Need for Speed: Unbound Has an Ace Up Its Sleeve

Need for Speed: Unbound has been revealed, and with Criterion Games serving as the developers, the game has a good chance of pleasing fans.

[porkChop]

"Through 2012's Need for Speed: Most Wanted, it demonstrated that it knows how to take a Need for Speed game and knock it out of the park."

You're joking, right? Their take on Hot Pursuit was good, but the Most Wanted reboot wasn't good at all. It was boring, had no visual customization, and the way you collect cars really killed a big part of the NFS experience.

I like what I've seen so far of Unbound so I'll give them the benefit of doubt, but I'm not going to pretend their last NFS was good.

[RaidenBlack]

As far as I can remember ... NFS Most Wanted came after NFS The Run .... and The Run was so bad (with qte running on foot) ... that the simpler purely driving focused Most Wanted-2012 (with no humans in the game) was better appreciated
I didn't like the weird style of that Most Wanted either ... but was still better than The Run and Undercover.
NFS Hot Pursuit 2010 is still one of my favorite racing games.

[porkChop]

Yeah that could have been a factor. But I'll be honest, I played The Run years after release. The story was weird and the QTEs were terrible, but I thought the actual driving felt much better than other NFS games at the time. And I kind of liked how the races flowed through different regions and weather. Though that game had a *ton* of big issues like being limited to changing cars at certain points, performance issues, etc.

[MrBaskerville]

I think they ran out of time developing Most Wanted. Such a weird game and seem like they just slapped something together last minute after creating the world and physics.

I think Ghost were closer at getting it right, but their games also seem a bit rushed. Heat was quite good, actually. Just give them one more year to develop a game and I think they could hit it out of the park.

[Blaze929]

"and with Criterion Games serving as the developers, the game has a good chance of pleasing fans."

The Criterion NFS games are literally some of the worst. Where is Ghost Games at? smh

[LucasRuinedChildhood]

Nah, Hot Pursuit is easily to best NFS game since the PS2 era. It's brilliant, and at least Most Wanted (2012) was fun to play. It just shouldn't have been called Most Wanted.

I'd rather play a game that's actually fun rather than praising bad games and giving them brownie points just because they're trying (and failing) to imitate NFS Underground.

Ghost Games delivered a decade of mostly poor racing games offering little enjoyment. Their games are some of the lowest rated games in the franchise, and that's well deserved. NFS 2015 (some of the worst rubber banding I've seen in a racing game) and Payback were disasters and Heat gets a lot of praise simply because it isn't as bad as those.

Given the lack of quality arcade racing games last gen, their handling of the franchise was really disheartening.

Criterion are a much more talented studio by a mile. NFS Unbound will probably be the first new NFS game I enjoy in a decade. Jesus

[LucasRuinedChildhood]

Also, the top comment on the NFS Unbound trailer is "Remember guys, we just want a fun game to play!"

lol. People don't normally say stuff like that for a franchise that's remained fun, and didn't go downhill in quality. It speaks to the audience's frustration with Ghost Games' output for the last decade.

[Profchaos]

For me 2012s NFS most wanted was a poor imitation of the 2005 game. They lost its soul on the way to making it a next gen remake which wasn't actually required as most wanted was actually a launch title for the 360.

Imo 2012 most wanted was so sterile and boring abandoned the adt style and lost the sense of speed.

The only positive from that remake was the fact I got to take it on the go with the vita for free with the PS3 version

[MrBaskerville]

They really needed a vision for Most Wanted. It' such a stylistic mess, like what is going on what the insanely out of place mission introductions? They were so weird and the style was all over the place.

[Ryzza5]

Please just let CG make more decent Burnout games instead of making awful NFS games.

[moriarty1889]

Agreed. Criterion are much better just sticking to Burnout. Their NFS games just don’t feel right imo.