A Need For Speed Patch Is Coming, But It Doesn't Address The Game's Biggest Problem

It was a long time coming, but an all-new Need For Speed is finally with us. Despite promising to be the ultimate virtual recreation of car culture, featuring an eclectic mix of cult cars and extensive modifications, it has received mixed reviews so far. It looks gorgeous, and features some cool cars, but not all of them have much in the way of visual mods. Furthermore, races are pointless and random as ‘rubber banding’ means AI cars’ speed is inconsistent and entirely dependent on how well you’re driving. But by far and away the biggest issue is the handling.

EA has promised regular, free updates to the game, and it appears to be keeping that promise thanks to a patch that’ll go live later this month. In a blog post, it revealed that the ‘AI Catchup’ is being tweaked, so hopefully races will feel a little less random. NFSers will also get an improved colour picker in the wrap editor, new cars in the form of Ken Block’s Hoonicorn and Morohoshi-San’s Lamborghini Diablo, and neons. There are some other gameplay updates including new trophy achievements, daily challenges, and minor bug improvements.

What you’ll notice is lacking there is any mention of tweaks to the truly atrocious handling. In my opinion the problem lies in the ‘Drift’ or ‘Grip’ slider, which is unnecessarily complicated. There’s an overview slider to make it easy to choose what your handling is like, but there are also a dozen or so further options to tweak and fine tune; noticing what difference individual changes make is tough when the handling model is so appalling.

If you go further towards ‘Drift’ mode, it becomes easier to initiate a slide, but the game counter steers for you - you have some control over the angle of the slide but it’s clear that the front wheels do not match what you’re doing with the stick. Go for more ‘Grip’ handling, and the cars become numb, heavy, undeersteering oafs.

The Forza Horizon series has nailed the arcade-but-still-realistic handling model, so it definitely can be done. Unfortunately for Ghost Games, its pride and joy ‘Grip or Drift’ handling model is a gimmick that doesn’t really gloss over the fact that no matter how much you tweak it, the cars feel heavy and unpredictable.

Need For Speed is a decent game, but it’s far from perfect. The other minor niggles might be forgivable, but when the basis of your game is driving, you need to make the handling fun. Hopefully future tweaks will address this, otherwise no matter how many free updates EA provides, NFS just won’t capture racing gamers’ attention for the long run.