Finally actually digging into NFS Unbound. The game is set up that each race “day” has rising tension, your wanted level slowly rises as you do more races, and you have to cautiously avoid police to make it back to the safehouse, lest you lose all your session’s earnings. This is a fun risk vs reward mechanic in theory, but at the very start of the game when your car is very slow it’s very possible to be stuck in a death spiral of getting caught by cops, not being able to outrun them, and then your wanted level rising to the point where the cops chasing you will always catch you. I had one of these happen and quit the game once the in-game cops started chasing me in corvettes which are impossible to outrun as a starter car.
I’m enjoying it not as much as I expected to partially because I had to play for like 7 hours after multiple restarts to get to the actual meat of the game. Picking a RWD car seemed to be the right call, as after several in-game days I have enough money to get into the big racing event at the end of the in-game week.
You don’t get first place in a lot of races, and that seems to be by design. You earn money usually unless you get in last or second to last place. You get enough cash from winning 2nd or 4th place to buy upgrades and things. The game doesn’t require you to get first in really anything, just earn cash to enter races. There is also usually a race that requires no money to enter (except in the game’s tutorial, which you can softlock your way out of).
Driving wise the game feels very good most of the time, there’s simcade elements, and I keep expecting it to handle like a burnout game where you just power-drift around corners. Not really the case here at all. It’s still very arcady but it’s possible to gain positions by taking corners with max grip. Boosts and NOS are two separate things. You earn boosts by drifting and driving good, and you get a 3 bar boost gauge, and you either use it or lose it. NOS you seem to just accumulate through a race. Neither seem to do much in terms of speed, but the camera movement makes it feel that way. I have never been able to actually catch up or pass people using a boost.
During races other racers will trash talk you and this is very annoying, this has been a mainstay in Need For Speed games and I don’t know why. I wish to tell the developers that absolutley nobody on earth like this. This makes more sense when it’s cop chatter and you’re trying to make tactical decisions, but when you’re in a race and you hit a wall and hear some garbage bullshit from another racer I’m like “who keeps thinking this is a good idea”.
Other racers actually are characters in game, who you will sometimes ferry from one location to a safehouse, and during that drive you and the character talk and get to know each other. This is pretty good despite the fact that most characters are paper thin, including the protagonist. I hate the other racers less knowing their backgrounds and stories and wish I could just do more of these instead of them being scripted events that happen once in a while.
The story of the game thus far is some bonkers…uh…stuff. You and your mechanic friend work for a garage, you were both orphans and working there gave you a sense of security and purpose. Your mechanic friend is really good but aspires to something more, and is tired of pulling all nighters for your boss to repair customer cars and getting talked down to. You (the protagonist) carry water for your boss and try to reason with your friend. There’s one plot point where your boss wants to do a barbecue to celebrate your mechanic fixing a bunch of cars, very much a “great work team here’s a pizza party”. Eventually, the mechanic steals a bunch of customer cars and disappears for two years, only to emerge with the car that you both rebuilt in the game’s prologue. This game has some funny ideas about labor.
Really wishing someone on the NFS team would read freakin Wangan Midnight or watch an LP of the first parts of Racing Lagoon.