Ghost Games and Electronic Arts decided that the 2015 reboot of Need For Speed would be always-on. This means that you always have to be connected to the internet to play the game and you need a decent connection unless you want to experience a lot of lag and rubber-banding AI. Well, a lot of gamers suffered from lag and rubber-banding AI, and this negatively impacted the experience for them. For others, they were willing to tough through those setbacks just to experience the customization and undeniably intoxicating graphics.
The user reviews on Metacritic for the PlayStation 4 version of the game have a few people highly praising the game, giving it a 10 out of 10, saying that it’s the “perfect racing game” and that the customization brings back the nostalgia of playing the decade-old Need For Speed: Underground. However, after going through a few of the positive reviews, the negative ones really begin to rear their head, with users like vincetheprince writing…
Eero94 gave it a 0 out of 10, writing…
User Saisuke actually believes the game is a 5 out of 10, citing the bad AI, the rubber-banding and the always-on as being the biggest issues with the game, but opts for a 0 out of 10 due to the review bots giving the game a positive score, writing…
PlanetMental actually did decide to give the game a 5, citing that the game’s graphics and customization gave it potential but the AI and always-on detracted from the experience…
On Amazon the user reviews are very much the same, but one user decided to decry the people complaining about always-on DRM. The Masculine Unicorn wrote…
It seems odd to defend that EA announced the always-on so people shouldn’t complain about it, but then cite that the gameplay experience will be affected by the always-on. Perhaps the causation is the correlation to the negative reviews and complaining, no?
An obviously young Brody Evans gave the game a four out of five stars but still couldn’t bring himself to recommend paying full price for the game, writing…
T. Whiting couldn’t get past the game’s heavy focus on drifting, and of course the always-on, writing…
Anthony Frasca enjoyed the graphics and the sound, stating that the game feels “next-gen” and that was a major selling point. Frasca felt the game was overall solid despite the learning curve with the handling…
Philip Burrow tried being as objective as possible, stating that the game had an “amusing story” and great car customization with visually “stunning” graphics, but the praise ended there. The rest of the review was about the game’s drawbacks…
AS – who I really doubt is Anita Sarkeesian – praised the game for the most part, save for the AI rubber-banding…
Bogdan gave the game four out of five stars but had to minus a star for the always-on. Despite being very positive about the game he still hated that you couldn’t pause the game during the campaign or during the race and that if EA’s servers go down you can’t play at all…
The story being told by the general consumer is that everyone who isn’t handing out 10 out of 10s feel as if the rubber-banding is an issue. Most people agree that the story is cheesy, but that’s up to personal preference. The always-on DRM seems to be something that majority of people who like and don’t like the game agree that it’s an unfortunate and unavoidable drawback to the game.
Need For Speed is available right now for the PS4 and Xbox One and will arrive in 2016 for PC.
