When fleeing from a pack of cops at 150mph through a forest after midnight, I found it difficult not to be excited by Need for Speed: Rivals – and then a helicopter’s searchlight pours in through the trees for an additional adrenaline kick. Those initial potent highs aren’t sustainable, though, and after a while I was left wishing for just a bit more variety and depth to keep the thrills coming beyond simply doing the same thing online. That said, I still found it an exciting, highly polished experience, which appealed to both to the racer and more casual thrill-seeker in me.
Patrolling the Streets
Developed by Ghost Games, Rivals feels like the natural successor to the work of previous NFS developer Criterion. (Unsurprising really consider the majority of the staff went over to the new studio.) It combines Hot Pursuit’s cops-versus-racer dynamic with the freeform gameplay of Most Wanted’s open world. In many ways it’s the best of both, although if you’ve played either of those a great deal, as I have, you may get a feeling of déja vu from Rivals.
Rivals takes place in the fictional Redview County, which has probably the most diverse geography imaginable. Within the confines of its map you can take in parched deserts and lush vineyards, upmarket seaside promenades and snowy mountain passes. It provides a welcome change of pace after the urban sprawl of Most Wanted, though I came to really miss those concrete labyrinths when I was outrunning the cops.
But it’s ultimately a tradeoff, with Redview’s long, winding roads setting the stage for some truly operatic chases that go on for miles. They’re better suited for drifting and pushing fast cars to their limits, like Hot Pursuit, instead of outfoxing the cops and hiding like in Most Wanted. It’s all about the ballet of the chase. It’s a shame there wasn’t room in this world for both play styles, as it would’ve given us more variety to play with. And very occasionally, I did find myself being spotted by the cops even though I’d seemingly given them the slip, which was slightly frustrating.
Each stretch of road is crammed with various challenges, including standard races and time trials, new cars to shut down, and records to smash. But for all of its gorgeous scenery, I found Redview a slightly less fun and secret-filled place to explore. There are no billboards bearing your friends’ faces to crash through, no super cars squirrelled away, and fewer jumps than previous games. And while there are a few hidden pathways to be found and the possibility of going off-road occasionally, I also found myself more frequently attempting to head off the beaten path only to be put back into place by an officious barrier. Most Wanted encouraged you to explore its train tunnels and jump off rooftops, but Rivals keeps you firmly on track.
Rivals is fantastically pretty, making great use of your next-gen console or PC. Cars look brilliant, near photorealistic. But Need for Speed has always had a slightly heightened approach to its presentation, and that’s still the case. Its cars are noisy creatures, always ready to race – look closely and you’ll see beads of moisture dripping down the bodywork, as if the car’s physically exerted itself. Weather effects are equally impressive. Rain, sun, and snow – as well as the time of day – have a big impact on the look of the game. Torrential downpours clog up the screen, while sometimes at night you’ll flashes of lightning illuminated the highly-textured road surface. And while it may not be the most densely populated of landscapes, there’s always something to catch the eye.
The Fast Blue Line
The story is intentionally incidental. (We’re a long way from the narrative pretensions of the woeful NFS: The Run.) Whether cop or racer, each chapter is structured around a speed list, which is little more than a series of objects. Rivals is eager to get you behind the wheel and onto the tarmac, giving a welcomed sense of urgency, and one of the best things about it is the ease with which you can switch between playing as a cop or a racer.
Hot Pursuits – high-speed races with the cops already on your tail – are definitely the pick of the available events. Time trials and races lose their appeal much quicker, especially after you’ve already driven down the same stretch of road countless times.
Rivals is tremendous fun, for a while, but once I got to grips with its weapons, unlocked more of its ridiculous cars, and became intimately acquainted with the map, it didn’t have a lot more to really show me. The map is fairly big but when you’re driving at such high speeds, it’s easy to see a big chunk of it in a single pursuit. It definitely continued to excite me, but stopped surprising me quite early on.
No matter which side of the law you choose, there’s a garage full of high-powered super cars ranging from Aston Martins to Ferraris waiting for you. Handling is fun, responsive, and accessible – even newcomers will soon be able to slide around tight corners with a little practice. There’s also the option to soup them up, with high-tech gadgetry including spike strips and mines, shockwave blasts, and knuckle-whitening turbo boosts. None of the weapons are particularly memorable or iconic, and while they’re useful, you can’t really beat old-fashioned ramming.
It’s all in the pursuit of unlocking upgrades, and it’s definitely more fun when playing as a racer. There’s more customisation and better toys, such as the preposterous turbo boost, and the way in which you accumulate points is much more engrossing. There’s a simple but effective risk-reward dilemma at play, baiting you to keep racing to build your score multiplier – but if you’re busted, you lose everything. The feeling of being pursued by a six police Ferraris when you’ve got in excess of 100,000 points at risk is when Rivals is at its very best. By comparison, playing as a cop just feels a little staid.
If nothing else, being a cop becomes a more attractive proposition when it’s your friends that need busting. Structurally, Rivals’ multiplayer becomes a seamless part of its single-player experience, allowing up to six players to race with or against each other in the same world. You can all be cops, hunting down AI racers, or run from the fuzz together, or even a mixture of the two. You can go head-to-head or do your own thing, until the map brings you together. There are no rules, and it’s enjoyably freeform, though perhaps the size of the map and relatively small number of players allowed is slightly at odds (but somewhat fixed by using fast travel to meet up). Also, for the sake of balance and fairness, it takes much longer to wreck an opponent's car. I also missed some of Most Wanted’s more imaginative multiplayer objectives, like who can pull the longest donut.
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