Here we go. Another NFS has come out and now it's the trivial matter of whether or not the game is decent or another year waiting for a potential dumpster fire. I think it's decent, if anything, improves a bit from Heat.

Need for Speed™ Unbound improves quite a bit from Heat, however, some things aren't very great with this game. This review is going to be based on my own experience and what i think is good and bad. I will say this NFS is, decent, if not one of the better racing titles out there in the arcade genre.

TL;DR: Good Graphics, Actual Progression, Ear Numbing Soundtrack, Cringe dialogue, Cringe Zoomie Humor, Improved gameplay but still needs improvement. Good on sale, Questionable at full price.

Let's start with the good things:

- Progression. THANK GOD for actual progression. Something that has been severely lacking for racing titles, you have to 'grind' to get what you want. It's a nice balance of having to start with a slow beater and having to race day after day to build up your cash. There is a risk to this too.

- Playing on the hardest difficulty, I can say it's been an actual challenge to win races. The beginning stages have a learning curve to them. It isn't something you're expected to win every race. So if you have this mindset, sorry to disappoint, you are going to come in second or third even based on your skill. I'm very experienced with racing titles and adapt to them. Unbound gives you a bit of a rough time at the start. But trust me, everything gets better.

- Car selection. Good. Very good. It's a big improvement from Heat. I will say it's one of my favorites for a modern NFS title. Sorry, no Toyota. There are 143 cars to pick from and good customization.

- Cops, I can say I enjoy but also dislike. This is a neutral stance I have with it, I'll come back to this in the bad section. They keep up, which I enjoy. However, they do swarm the streets a bit too much. If it were in the city, understandable. However, driving more in the rural areas, they're swarming everywhere.

- Handing, okay, controversial. At first, it was a learning curve. But after you fall in love with your build and adapt to your car, it's not all as bad as people say. "Oh, but the steering is unrealistic!" Yeah? Did you know Need for Speed is also an Arcade racer? Excluding the Shift series, this is an irrelevant take. I can say at most drifting does need a bit of tweaking.

- Art style is another controversial take. I like it, but I also don't like it. I appreciate this game for its art direction. It's cool, colorful, and unique in an art style approach, especially in the racing genre. But some parts the art style doesn't fit either.

- Gameplay, the thing I value about all this has indeed excelled higher than Heat in my opinion. Cops have been indeed a challenge, maybe a bit too much at times.

The Bad:

- The Soundtrack. Oh my god Need for Speed, you're becoming out of touch with your Soundtrack selections. Heat may have been bad, but it's a lot more tolerable compared to Unbound personally. Stop selecting music from SoundCloud mumble jumbo rappers that record in their bathrooms. Fortunately, Spotify does fix this, but I feel like it shouldn't be needed in the first place.

- Back to the art style, although I do like the attempt at something new from the NFS team, I can say that there are problems when it comes to it. The shading of your characters does seem out of place, especially with the lighting during the night. Your character might have some odd glowing effect at times. This can lead to weird animations as well. I can respect the attempt however it needs more polishing. Effects are pretty cool to me, however, there should be an option to disable them entirely.

- The direction of dialogue and zoomer lingo. Okay, as a late 'Zoomer' myself growing up with the original Most Wanted and before...I can say that this game indeed tries to fit in with Zoomies which I do not certainly associate myself with. The dialogue is cringe at times, terrible even. I can agree with those who argue about this topic.

- The Cops. I don't get it, NFS is a wildcard when it comes to the police. In one game they'll do a bad job, then do a good job, a better job even, but take steps back to ruin the experience. However, I will say Unbound has a good mixture of good and bad. It's an improvement, but there are steps back that could make it better. So for starters. WHY do the cops not chase you when you know they should? Especially when a dialogue shows "Suspect Found" at heat Level 1 and they don't chase you? I don't understand. Especially with the original Most Wanted/or Carbon had this nailed perfectly. I am a bit disappointed by the radio chatter as well, however, I don't think it's entirely bad. The cop chases though, god it's intense on the highest difficulty. I will say these cops do not mess around at the highest level. My final complaint about the police is the fact that they're swarming everywhere. It's essentially a consistent stealth mission and there's a cop in every corner. The density is too much. Back to a positive note, I do dig the chase music to be honest.

- Multiplayer is bare bones. Only 16 people and half the lobbies don't even race, resulting you to have empty lobbies. It's a shame, there needs to be a lobby system for people who just want to race with a full lobby and specific classes. All you get are spamming of pop-ups of races you can't either participate or not a class you don't want. Terrible system. Disappointed in Criterion when Hot Pursuit has a good example for matchmaking. Hell, you could even do a 'High Stakes' mode with this whenever police AI DO get added. Wishful thinking I know. But Multiplayer needs a lot of work. More people in races benefit for less of a grind, there's a whole grind, it's actually a bit dreadful and I thought. I usually stick to single player, but when I want to play Multiplayer it's a bit of a chore to have a casual experience.

Edit: Multiplayer has improved with more PVP focused events than just relying on the old free-roam. It's progress and is definitely better than launch.

Final Verdict:

I'm enjoying the game. Despite the problems, the core aspect of the game nails the true Need for Speed experience and has been better than other modern NFS titles. This feels like an actual smooth arcade racer. Controversial as this might be, especially how divided people are with this game because of "muh realism". Sorry but Need for Speed was always (except for the Shift series.) an Arcade racer with unrealistic approaches and physics. Complaining about this game because it's not 'realistic' is irrelevant. About the anime stuff too, I can appreciate it's something different, people seem to hate new things. NFS is full of remaster-wishing doomers though, it is what it is.

The hard attempt with the Zoomer lingo is definite pressed too hard here. I barely touch single player and focus on the multiplayer aspect. Racing game stories are mid anyways and always have been for most titles.

Can say a good 7/10 or a hard 8 at most if generous. It's decent, and has problems, but not the worst thing EA released. The support of this game has came some ways and quite fortunate about it.