Need for Speed: Rivals

Let me begin by saying that I am a HUGE NFS fan. It is my all time favorite game franchise and I thought I knew what I could expect from Rivals. My favorite NFS game is Most Wanted(2005) and I thought Rivals would build on that type of open world free roam map. Unfortunately, Rivals is pretty much dedicated strictly to over the top races that incorporate features such as EMPs, spike strips and road blocks into pretty much every race. Now, this sounds fine if it's just the cops that can deploy those tactics, but it isn't. Any racer can, at any time, put out one of those features to ruin your racing. For me, Need for Speed was always about how well you can drive and race. Rivals takes ALL of that away and turns itself into an unrealistic Mario type game, albeit with amazing graphics.

From the opening cut-scene, to the menus and map layout, to the overused "help" cut-scenes, everything about the game says "You don't know what Need for Speed is all about". It took away almost everything I love about NFS games and replaced it with what seems like filler. All of those high tech features seem so out of place in a NFS game because they aren't necessary. Need for speed is a racing game, it always has been. Why Change that?

There are two things that appealed to me with Rivals, though. The graphics are AMAZING. Also, I think the map is the biggest yet, right above Most Wanted's huge open world map. Unfortunately, even these two pluses can't save the game from what it is: A major let down.

I have no idea why this game has a low rating other than some people say it doesn't start or lags. Well here's a message for those people, you clearly need to upgrade your console/computer I do NFS Rivals on the Xbox One S and even with almost maxed out storage capacity, it has never had any problems. Anyway back to my thoughts. This game is so fun and is by far my favorite. You can choose to be a racer or cop which is super unique and provides totally different gaming style! The game isn't overpacked with content, it doesn't have too little content either. I wish it was more than one player but other than that, this'll be the best $20 you've ever spent!

I love this game because it is so relaxing to play. It has almost all of my favorite cars in it. The graphics are still insane! The 30 fps lock can be easily unlocked with a command line. You can also make it look better by adding another command that can boost your render quality. The car sounds are very accurate and the special effects are gorgeous. Yeah the story is basically nothing but the ending was good for a game like this. I love that they added very rare and prototype cars in the DLC's and made the Koenigsegg one FREE!!! It has good soundtrack too. This game was before Driveclub which is unbeliveable. For the people that want to play that game just play this instead because it's waay too much fun!