Need for Speed: Rivals

Need for Speed: Rivals is a 2013 racing video game developed by Ghost Games (a new studio in Sweden formerly known as EA Gothenburg) and Criterion Games published by Electronic Arts for the PlayStation 3 & 4, Xbox 360 & One, and Microsoft Windows.

A Complete Edition with all DLC packed was released on October 21, 2014.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) This game is another installment to go to the true origin of the franchise: supercars rushing at top speed on freeways.
 * 2) The idea of combining Hot Pursuit (2010)'s cop-racer rivalry and Most Wanted (2012)'s exploring elements to make an open world hunting party is brilliant and is executed well for the most part. It also addressed some issues from Hot Pursuit (2010) such as EMP essentially not upgrading, spikes do no harm to tires, and some more.
 * 3) Instead of individual scenarios in Hot Pursuit (2010), this game has a brief story about the rivalry of racer Zephyr and cop Fate, both of whom you will play as. Although it can be confusing at times, it is one of the darkest stories of the franchise, going so far as using opposite faction's cars to perform straight-up violence.
 * 4) Car list is rather short but brilliant. Most importantly, Ferrari finally made a return to EA games after more than a decade of absence since 2001's Hot Pursuit 2 (except a brief DLC in Shift) and has finally agreed to let their cars being involved in illegal street racing.
 * 5) Awesome electronic-based soundtrack that fits the "technical" theme of this game featuring many big name artists like Madeon, Knife Party, The Qemists, and even a Linkin Park remix. Original scores also makes the game much more lively.
 * 6) Just like Seacrest County, Redview County is beautifully designed with various landscapes like coast, forest, desert, and snow mountain. It also adds much more elevation than Hot Pursuit (2010) (where cars basically never fly out of crash cutscenes) to make driving even more fun.
 * 7) Despite still having Burnout-esque brake-to-drift handling model, it is very well designed for the environment. Same thing can't be said in the next game.
 * 8) Vastly different gameplay from both factions.
 * 9) *For racers, there is a multiplayer based on your activities to earn tons of Speedpoints (this game's currency), however, both Speedpoints and multiplayer will be lost if you were busted by the cops before banking them in Hideouts. High risk comes with high rewards.
 * 10) *For cops, all the Speedpoints you get are safely banked immediately, but there's no multiplayer, so getting them is much slower.
 * 11) Car customization briefly returns (for racers only). Now you can finally paint your cars with the spectrum. The liveries are also very well designed, despite decals section being kinda lazy. Performance upgrades are also back, although being purely arcadey for just adding parameters.
 * 12) You may not be able to touch the looks of cop cars, but there are 3 variants for each car to use for different occasions.
 * 13) *Patrol: boosted acceleration for more speed.
 * 14) *Enforcer: boosted strength and toughness for more aggression.
 * 15) *Undercover: boosted handling for more agility, plus they can't be seen on racer's maps before revealing themselves.
 * 16) Weapon system is a big progression from Hot Pursuit (2010). While all previous weapons are retained, new ones like electrostatic field, shockwave/shock ram and stun mines are also added for more gameplay variety. Some like spikes and mines will even damage the user if not handled properly.
 * 17) Being a heavily online-oriented game, multiplayer events between factions are very fun because of the "hunting party" nature of this game, although matchmaking can be atrocious at times like unfair opponents.
 * 18) Mods for PC version exist, including overhaul mods such as Rivals Plus, rebalancing, and even converting undercover cop cars to racer cars!

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Unfortunately, this game was created when EA was straight-up declaring that single player games "are dead" (which are never even close to), so this game is even more online-oriented than Hot Pursuit (2010), which leads to quite a few fundamental flaws (and it is not even the worst offender of the series).
 * 2) *You can't pause the game, not even in single player. They fully expect you to play this as a fully online game and will throw you in a lobby right after title screen, without even giving player a choice.
 * 3) *The game will not save until you return to Hideout/Command Post.
 * 4) *Single player campaign is extremely brief. Some early Speedlists/Assignments can be completed in less than one minute. The whole game can even be speedrunned in less than 4 hours without exploiting any glitches.
 * 5) *The gameplay itself is irrelevant to the story, meaning the "story missions" feels extremely underwhelming.
 * 6) Another rushed NFS game, what a surprise. Bugs and glitches can happen everywhere, especially on PC version where optimization is a complete catastrophe (hence the vastly different reviews between players). Probably because the developers had to make the game for both 7th and 8th generation consoles. Sounds familiar?
 * 7) *The framerate is capped at 30fps. If you try to force it to run at more than 30fps, a lot of stuff like EMP and checkpoints will break, which is something that you should expect in PlayStation 2 era games!
 * 8) *Sometimes (mostly when you drive too fast) the game will softlock or stop rendering the world textures, which can happen even on SSD.
 * 9) *Some jumps can only be triggered at a very certain angle, or may send you into a crash-respawn loop for ages if you fail.
 * 10) *Only the patrol version of Carrera GT uses a V10 engine sound (even that is closer to the LFA v10). The other 2 versions use 918 Spyder's V8 sound for some reason.
 * 11) By combining Hot Pursuit (2010) and Most Wanted (2012), NFS is now even closer to spiritually merging with Burnout series (even the narrator lady from Burnout Paradise are in all 3 games unchanged) and having a bigger identity crisis, until the next game finally had a more definitive answer to it.
 * 12) Racer side is pretty unbalanced since their cars are much more fragile than cop cars, plus the fact that racers also fight amongst themselves. It is very likely you will be wrecked from full health without even knowing what got you if you're caught in a combo. Also because cops will take down any racer on sight (and you can't pause), casually cruising as racer is impossible.
 * 13) *On the other hand, once you get used to it, racer side can be very fun to play.
 * 14) Overpriced DLCs with only 2 cars each pack. The Complete Edition does contain all of them with a fair price.
 * 15) The Overwatch feature where you can remotely give buffs and debuffs to other players can be a bit annoying at times. And since the server was closed in 2018, 2 cars along with a handful of liveries can never be unlocked legitimately (there are mods for PC version).

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