Need for Speed Unbound Review

Need for Speed Unbound is set in Lakeshore City, a fictional take on Chicago, Illinois, where players as a nameless protagonist along with their friend and partner Jasmine, a.k.a. Yaz, refurbish an old junker car and attempt to do a delivery that goes awry. There’s no one at the drop-off point and Yaz doesn’t answer. Two years later, amidst being a simple driver, the protagonist shows up at a car meet-up and dives up into the racing world to figure out if our friend betrayed us.

Need for Speed Unbound is an open world racing game where players can ride around freely the city, drive to the garage or join meet ups for events. The game also operates on a day night cycle. Every time you go back to the garage, the cycle will change and you will be rewarded with your winning during that period. Aside from events found through meet-ups, you can also find and accept challenges peppered through the city. And as you’d expect, the city is filled with NPCs and other drivers that will make your life a living hell by getting in your way during events.

Thankfully, the story is designed in such a way that you won’t waste too much of your time given that it develops through phone calls. Need for Speed Unbound also allows players to progress slowly in the sense if you struggle through certain races, even if you don’t win first place, you are still rewarded with a set amount of in-game in order to give players a chance to progress.

Ans yes, racing will sometimes cause the cops to find you and other other racers in order to make your event a living hell; although depending on the level of your Heat meter, they aren’t much of a bother to be honest. And raming a cop car following a quick nitro boost will get rid of the cop car quite easily. Once you reach the garage to cash out your earnings, the Heat meter is reset.

When it comes down to racing, it’s a bit or miss. While races are pretty fun and nerve racking, the A.I. can be overly brutal and incredibly aggressive where if you don’t race perfectly, you’ll quickly drop down the pack pretty quick and barely struggle going back to the top three. Even with car upgrades, it can take a few hours to feel that your car offers more bang for your buck.

The game looks great; it features a bit of realism and cel-shading. The cars, environments, cities; basically the playground you race around looks drop dead gorgeous; NPCs, while incredibly secondary, look a bit generic, which weird movement as you zoom near by. The car models looks great, detailed and quite shiny. But the story characters, such as the protagonist and his pals, do have a light cel-shaded look; imagine if Jet Set Radio characters were more human-like. Need for Speed Unbound as a whole is stylish with some colorful design popping up when getting air or when doing burnouts for example; feels a bit SSX-ish. The soundtrack is as eclectic as you’d expect with some pop, rock and rap/hip-hop from various artists across the globe; if you’re not a fan of those genre, you might need to put your tv on mute. The voiceovers are well done as a whole; don’t expect Oscar-like performances, but the voice actors do a decent job at bringing the characters to life.

The game does have a few setbacks unfortunately. The first one being the controls. It’s a bit tricky to explain, but it feels like a failed mix of arcade and simulation. It also feels incredibly wobbly/slippery; no matter the conditions of the road. And your car will plow through everything (except buildings obviously) as if it was a tank. And this is incredibly annoying because if you’re racing near a ravine and lose control, you’ll drive *through* the guardrail and fall down, losing precious racing time. The mini-map is a mess; if you have eyesight issues, it’s incredibly difficult to follow the path because there’s so many roads superposed on top of one another and everything is the same shade of colors, it’s a pain finding your way. The buy-in mechanic, where you have to surrender money to participate in certain events, makes amassing money longer than it should.

Need for Speed Unbound is an enjoyable, albeit slightly frustrating racer that feels like a step back from the excellent Need for Speed Heat. The presentation and visuals will definitely win players over, the slippery controls will require a bit of dedication from players because it takes a while to acclimate yourself to the sub-par driving. Long time Need For Speed fans will rejoice with another entry in the long-running franchise, but newcomers might want to try a previous installment such as Heat, or even Payback, instead. All sizzle, no steak.