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Expansion Pass 2 Game #9/Blog a Day #19

Hello everyone, how are you?

I've mentioned this before but I love cars and in turn I love racing games. There's nothing quite like the thrill of drving a car that you like and just driving it as fast as you can. Xbox has been on a roll with racing games when it comes to their Forza Horizon games. One day I'll play all the Horizon games that came after the first game. On PS4 there's pretty much nothing that is like Forza Horizon. However EA of all companies actually released a game that comes close. Today we are going to Miami to satisfy our need for speed with Need for Speed Heat..

 

                                                      I got the Need for Speed... 

I had a PS4 and I had tried every Need for Speed game that released on the PS4 at that point and to put it frankly, they all sucked. I tried NFS Rivals on PS3 so there was no reason for me to double dip on the PS4 version. Need for Speed (2015) while fun, had commited a sin as always having to be connected online in order to play the game. And NFS Payback had EA's greed in its formula by adding a lootbox system tied to buying parts for your car. All seemed lost till they showed NFS Heat in 2019 and they promised that you wuldn;tneed to be connected online to play and no lootboxes or microtransactions. I got the game in 2021 and here are my thoughts on the most recent and possibly last game in the series...

In this game you can play as a male or female character, which is a first for the series (I think) and they will be pretty much your player avatar/created character for for the whole game. Yes your custom character does appear in the story cutscenes and yes, fully voiced as well, and no it really doesn't matter what gender you choose to play as since the cutscenes are the same regardless of gender. 

The game begins with you (or custom character) arriving in Palm City which is a fictionalised version of Miami and you are here to compete in the SpeedHunters Showdown. Think of it like the Horizon Tournament in the Forza Horizon games, but for Need for Speed. In the SpeedHunters Showdown you complete in completely street legal races around the city during the day. But at night is where the real fun begins and you get to compete in illegal underground racing with increased odds of the police showing up and chasing you down during and after a race.

 

           The police can't catch me when I have the power of God and anime on my side

The gameplay goes like this: you can drive around the open world Palm City map and you can do anything you want. During the day you compete in legal races around Palm City courtesy of the SpeedHunters Showdown. By competing in these races you earn money to buy stuff like new clothes for your avatar, parts for any of your cars, or even new cars as well. You can compete in the same race again even if you've finished it. However the cars scale to whatever you are using, so be careful.

At night you compete in illegal street racing and in these races you earn Reputation or REP, instead of money. Why you may ask? REP is used to unlock more things in the game such as more car parts and cars as well as advancing through certain parts of the story. You just have to be careful because you have a Heat meter, the higher it is means that it is more lileky that you'll get chased by the police during or after a race. But the police also gets more aggressive depending how high your Heat is. If you get arrested you'll lose all the REP you've earned so be careful.

The music is actually pretty cool but it will definitely may not be everyone's cup of tea since the music is mostly in Spanish. I mean it makes sense onsidering that Palm City is pretty much a fictional Miami. I will say that there should have been some variety in the music though.

But Captain N, where can I play this game? You can play it on Xbox One, PS4, and on Steam. It goes on sale often so if you are interested in the game, I really suggest picking it up if you see it during a sale.

 

                           I suppose she doesn't expect that I could win with this car

Final Thoughts: I've played a lot of Need for Speed games thorought the years and yes, the older PS2 era Need for Speed games are still among the best games in the franchise. PS3 era ones are mixed I suppose and it looks like the last gen NFS games were worse than what came before. NFS Heat is the best NFS game in years hands down.

In order to progress through the game you need to participate in both day and night races. Day races to earn money, and night races to earn REP to unlock more stuff and advance the story. But the gameplay is among the best in recent years. Adding a  custom character character was great and I was surprised at the amount of customization that you could do to your in-game character. It's a great addition even though it really adds nothing to the core gameplay or story itself.

The music... might not be to everyones taste unless you understand Spanish. But it makes sense given where this place takes place at. But I think the best part about this game is that none of EA's greed is anywhere in this game. No always online, lootboxes, no microtransactions. Just like all games should be. But it's also thanks to that that EA released this game without promoting it or caring about it that they left it to die. It sucks because it's a really great game I can say that dlc would of done it wonders. But at least this game has cross-platform play which is a first in the series and making it the first EA game to do so. You'd think EA would promote that.

At the moment this could in fact be the last game in the series since EA had all their teams work on therecent Battlefield game and look how that turned out... But I suppose I should be happy that this game even exists at all.

 

                                        You just love teasing me with this car, huh?

Life isn't a race, just enjoy the ride while it lasts because you never know when you'll need to make an exit.

And that is it for game #9. Game #8 will be coming up soon. Thanks for reading and...

 

 

*All images were taken by my PS4 and copy of the game*