Recent reviews by baud

peak survival horror co-op

im impressed this has 82% positive at the time of writing this because it's just not good at all
basically all of the mechanics suck and since this is a co-op game, automatic deal breaker
good idea, unfortunately another badly executed scp steam game

Absolutely stellar game all-round. It's a must-have experience, cannot recommend it enough.

👻

This is one of those games you buy and you play it once, its fun for that first time but every other time straight up sucks. Annoying and repetitive which is why I haven't touched this game since it came out. Recommended if you get it for free but..$20 if you want to *try* to have fun.

I don't typically do long reviews like this since I'd rather just read them but I felt obligated to write one for a game worth $70. Don't get me wrong, this was a nice return to the NFS franchise for me but I just can't recommend it at it's current price tag. I don't know if they included new, industry re-defining technology but this is definitely not worth $70.

I'll start with the story, since that is an important element for some. The game starts in a cutscene where you're some random guy in a yellow car being chased by cops while night racing. The game lets you do a "preview race" or whatever you wanna call it to warm you up. After you finish said race, it plays a cutscene where you're cornered by cops who seem to be only after your car, since the car just ends up falling off the bridge and they let Mr. Random Guy walk home scot-free. Once you finish this cutscene, you get to customize a preset character which you will play as for the duration of the game. While there are only a few characters, they do talk so bonus points for that. After you finish selecting your character, you spawn at the Main Garage where you meet Lucas (the mechanic) and pick your starter car. Afterwards, you go to your first race with Lucas and on the way he tells you a little backstory about himself, which was some nice early character development. Following this race, you get thrown into your next objective which is buying a nitrous kit, but I'd rather say you just get thrown into the world of grinding. Personally, I thought the story concept was interesting so I won't talk about it further but here's my overall rating on the story: The character development is so-so, here and there, nothing spectacular. Story itself though, pretty good considering its an NFS game and as I said personally I thought it was interesting.

Now, I'll cover mechanics. This will be brief because, well, you drive a car. Anyway, the driving felt as smooth as any other NFS game and I couldn't ask for better. The only part I really couldn't use was your offensive/defensive ability against cops (EMP Jammer, etc.) I never saw a keybind, let alone an icon on the HUD so I had no idea how to use it. This could just be some problem with my client but I just think I really could've used that in some situations. Other than all of that, if you count the car customization as a mechanic, I think it's really good. I feel like there could be room for more features, but I couldn't tell you what else to add if I'm being honest.

I suppose next I'll cover the "aspect" of the game. As like other NFS games, this is also a grindy one but I found this one in particular to be the longest grind to max out my level and car. It's the usual "race for money, XP and rewards" kind of grind but I've gotta say it did get boring after a while. My current hour count on this review is roughly how long it took me to max out (I didn't idle any hours, I promise). I don't remember how long it took to complete the story exactly, but it's considerably less than my current count. That's about it for the main game, but if you want to talk extras (completing all races, events/objectives, collectibles) you could be playing for a much longer time. There was simply too much to do so I didn't bother going for a "true 100% completion". I couldn't give you an estimate on how long it would take to do EVERYTHING since everyone has their ways of being efficient but do heed my warning there is quite a bit.

Next I'll cover "variety", or, how much there is to do. Off the bat, A+, you've got loads to do, but it has to be your kind of grind. For me, as I said before I had the patience to max out my level and car but you've gotta have a lot of patience to get full 100%. There's not much more to say about this, only that you unlock more and more as you play, so if you like that, thats an upside for sure.

Lastly, I'll cover my recommendation of...No. As stated in the beginning, I can't recommend it at a price tag of $70. Most I'd pay for this is $30, maybe $35, but I wouldn't go any higher. It would be one thing if there was content updates (forgive me if there is, but to my knowledge I'm pretty sure there isn't) but it's the same as if you were to buy one of the old NFS games on a disc. However, I did play this during the $0.80 EA Play sale so I'm not sure if that's biasing me. Either way though, I think my max of $35 is very fair in that regard and you should only get this on a 50%+ sale or with EA Play.

EDIT: I realize I forgot to cover game performance. I have a mid-tier PC that could run at a consistent 60 fps on high settings but it would dip to 40 at its lowest in intense environments. I can't really imagine this game being playable on lower-end computers and frankly, it isn't. For one of my friends with a lower-end, the game opened *sometimes* and others it was unplayable. That should tell you enough.

TLDR: Overall good game, bad price tag. Buy on sale or get with EA Play.

Kill lots and lots of members of U.S. Politics (rats).

amogus but 3D?!?!

not really horror and community is toxic