge, multi-year break from the series, skipping Carbon, Pro Street, Undercover, Shift, Nitro and World. It took Criterion to get me back with the confusingly titled Hot Pursuit. Again, I took a break and skipped Shift 2 and The Run. Criterion got us confused again by releasing another game called Hot Pursuit, my favorite in years. This year, Need For Speed welcomes me into a new generation of consoles once again with Rivals.
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| Rivals is fast, fun and pretty |
Rivals is pretty much Hot Pursuit with a new name. The big difference is that now, the game map is automatically populated with 5 other players that run their own events. There is a cop and racer campaign and I chose to go as a racer. The game generates playlists where you have to accomplish specific tasks to level up, for example, win a race, beat a time trial and side slam an opponent. Once complete, you level up and gain new cars, customization options and tuning.
There are weapons too, like EMP, jammers and other weird attacks that can used against cops and racers. I haven't played a lot, but I'm liking what I've played so far. Also, while the game looks pretty damn good, I'm disappointed that it doesn't run at 60 FPS and does not include any sort of split screen racing...
