Need for Speed Unbound

Need for Speed Unbound sees Criterion put its spin on the formula laid down by its predecessor and the result is a stylish racer that is mostly fun but sometimes frustrating.

As a standalone title, or if it's your first NFS, it's not bad, but it's not the kick-start the series needed. If you're looking for a game to kick back and play race after race, Unbound has enough content to keep you glued to the screen.

While Criterion has successfully returned to the genre, it feels like the developer is being held back from delivering a truly colorful and over-the-top experience it's previously achieved in games like the Burnout series. The team should take the driving mechanics and the cartoony visual flairs from Need for Speed Unbound and turn those features up to the next level in their next arcade racer.

Need For Speed Unbound delivers everything fans of the series will want, with a cool new art style too. But due to some woeful voice acting and a lack of spectacle, it fails to deliver on the aesthetic it hoped to achieve.

Need for Speed Unbound is a refreshing entry in the franchise, with new visual effects that enhance its sense of style. But for all the good that it does, it commits the cardinal racing game sin by periodically forcing the player to slow down, resulting in a fun, but mixed gameplay experience.

Need for Speed Unbound is not trying to be an ultrarealistic simulator or even a super comprehensive open-world online racing game experience. It wants to be a stylish, tough, and rewarding ode to street racing culture. While it’s not the best in its genre due to some weak writing and eventual repetition, Need for Speed Unbound is a surprisingly entertaining racer in a year that hasn’t seen much racing game excitement since Gran Turismo 7.

Put that unfairness together with the annoying tendencies of the cops in Need for Speed Unbound, and the entire experience is full of peaks and valleys that curtail the progress that this game is supposed to be making. Beyond its art style that stands tall on its own, Need for Speed Unbound feels less like an innovation and more like a new body kit installed on an old engine. When the competition is already miles ahead, what this series needed was a nitrous boost of epic proportions, but sadly, it doesn’t seem like it will ever catch up.

Need for Speed Unbound is a game that favors glamor and style over substance. It’s an absolute visual and aural treat. Don’t get me wrong, the art direction is phenomenal, especially with the combination of unique cel-shaded effects and photo-realistic graphics. I mean, they even got A$AP Rocky to feature. I keep wanting to push the pedal to the metal and thoroughly enjoy what the game has to offer, but the endless bloat and grind to get there is beyond disheartening and frustrating. Criterion has promised free content updates in the future, so here’s to hoping it satisfies the needs of the Need for Speed community. But what Unbound has to offer at this moment is a high price tag, a cliche narrative, and an average racing experience.

For every well done aspect of Need for Speed Unbound, there are two or three that leave something to be desired. The narrative doesn't have to be the main focus, but it's lazily done, via offscreen dialogue that takes place while you're in the menu. The new Takeover events don't deliver the fun they promise, and the police chases leave much to be desired, but the core gameplay, along with the soundtrack and vehicle customisation, is so good that there are moments when you forget all about it. At 300km/h, it all gets a bit blurry, doesn't it?

Need for Speed Unbound delivers a controversial "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" style, with cel-shaded characters within a realistically rendered world, but gameplay-wise the beautiful open world of Lakeshore City is somewhat not much interesting to explore.

Definitely a step in the right direction for the series, with really good ideas, that can become repetitive in the long run.

It's ironic how a product called "Unbound" is, in contrast, still so harnessed by the canons of traditional open world racing games, resulting all too similar to its direct predecessor. Need For Speed Unbound is a solid title overall , provided, however, that you approach it without too many pretensions. Net of some structural problems that can make you turn up your nose, the game manages to entertain, thanks to a deep customization of the vehicles and a multiplayer that works properly. The original sin, however, lies in the wanting to insist on a slightly lazy playful formula. production that unfortunately does not deviate from the trend that starts from Burnout Paradise and links all the Need For Speed released in the last decade, son of a repeated life a little indolent. There is therefore a need for Electronic Arts to get back on track and engage the turbo as soon as possible, if it wants to return to excel in the panorama of arcade driving games.

Need for Speed Unbound can be called one of the better games in the franchise thanks to its fine gameplay and fun races. At the same time, we can't ignore the fact that the police feels unbalanced and the game suffers from a lot of pop-in. Also, the balance between cars is not good and the checkpoints are awkwardly placed in certain races. Every positive point also has a negative counterpart, which ultimately makes it nothing more than a mediocre racer.

Need for Speed unbound offers some genuinely cathartic, high-speed thrills, but it does little to turn heads besides wearing its flashiest colours.

I can live with many of Need For Speed Unbound’s faults. Admittedly, there were fleeting moments when I enjoyed the routine of earning cash, upgrading, outrunning police, and climbing Lakeshore’s underground racing ranks. But, when a Need For Speed game spits in the face of people that use wheel and pedal setups, it’s tough to feel a need for anything other than a need to play a better game. There’s a foundation here to build upon, but EA and Criterion have their work cut out for them if they ever hope to compete with the giants of the racing game scene.