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Need For Speed Heat’s final update brings crossplay tomorrow
Criterion Games have announced they'll be taking the wheel for the next Need For Speed game, shifting Need For Speed Heat into low gear. Even as the current racing game takes the next exit, the final update is one worth mentioning. As of Tuesday, June 9th, Need For Speed Heat will allow cross-platform multiplayer between all PC and console players.
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I've played the first bundle of hours of the latest release from the Need For Speed sausage factory, Need For Speed: Heat. Enough to tell you what's new. The answer is: oh dear. Here are my thoughts.
Feature: Pumped full of Nitro
Gamescom saw the release of the Need For Speed Heat gameplay trailer. It had everything you would expect to see from a Need For Speed game - fast cars, police chases, and rig customisation. We've got more details on exactly how to play the game, with daytime Speedhunter sanctioned tournaments, and the unsanctioned races at night.
20 seconds in and it’s clear to me that Need for Speed Heat is a game that will drift past me at high speed. EA’s newest car factory knows its audience. It’s for the people that love cars and racing the police through the city streets. Meanwhile, I'm over here flinching at the fake policeman shouting “I said right now!” out of nowhere. That was…
Feature: Race to the bottom
Driven to distraction: Why do open-world racers have the worst plots in gaming?
I have a question. Is there a reason why absolutely every single racing game of the last decade has an unimaginably stupid story?
Cars are mechanical goats. Sure, you can teach them tricks and make them move with purpose, but they'd rather lark about chasing and butting each other. It's silly, then, that Need For Speed Payback does not let cars scamper freely around together in a multiplayer free-roaming mode. Plenty of that game is pure daft--especially the writing, our John will tell you in his Need for…
As the heated debate over loot boxes and player progression continues, Need for Speed Payback joins Star Wars Battlefront 2 in making changes based on the discussion, largely in regards to how the game doles out currency and experience. Essentially, drivers will earn more for less from events and races, making it easier to upgrade cars and level up.
Feature: Hey, listen
The hosts of the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, have accidentally overdosed on EA games this week, and they don't like it. You could say they're in a ... critical condition! Ha ha ha. But seriously, don't buy the new Need For Speed.
Though Need for Speed Payback's official launch day is Friday, for us here in the UK it'll be 11pm tonight. Payback brings fast and furious driving through an action movie-style story campaign, as well as an open world to pootle around and, I suppose, car races if that's your short of thing. Actually the game is already out now if you've paid enough, as the…
Feature: Payback's a switch
I couldn’t tell you exactly why the truck in front of us has started dropping explosive red barrels out of its container doors, but I am now keenly aware of the fragility of my own speedy car, which is giving chase behind. The oil drums explode and leave firey trails all across the motorway. Innocent drivers swerve and crash to avoid the flames. Then the…
EA have blasted the first "gameplay trailer" for Need For Speed Payback [official site] during their E3 announce-o-rama, showing a cut-down mission of cars battering cars so they can beat up a truck and steal another car from its belly. It's fast and furious but, sadly, has no Jason Statham. Have a peek:
If I were in charge of a big car game, I'd be taking a long hard look at the Fast and Furious series and wondering if I could incorporate some kind of automotive heists or "IT'S ABOUT FAMILY" muscular soap opera into the equation. Turns out I might be on the same page as EA: Need for Speed Payback, coming November 10th this year, sounds…
Feature: Amphetamine addiction is ugly
None can know the minds of EA. We were sent review code for Need For Speed [official site] yesterday, plenty ahead of its release... and told that the review embargo for this online-enhanced game would be 8am the next day. The game's not out until the 17th. A very strange situation indeed, to be given less than 24 hours to review a large, involved driving…
The PC version of the new Need for Speed [official site], named simply Need for Speed as if that won't get confusing with two dozen other games bearing the name Need for Speed, was delayed for our own good, we were told. While console versions launched in November, ours was pushed back to spring to add features like an uncapped framerate. Well, open up your…
Pull Over, It’s The Framerate Police: Need For Speed PC Version Delayed
EA, mate, I told you - don't try to drive through Central Gamedev, you'll be months late unless you take the ring road and cut in on... you've done what? You've stopped in Computon to pick up some extra frames? Mate. It's your choice, I suppose, but bear in mind that your pals might rather you turn up to the launch on time than arrive…
Look, I don’t like cars and cars don’t like me. Having said that, the new Need For Speed [official site] reboot is looking really, really pretty. I can appreciate a fine looking game, even if I can’t drive for toffee. Below you’ll find the E3 trailer. It’s all shiny paint and blinding headlights and urban fantasy. In a good way.
2014 was the first year since 2002 to not receive a new Need for Speed game, but Electronic Arts said they'd bring the racing series back for 2015 and here we are. EA today announced the game named simply Need for Speed [official site], a "full reboot" of the series.Details are thin for now but the important stuff: yes, it's set in an open world,…
Need For Speed has been following the same blueprint - aka, Not Quite Burnout Paradise 2 - for a couple installments now, but EA's decided to keep the franchise from going full Callssassin's Dutycreed. At least, for now. While Need For Speed Rivals didn't crash and burn by any means, EA and the former Criterion folks at Ghost Games have decided to take an extra…
All does not seem well at EA's new British studio, Ghost Games. According to Polygon, there have been lay-offs in the last week, and the next Need For Speed game has been put on hold. They say that contractors have been moved on, and full-timers are being given choices over compensatory leave, or shifting over to Visceral's currently project, thought to be the next Battlefield.
The psychology of being inside a car is kind of fascinating - in a twisted, human-limits-revealing sort of way. We tend to stop viewing our fellow road-hogging compatriots as people, preferring instead to focus on the galloping four-wheeled colossi in front of us. Other drivers become objects, impediments, enemies. Have you ever had one of those moments where you're honking and raging, and then you…
