Need for Speed: Rivals

It's the best Need for Speed in years and a step in the right direction. There's more Most Wanted in this game than in the remake that was published last year.

Need For Speed ​​Rivals is fast-paced, convincing and fun above all. AllDrive beats down barriers between online and offline once and for all but the 30 FPS anchorage on PC would not be good for enthusiasts.

EA managed to end the bad run of Need for Speeds released in odd years. But even if it’s the best NFA in a long time, it could have been better. Rivals looks and plays really good but it could use a properly working multiplayer or a real single player mode. And if you remember Most Wanted, Rivals looks quite familiar. [01/2014, p.38]

Need for Speed Rivals is a fun and enjoyable racing game that sports really nice looking visuals and a strong multiplayer mode. There's nothing really new and incredibly exciting, but everything works fine.

Those spinning arcade tires have begun to smell originally and brazenly, which is pleasant. Surprisingly, Rivals brings many innovations and a lot of fun into the Need for Speed series. Its multiplayer game system called AllDrive is like a whole revolution. Shame there are some notorious bugs in it.

NFS Rivals consciously relates to Hot Pursuit, but at the same time is a better, bigger game with superb graphics. Sure, there are some flaws, especially in the PC version, and the game is all but original. But even when you take these things into consideration, you can't overlook all the great content and tons of fun. Good arcade racing fans definitely should give Rivals a chance.

I was looking for more explorations, depth, and variety, and in this department Rivals is slightly wanting, though it’s innovative approach to incorporating multiplayer does just enough to compensate.

Rivals is a good street racer that adrenalizes again the Hot Pursuit brand with ludicrous speed and beautiful landscapes. The 30 FPS limitation on the PC screams revenge nonetheless.

It doesn't come without an unexpected share of graphical and server-side hiccups, especially the dreadful 30 FPS lock on all platforms, but Rivals still deserves praise, for its uncommon talent in delivering a constant output of sheer tension, keeping your heart rate constantly on the brink of disaster for the entire duration of a race.

The good news: Rivals tops The Run and Most Wanted. The bad news: Rivals does not live up to the great Need for Speed legacy. If you are playing solo, racing Redview County is fun for a few hours, but the longer you play, the more repetitive and boring the gameplay gets.

Multiplayer support limited to only six players ruins all the good things that this Need for Speed Rivals brings to the genre.

It's most certainly a launch title racer and it's not doing much to rectify that. I'm reminded of the limited scope of Motorstorm as a launch racer for PS3. Like Motorstorm, however, the core Gameplay is solid enough to earn a recommendation to NFS fans.

One good idea--the racer's scoring system--spoiled by a thuddingly dull cop campaign and dumb design decisions. [March 2014, p.68]

Rivals feels like it's on the cusp of greatness. The pieces are all there--the handling is exciting, the soundtrack is solid, and the systems that surround the multiplayer help build meaningful battles between racer and cop. But with just six players driving around the entire world and no good way to pull those players together for some true multiplayer activities, those pieces go absolutely nowhere, leaving behind an empty world that might as well not even be online at all. It's a real shame.