By Cameron Smith, Staff Writer
A modified Polestar 1 car evading a 2017 Chevrolet Corvette police cruiser in the game.
About Need for Speed: Heat
Need for Speed: Heat is an open-world racing game developed by Ghost Games and published by Electronic Arts, serving as the twenty-fourth installment of the NFS franchise, and the last Need for Speed game to be developed by Ghost Games before Criterion Games returned as sole producer ever since their last project, 2012’s Most Wanted. This game was released on the Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Microsoft PC systems on November 8, 2019. In this game, take another high-octane journey through a new area, driving a variety of new and returning cars!
Gameplay and Features: A
Create your very own avatar to live an exciting, nitrous-fueled adventure through Palm City. You can race in both day and nighttime. In the daytime, take part in sanctioned races to earn money and rise up the ranks in the Speedhunter Showdown. At nighttime, drive in illegal street races and evade the Palm City Police Department’s High Speed Task Force, who don’t joke around when it comes to deliberate street racers, and earn your spot in the League, Palm City’s most professional street racers. Beat them, as well as escaping the cops, and your heat level rises, as well as your Rep. The more Rep you earn, the higher your Rep Level grows and the more you progress through the main story.
If you want your car to look snazzy, customize it at the Garage, where you can modify, upgrade, paint and cover decals over the car to really make it stand out! You can also customize your avatar’s outfit, really making yourself just as stylish as you take the wheel. As a bonus, use the NFS Heat Studio app on your smartphone to customize your cars without even playing the game!
Cars: A
Over 130 cars from a variety of brands are worth your choosing in NFS: Heat. As you race through Palm City, all cars have four different upgrade divisions.
These four divisions, Race, Road, Drift and Off-Road, will determine if the car you drive excels in one or two of these divisions. Road-class cars excel on tarmac. Race-class cars are built for the track! Off-Road-class cars are built for getting your tires dirty. Drift-class cars are perfect for banking in the score during Drift Trials.
Know the cars well in order to master their performance and sharpen your driving skills.
Reception: B+
Need for Speed: Heat received mixed to average reviews from critics. The Xbox One version earned a 74/100 by Metacritic. It earned three-and-a-half stars by GamesRadar+ and an 8/10 by IGN, as the latter gave this statement: “While Need for Speed Heat feels a little more like a mosaic of existing concepts rather than something especially trendsetting, Ghost has certainly scraped these ideas from some of the most-loved games in the now 25-year-old series. Heat doesn’t always sizzle but it’s definitely much hotter than I’d expected. This is easily the most impressive Need for Speed game in many years.” GameSpot also gave a statement: “With only a select few events, no discernible difference between each car’s handling, and a simplistic driving model, Need for Speed Heat does stumble into repetition during its final few hours. It’s not quite a rip-roaring return to form, then, but this latest entry puts the Need for Speed series back on the right track. The duality of its day and night events props up what would otherwise be a fairly run-of-the-mill racing game, but the renewed focus on hurtling around the track, racing wheel-to-wheel, and customizing each car in numerous ways, taps into the essence of what Need for Speed used to be about. Need for Speed Heat may not revolutionize racing games, but it’s the best the series has been in a long, long time.” Heat was also nominated for a few awards, like a Gamescom Award for Best Racing Game and a NAVGTR award for Game, Franchise Racing, as well as one for Song Collection, winning the former.
Check out this official review of Need for Speed: Heat by IGN.
Also check out the game’s official website on ea.com.
THE PAW PRINT 