Need for Speed: Heat review

What can I say about this beleaguered series? From the heights of Porsche Unleashed, Hot Pursuit 2, Underground and Most Wanted, it's been a downward spiral. Plenty of studios have tried, it's been rebooted endless times, but no entry in the series seems to achieve greatness anymore. There have been some decent entries, sure, but nothing quite capturing the past glory of this previously beloved franchise.

I skipped the last Need for Speed game from 2017. This was the first NFS game that I hadn't played. When Need for Speed: Heat was announced, to be developed by the same studio, I barely paid any attention and had no intention of playing it. The trailer looked pretty cool, though.

Surprisingly, the game got better reviews than I expected. Even more surprisingly, a bunch of YouTubers started recommending the game, some even calling it the best Need for Speed in a decade.

So, I gave it a shot, and boy, what a pleasant surprise. If there was ever a game which far exceeded my (admittedly, very low) expectations, this is it!

At the heart of the game is a neat gimmick - you can either play in day or night. The day is pretty usual open world fare, but it's the night where things get interesting. Each night is its own self-contained survival game. You're out and about, participating in illegal races, drawing the ire of the cops constantly. The more heat you build up and successfully escape, the more XP you gain. However, if you're busted, you lose all the built up XP. It's an incredibly clever mechanic, that makes each night a thrill ride, where you're constantly at the edge of your seat! The cop chases are the best they've ever been - the cop vehicles are definitely no pushovers. Indeed, you have to know the right tricks and right places on the map to lose them.

Drenched in neon and wet reflected roads, Heat's rendition of Miami looks stereotypically spectactular at night. The world has impressive variety, though it lacks the finesse and charm of something like Forza Horizon 4's Britain.

Switch to day, though, and it almost looks like an older game. The graphics aren't that good, it was just the night's effects that masked these shortcomings. Still, the solid world design shines through even in the day. Taking considerable inspiration from Forza Horizon, the world is littered with all sorts of stunts and events, though many of them are pretty repetitive.

How about the racing then? It's alright, not great, not bad. It has its own mechanics and physics, where drifting plays a major role. The default control of using the accelerator to drift sounds bizarre at first, but actually, it's consistent with how the game works. If you're expecting a realistic arcade experience, you'll be sorely disappointed. It is its own thing, once you are open to it, it can be fun in its own way. Less impressive is the collection cars, and the progression - there's the usual grind required to unlock the higher-end vehicles.

If you just play through the story, I imagine you won't progress very much at all. The story is incredibly shot, though surprisingly, it's by far the best writing I've seen in the series. Just when it gets interesting, however, it ends... In the grand scheme, though, the story is just a small part of the game, a majority of it is all about exploration, finding events, stunts etc in the open world.

Need for Speed: Heat is easily the biggest surprise of 2019. Is it the best Need for Speed game ever? I think it might just be, though, accounting for nostalgia, probably not. Either way, what I'm confident about is that Need for Speed: Heat is definitely the best NFS game since Most Wanted and a shocking return to form that I had frankly given up on. With news that an expanded Criterion will return to making NFS games, including many of the crew behind Heat, I'm once again cautiously optimistic for the future of the series. I don't expect Forza Horizon levels of greatness, but Heat is a solid open world driving game, and definitely a step in the right direction.