lamboblogging
I just got the game this weekend. I've managed to get sucked in like no other game but NFS can. To put it into perspective, I've been a WoW addict for years, and NFS:UG2 is the only game that ever had me forget to do basic things like eat. At least for 2 days until I beat it. NFS: Heat has sucked me in, but it's also got a lot of issues that make it feel inconsistent, unpolished, or incomplete.
The #1 thing this game had to do in order to be playable is to have good handling of the car, and in this case EA delivered. I'll leave a laundry list of complaints in a bit, but let's talk about the driving first.
NFS:Heat is the first time I've played NFS since UG2 and enjoyed the driving experience. I played a NFS game on PC shortly after UG2 (I don't remember which one, it might have been Most Wanted) and the driving experience was horrible. You could go up or down hill with no change in speed or acceleration, and the whole game just felt fake. I don't think I even put 20 minutes into it before I turned it off.
I didn't get another NFS game until the 2015 reboot. The game was okay, but the steering was so sluggish it killed the whole experience. I did end up playing through the whole game, but I didn't really want to play NFS again after that. I felt like my car was constantly on railroad tracks, with how large my turning radius was. When NFS: Payback came out and I read reviews that said there were problems with the car's handling, I immediately decided not to buy it.
With that in mind, I feel NFS nailed the handling in this game. If I build my car for street, I have very good handling. For the most part, I can turn when I want to. Sometimes I drift further than I want, or I slow down more than I want, but I can at least initiate the turn and drift, and usually it works out that I then go in the direction that I want. If I build my car for drift, I can slide for days and rack up those drift scores.
The driving is the absolute most important aspect of a driving game, and NFS:Heat nailed it.
The game is also visually stunning. The many screenshots on this forum are proof of that.
The day/night cycle is an interesting twist, and fairly well done.
But now I get to my issues. The game just feels unfinished. It feels like some things were done by different people with nobody going back over it to make sure it was all done the same, and things come out inconsistent. There's a lot of things in the game that just don't feel like they were tested before release. As it stands, the game feels like a AA title with really good driving. Here are the problems with the game, in my opinion:
- Cop Chase doesn't seem to be respective of difficulty, and actually seems to be worse than NFS 2015. Cops rubber-band like crazy, and even in Heat Level 1 or Level 2 seem to have insane acceleration and tracking abilities. The only two ways I have consistently been able to escape are if I am already moving over 100 MPH when they spot me, or if I go over a jump that they will then crash over. I don't feel like I can escape the police by outrunning them (even when they complain about my horsepower) or by making tight turns in the city (because they just follow me through them).
- What causes and doesn't cause damage is inconsistent and confusing. I restarted the encounter with Shaw several times until one time I got a lucky hit that took him down to 10% early on. Sometimes I scratch something and lose 1/8 of my health, sometimes I have a head-on collision and don't even get dented. There is also no obvious stat available for how much damage your cars can cause or take.
- Your car rating is based on it's street value. It would be much better if you could get an "overall" rating, as well as specific ratings in each of the 4 modes (race, street, off-road, and drift) and/or the 4 hybrid modes (Rally, Showcase, etc.). I have an off-road truck rated around 160, a drifting charger rated around 220, and a street/race mustang around 245, and all have similar levels of upgrade.
- The HUD tends to disappear in certain sections of the city during daytime. There are times I can't see half of my HUD because it's washed out by the sky.
- Lots of minor issues with the car customization. I don't have the option to set what kind of tailgate or cover I have on a pickup, or to set whether my convertible is up or down. I also don't have the option for a hardtop miata. Not a big fan of most of the spoiler models, mirror models, or the paint and wrap system, either. As a QOL issue, it would be great if I could design both sets of rims at the same time.
- You can't get different angles of a car part before you buy it. You also can't see how things like headlights look when they're on.
- If I have a part in my inventory, then instead of the game selling me a part, it should just tell me how many of that item I have in my inventory. For example, if I have a Pro ECU in my inventory, then it should say "Sport $10,000, Pro (1), Pro+ $16,000"... that way I know I don't need to spend the money on it.
- I can't sell my starter car. I don't really want it anymore but now it's taking up space in my garage.
- I can teleport to a garage and then enter my garage. This takes 2 loading screens. "Teleport to garage" as an option would mean I could skip a loading screen.
- There is no game manual that came with the game. There are also horrible tooltips, in that I have to figure out what things are. It took me a while to figure out why there were a lot of races with "!" on my map, I had no idea what that was.
- You don't get much option to tune your car for acceleration vs. speed.
- Sometimes you get to a story event and you have to follow the person. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you use your car. Sometimes you don't. When you do follow them, sometimes they say "turn up ahead." Sometimes they don't. It's just inconsistent and when sometimes it happens, and other times it doesn't, it just feels like someone didn't bother on the other times.
- Three major problems with drift. First, that you don't lose points when you hit a wall. Second, that there aren't other cars on the track with you. Third, drift is ridiculously easy if you have a car set up for drifting in any way, and since speed isn't much of a factor you can be way undertuned for the drift race and still perform just fine. I feel that drift was far superior in the UG/UG2 day than it is in NFS:Heat. The drifting itself is fun and the handling is perfect for drift, it's just that the races that surround the mode aren't very challenging.
- 90% of the daytime races are circuit races. It gets monotonous. Why aren't there more drift races, or any sprints? Nighttime is a bit better, but it still feels like gameplay modes are lacking. Some of my favorites in UG and UG2 were drag and outrun races, which aren't even there.
- The pre-race cutscene and then the countdown are so similar you can just get rid of one of them.
- The game does not let you pick from various control pre-sets.
- It's nice there's a few trucks and a VW bug, but it would be nice to see a wider variety of cars. More SUVs, some sedans (especially a Dodge Charger), other than just a bunch of variants of supercar, muscle car, and convertible.
There are quite simply a lot of things that when I play, I have to ask myself, "did nobody test this? Did nobody provide feedback on this?" The game feels incomplete, like it was rushed out or like once the campaign was finished, they didn't bother
Submitted December 30, 2019 at 06:27AM by skribsbb https://ift.tt/2smPGun
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December 30, 2019 at 06:59AM
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December 30, 2019 at 07:57AM
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