Need for Speed Rivals is a fun and enjoyable racing game that sports really nice looking visuals and a strong multiplayer mode. When fleeing from a pack of cops at 150mph through a forest after midnight, I found it difficult not to be excited by Need for Speed: Rivals – and then a helicopter’s searchlight pours in through the trees for an additional adrenaline kick.
Developed by Ghost Games, Rivals feels like the natural successor to the work of previous NFS developer Criterion. (Unsurprising really consider the majority of the staff went over to the new studio.) It combines Hot Pursuit’s cops-versus-racer dynamic with the freeform gameplay of Most Wanted’s open world. In many ways it’s the best of both, although if you’ve played either of those a great deal, as I have, you may get a feeling of déja vu from Rivals.
It inserts gamers behind the wheel of both sides of the thin blue line, daring them to cross that line as either a cop or racer in order to gain any advantage in the street’s ultimate rivalry. Players decide between two distinct career experiences, each with its own set of high-stakes challenges, rewards, pursuit tech and cars. The intensity of the action is enhanced as a result of AllDrive, a feature that destroys the line between single player, co-op and multiplayer. Through AllDrive, friends are connected to one racing world where their races and chases can collide at any time.
Rivals is very much in the tradition of Hot Pursuit, but that great, familiar gameplay has been infused with enough new elements to make it as thrilling here as it’s ever been. It sure is good to hit the open road again.
Petrol Head Gitau 