Recent reviews by Ciubowski

"Just one more run" is written all across this game.
Once you get past the strict tutorial where they cram everything possible in a few scripted zones, the game itself has A LOT of potential.
All sorts of combos and synergies in a single demo, I can't wait to play the full game.

There are some things I would like to see improved:
- there are some essences that have extra specific elemental damage but they're similar in their applicability. It would have been "better" imo to just have one essence with adapted elemental damage. It just bloats the number of essences for no reason.
- no vendor buy-back. a friend sold an essence by mistake and wasn't able to get it back
- no "tier" upgrade mechanic other than to find that memory with a higher tier
- no clear comparison of items or better visualisation for differences. A lot of wasted time in comparing two essences or memories just to spot a single difference
- no "second chance" for bosses that have strong abilities. There is this specific boss that kills you if you don't anticipate their mechanic, but there isn't a "second chance" or warning to let the players know what to do. This can stop your run without a chance to learn what to do.
- no revive during bosses or anything. If your friend dies in a boss run, there's no mechanic or some mini-game to revive them. At least at the cost of a % of your life. nothing. you die, your friend is on his own.

DO NOT BUY!

I updated this Review twice. The total amount of hours played means what it took me, personally to finish the Story. I did not play the Multiplayer. I have 0 hours in Online.

A long list of issues with this game, mainly quality of life and some bugs:

• There's no catch up system if the game thinks your placement (prediction) is even 1st place. So even if you drive your damnest, there is no guarantee that you'll end up first and win the bets.
  
  
• It's easier to get away from 5 cops + 2 helis than it is to get away from one cop car.
  
  
• The Reinforcement timer does not reset if you lose the cops for a few seconds (I remember this being a feature in other NFS titles in the past. Now it just resumes back from where it was.
  
  
• The Nitro seems useless. In the past when you used the NOS you felt it as you darted past everyone else or at least close a huge gap. Not here, nuh-uh... The rival cars can just.... accelerate faster without any NOS so you're just wasting your laughing gas... I guess they're laughing, not you.
  
  
• The cop cars hitting you then announcing in the radio "THE RACER JUST HIT US". Mkay....
  
  
• The cop cars seem to have a liking to you, more than the other racers. If it happens to chase you during a race, you're now fighting 7 + N cop cars.
  
  
• If the cop cars are chasing you during a race and they slam into you (Heavy 5* cars usually do), you'll miss a checkpoint and eventually it will be harder (if not impossible due to the #1 item on this list) to catch up and finish the race.
  
  
• Restart count. WHY? When you put all these things together, it's super obvious what they were trying to do. Make the game difficult by having broken little systems here and there, and then bashing you with a RESTART COUNT so you can play longer because you can lose money during the campaign. You can't restart activities more than 4-5 times (an in-game day/night cycle). This is just... a punishment system. If you end up in 2nd place during a race where you have a huge buy-in in order to win a car and the cops bash you into oblivion, you lost the car/money and you can't restart.
  
  
• You can't push other racers away from the checkpoint. Or rather... YOU CAN, but it will not matter to them as they will not re-spawn to capture the checkpoint again. That punishment is only for you.
  
  
• THE MAP is horrible. Lots of little bumps and hops / ramps (I'm not referring to the ACTUAL ramps, I'm talking about the boardwalks around the city and the level design itself) that will propel you into oblivion (not The Elder Scrolls one) for not knowing every inch of the road as to slow down effectively. You have to learn the map, literally! Becase some poles and trees are destructible and some are not. TREES! SOME are destructible, but some are not! And you can't tell by their thickness because even large trees disintegrate upon touch, and some skinny ones are indestructible.
  
  
• Even if your theoretical car speed is 356km/h (BMW M3 EA Pass ) you're still not guaranteed to get that speed. I barely hit 300km/h on the highway.
  
  
• The crash cam is like a snowflake sensor. It just triggers for anything above 30km/h if you hit the wrong wall or pole. If you end up with your car on the wrong surface, it will trigger. And the "respawn" is just as bad. You can end up facing the wrong direction while all the other racers are gunning past you (also, see #1 in the list: once they do, it's difficult to catch up to them).
  
  
• Random police cars appearing out of nowhere just so you can not escape them. Oh, it's undercover cop cars so that makes for a good gameplay, no?
  
  
• A$AP Rocky sounds freaking high in the game. IS HE? Why is he there again? He is just a bystander, almost irelevant to the plot (so far for me) and he's not even that interesting when he's present. He has the charisma of a plank. Delivering his lines with so much enthusiasm that is making Marvin The Paranoid Android sound like a fun hoot.

• There are small, random performance issues (not quite FPS drops, maybe longer frame times). It's annoying as you can imagine and THEY WILL ruin your experience driving at Mach 1.
  
  
• The sorting of cars.... inexistent. You don't have your garage sorted by some kind of logic (From B/A/A+/S/S+) No siree, they're just thrown there for you to look through a huge collection of cars. And BTW, why aren't the car's "profile pic" updated? Those are stock, so if you spend your time looking at a green car that you customised yourself, don't be looking for a green profile picture of your car inside the garage list, because it will ALWAYS BE STOCK IMAGE. That is annoying and misleading af.
  
  It's not just BAD.. It's BAD BAD.
  Literally ANY other NFS game would be a better experience than this. Go play Heat or Payback. Or even Forza Horizon 5. Gonna install that now and play a really fun game. That's all. Go! shoo..

Provides more content and dopamine rushes than most triple A games. A mix between Hades and Binding of Isaac.

The game loads me really late into the battle. I often find myself in the parachute with the rest of the AFK players.

I can't play. I'm stuck at the "watch the video". I don't want to watch a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ video before playing.

Sure, get great combo, good management, new topic bonuses and still your game sucks ass....

I Wish I could drive up sales of my own console after releasing an exclusive.
I Wish I could price up the subscription of my 100mil players MMO i just created. Imagine if I increased the monthly sub by 100% because i want so, yeah i could lose fans, but 100 mil players paying me 100$ every month... worth it. Yet, I CAN'T!

um... we want more levels. and online support because i personally don't like the remote play together.

open world, no bs, fast cars, jumps and cool crashes

More or less the same like the other, pretty funny at times