Since this is an open world, getting to desired destinations can be a time-consuming pain, but garages and command posts allow for fast travel to any event, and AI-controlled opponents are always around for impromptu races should you not want to take any uneventful drives. I also like how Ghost handles its track indicators, only displaying light (almost translucent) arrows on the road for hard turns. Fog rolls down mountains, light dances through rustling trees, and you see beads of water rolling down your windshield. The stunning surroundings are unfairly distracting in a game where disaster can strike at any given second. The sense of speed achieved at any given moment is intoxicating and somewhat terrifying. A Pursuit challenge that starts on a wide-open highway could conclude in a dense redwood forest packed with tight turns and difficult visual conditions. Many of the longer events evolve as they unfold. Whether I was minding my own business, gunning for other players, competing against them, or helping get police off of their tails, being able to switch gears so quickly is an amazing thing.ĭeveloper Ghost Games has forged a sprawling open world that impresses with its harrowing track designs.
NEED FOR SPEED OR NEED FOR SPEED RIVALS DRIVERS
In these moments, with six rambunctious drivers smashing into each other and turning Redview City’s streets into junkyards, the scale of Rivals’ open-world chaos is put on display, and it’s glorious. In a couple of sessions, my friends and I drove around in a pack to tackle challenges cooperatively. It’s like six parallel worlds overlapping. Through a feature called “AllDrive,” up to six-players can race in the same world, and all of their activity is applied to their individual campaigns’ progress.
NEED FOR SPEED OR NEED FOR SPEED RIVALS SERIES
This dynamic series of events is a common occurrence in Need for Speed: Rivals, a racer that brilliantly blurs the lines between single- and multiplayer experiences. With one click of the button, I switch to my police campaign and begin my pursuit to interfere with his next race.
The player I avoided laughs into the headset, thanking me for helping him in his race. I didn’t just miss the gold – I lost all of the Speed Points I was banking. My car is mangled beyond belief, and I wreck out of the race. We narrowly avoid exchanging paint, but my quick juke to the left sends me sailing headfirst into one of the other player’s opponents. We’re both towing rival racers and police platoons towards one another. This evasive maneuver couldn’t have come at a worse time another player-controlled car roars off of a side street and is heading straight towards me. A spike strip forces me back into the right lane. The police aren’t going to make this easy. If I can hold onto this lead, I’ll grasp gold in under a mile. A slow-moving pedestrian vehicle forces me into oncoming traffic. At 150 mph, my eyes are fixated on the straightaway ahead. A burst of turbo ignites a blue flame from my Dodge Challenger’s exhaust.