Need for Speed: Rivals

Need for Speed: Rivals... The first game from Ghost Games, published by EA. It was released in November 2013 and received fairly high ratings, but is it all that good?

Plot?

The game was released as a spiritual successor to NFS Hot Pursuit (and rightly so! Criterion Games, the studio that revived Hot Pursuit in 2010, helped develop Rivals) and is in many ways similar to Hot Pursuit. And since there was no plot in Hot Pursuit, the emphasis was not on it at all.

In short, the eternal confrontation between racers and police is increasingly gaining momentum. Both sides are furiously trying to wear each other down and knock each other out of the game using brute force.

As the game progresses, you complete tasks from the Speedlist and, as if moving through the plot, watch cutscenes. By the way, the screensavers are very effective with pathetic text and brutal voice.

Naturally, the campaign is available for both factions, with a unique fleet of vehicles for each, and who to choose is up to you.

Now let's drive!

As already mentioned, there are 2 factions - racers and cops, and the gameplay for each of them is different. This is due to the fact that they have completely different roles in the race. The cops are more like a wolf - a dangerous beast, whose paws will kill you, and the racers are more like a hare - fast and agile, which is not so easy to catch.

There are not many racing modes: a regular race (the cops have no analogue), a chase (depending on the faction), a time trial (the cops have a “reaction”) and interception (depending on the faction). No explanation required.

And perhaps the most interesting thing is chase technology. Some kind of technical gadgets, like in the same Hot Pursuit, but there are more of them. Both factions have both common and special ones - inherent only to a particular faction. For example, only racers have a turbo, but they do not have a strip with spikes, etc. They can also be upgraded using the in-game currency Speedpoints, increasing damage, ammo, and reducing reload time.

What is something that no NFS can do without? That's right - without a cool fleet of vehicles! Which... Quite modest. There are 22 cars available for racers, 33 for cops, but there are also some peculiarities here. I have already said that the car of each faction is unique. The cops won't find a McLaren P1, and the racers won't have a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, although there is an exception - all the cars are from the DLC, but I don't take them into account at all in the review. Also, the difference is that racers need to buy cars, while cops unlock them by completing the Speedlist, but cops can’t upgrade cars, but racers can. But there is also a caveat here - the cops have 3 variations of one car and each of them has individual characteristics.

Well, I’ll say something about bots. The bots are dumb, rarely use technology, and the cops are seriously annoying! That is, you will never drive around the world without meeting a cop who won't chase you. This is terribly annoying.

Physics

This is an arcade race, so you shouldn't wait beyond the simulation. For an arcade, the physics are quite tolerable and playing is easy and enjoyable. In short, you can enter any turn without much difficulty, although this also requires skill.

Where is the customization?!

But she’s not there! More precisely, there is, but it is a pitiful semblance of it. Change the license plate, body color, wheels, a couple of stickers on the car and that’s it! The cops, of course, shouldn't have it.

Graphonia was brought

The graphics are very nice. Natural color palette, high-quality textures, high-quality car models and much more. Overall the game looks amazing, considering that the game was released on paste-gen. Frostbite 3 is still a cool engine.

Technical side

Reviewing the PC version. And I’ll say right away - the game is locked at 30 FPS. Well, where is this done? Horror! Long loading times make you sleepy, and periodic bugs, such as the world not loading and the game freezing, prevent you from enjoying the game properly. What can I say, a typical port from consoles.

Sound and music

Well, everything is in order. The cars roar, the tires squeal - everything is as it should be. However, NFS never had any problems with this, but with the soundtrack... Not impressive, unlike the previous parts. The only decent song RDGLDGRN is Lootin In London.

All Drive

And here’s something new. Now there is no division between the single player campaign and multiplayer and this is... Terrible. You can't just race with players. Either catch up with other players across the entire map, or play with friends beforehand. After all, “you can’t just go and invite all the players on the map to an already existing race,” as is the case in NFS 2015.

Result

The game turned out to be good, true, but be in If it had a well-thought-out All Drive, an interesting AI and at least some kind of motivating plot, then the game would have lived for a long time, otherwise... Technical flaws also added fuel to the fire.

Well, as always, I’m in my repertoire - I rolled out a review of 3882 characters, although I thought that there was nothing special to say about the game...