Need for Speed Closed Beta

[DisturbedSwan]

I was lucky enough to get into the Need for Speed closed beta on Friday, and after downloading it for what seemed like eternity the entirety of Friday I finally managed to get on and give it a go yesterday, so here are some of my impressions.

Before I begun the beta I actually hadn't seen too much of the new NFS, I'd seen a gameplay walkthrough from E3 that looked a lot like Underground and Carbon, and personally didn't look that interesting, but some of the recent trailers stirred my interest and I was considering a purchase even before I begun the beta.

So I played roughly 3 hours of the Beta yesterday afternoon, the first thing you notice is the graphics, they are just truly astounding, the game looks exactly like the footage EA have put out pre-release and it runs at a buttery smooth 30fps, obviously 60 would be better, but it seemed like a smooth 30fps with no dips at all, pretty sure it was running in 1080 as well, on PS4 at least, no idea about the Xbone.

The visual style and pretty much everything about the game screams NFS:Underground, I know they didn't call it NFS: Underground 3 for whatever reason, but it might as well be, the neon lights, the drum-n-bass, dub-step, trance, hip-hop, rock, electro inspired soundtrack coupled with the glitzy neon streets, deep car customisation and the perpetual night all screams Underground to me and it is pretty much NFS:U3 whatever EA want you to believe, which is no bad thing, the visual style is amazing, it almost feels like you're in a Fast & Furious film at times, screaming around the LA streets at night in some Japanese drift-machine, Ghost games have done a very good job with the Frostbite engine in recreating the 'NFS:Underground' style and vibe in the game.

The car customisation is extremely deep and varied, it's pretty much Forza-level customisation, you can seemingly change every panel on your car for visual customisations from spoilers to body kits, side skirts, new rims, splitters, you name it you can tweak it pretty much, and this is coupled with the extensive performance customisations which means you can upgrade your cars performance in a ridiculous amount of ways from upgrading the ECU, Spark Plugs, Exhaust system, Nitrous, Fuel Injectors, Tyres, Suspension, pretty much anything you can think of, it's extremely extensive and it is very intuitive, I spent quite a while just messing around upgrading my car with new bits and pieces, putting on new decals and colouring my Rims differently, it is pretty addictive and I'm sure when this comes out a lot of gamers will spend a lot of time creating fantastic paint jobs akin to those found in the Forza series.

The game looks amazing, that's in no doubt, and it'll probably be even more polished than it already is when it's released later this month, but apart from that I didn't really have a wholly positive experience with the game, the live-action cutscenes can get in the way a lot of time, not sure if you could skip them or not, but they seemed to go on far longer than they should've and ruined the flow of the game somewhat for me at times, although the acting wasn't as bad as I expected, I mean it's bad, sure, but it's not quite Diana bad.

The other things that grated with me are how empty the city felt, 'Ventura Bay' just didn't really feel alive at all, there's no pedestrians knocking about, and there's just not that many AI and Human cars around either, not sure what the size server size is but it felt like you'd only be on the same map with 3/4 other Human drivers tops, not incredibly impressive really, although I did like the ability to press R1 and start a race with a random other human racer whenever you wanted to, although this is nothing new to be honest.

Mission variety also seems a bit of a failure really, admittedly I'm still very early in on what I'd imagine will be a 20-40 hour game, but all the missions so far have been: Sprint Races, Circuit Races, Drift Challenges, Drift Circuits and Drift Sprints, that is literally it, I have a feeling you'll be able to compete in Gymkhana events later on (as Ken Block's in the game) but at the moment the variety is pretty woeful and I was already getting a bit bored of the lack of variety in the missions.

The biggest issue though is the car handling, you can adjust the car handling between 'drift' and 'grip' in the car customisation options, the default setting was right in the middle of the two extremes, and until you get used to it, the car just jerks all over the place, you seem to slow down far too quickly, and you seem to be able to throw the car around quicker than you'd imagine, there just isn't much weight to the handling, it feels overly sensitive and jerky. I did get used to it towards the end of my 3 hours with the game, and was able to pull of some nice drifts and stuff but there is quite a learning curve it seems to me, maybe adjusting the grip would make things better, but I didn't try that so I'm not sure.

In conclusion, NFS has definitely got bags of potential, it feels like the most polished and accomplished NFS game I've played it a long time, and I hope it delivers on that potential. I just hope that the mission variety is there to keep people wanting to play and Ghost manage to tweak the handling a little, because, without it, I feel many will give up at around the 10 hour mark. Definitely one to look out for, but at the moment I'm still going to wait for reviews rather than pre-ordering.

[retroed]

I've played a bit of this but the NDA is rather strict so I'm not saying anything.

[DisturbedSwan]

I thought you just weren't allowed to post screenshots or capture video?

Loads of people are giving impressions over on the NFS reddit page so I thought all was a ok to be honest...

[retroed]

6. Any comments regarding the game based on your participation as a Beta participant.

7. Any details regarding the stability of the Game or the Game servers.

8. Any comments or discussions on new features or other new functionalities in the Game or other Beta Materials.

9. General comments about the Game’s overall development.

I'm sure nothing would come of it.

[AndyKurosaki]

Because they read this forum like a hawk ?

[Jimboxy]

Or they can google?

[Manicm]

Anyone pick up the full game? Any good?

[Sly Reflex]

I got someone asking me to watch them play this last night. I think that feature is dead fucking cheeky if I'm being honest, if I'm on the PS4 playing something why the hell would I down tools and watch someone play something that I'm not interested in? Sure if someone asks for you to stream something so they can watch then do that, but don't go inviting people into watching something because that's narcissistic as fuck. If I ever have that happen to me again those people are getting a warning first and then on a second charge I'm deleting them.

[Manicm]

I don't mind watching the othe half playing a game while im in the same room but wouldn't watch some else, i don't mind a selection of goals in fifa but to sit and watch someone else play a game no thanks!

Im guessing you didn't get it then sly.

[Sly Reflex]

It's a stupid feature. I honestly don't mind watching people play when I chose to do so. Inviting people to watch you whilst you're playing a game is a proper dick move though. Sure, advertise on forums, twitter and facebook that you're about to broadcast, but don't send it as a PS4 invite. It's intrusive and shows a real misunderstanding of online gaming etiquette.

Anyway, NFS. I don't have it. Any good? Someone should make a joke about streaming it so I can see if I'd like about it here. ↓↓↓

[DisturbedSwan]

My thoughts in the closed beta were that it was pretty mediocre, and it seems the reviews have backed my opinion up (currently sitting at a 70% average on Metacritic) so I'm not going to bother with it, shame, I thought it had a lot of promise when it got announced at E3, but Ghost have seemingly jizzed all that promise down the kitchen sink.

[Jimboxy]

Aw, that's like a blast from Need for Speed past. I'm pretty sure the very first one on 3DO/PSX had some live action stuff in it.

[regemond]

On 11/01/2016 at 16:27, Nag said:

For a start I wasn't sold at all, handling seemed off, the map was a mess of icons and progression was weird (passing events when I wasn't even winning them? Wtf)... After some time (especially the two or three hours on Sunday) the games developed into a fairly decent racer.

Mention most go to the live action segments, they are truly fucking awful... whoever thought it was a good idea to have these interspersed with the gameplay should be sacked, they are truly terrible.

 

I feel like this could be a perfect replication of my feelings towards this game. The only difference is I literally haven't watched a single one of the live-action sequences. They've played on the screen, but nobody has screen presence and all their body language seems awful so I just find myself tuning out. I had a good 10-15 minute rant at @Whiskey_chaser about it while we were playing EDF the other day.

 

Something just feels off about the handling though. After playing the Forza Horizon games as my only racer over the last few years, this feels equal parts too slippy and too heavy. It's super weird. There's something there keeping me playing though. I'm finding myself putting it on when I have a spare 10-15 minutes to knock a race or two out.