![]() ![]() But in every race I felt I had to bring a car with optimum performance to the starting line. Still, Need For Speed Payback’s punishing grind, loot boxes and multiple currencies offers a tacit encouragement to spend money to bypass its automotive chores while holding a fig leaf over the bad PR of a true pay-to-win scenario.Ī more user-friendly system would allow drivers, as they tackle one branch of the street racing series, to put what they earn from it into a new vehicle for another. It’s not an extravagant bounty but it is a help. Shipments still come every day for logging in, and they include a chunk of in-game cash, a batch of parts tokens (exchanged on a 3:1 basis for a speed card) and a vanity item that can be exchanged for the aforementioned money. Need for Speed Payback Ghost Games/Electronic Arts So while the road between real cash and in-game currency isn’t direct, it’s still paved and waiting for those who wish to take it. But it is part of the “shipments” that are available for “speed points” which are available for real dough. Somewhat to the game’s credit, you can’t just buy a tranche of that currency for real-world money. Cars may be unlocked after beating questline events but they still have to be bought with the same in-game currency used to tune up everything else you race. It would be a lot different if the story’s detours from street racing to the drag races and getaways paid off with better cars on the spot, or resources to apply toward ones sitting idle (speed cards awarded in these events are applicable to the class of car that raced them). And the progressively better handling and higher performance of unlocked vehicles in Need For Speed Payback did feel like a reward for learning how to gut out white-knuckle laps with shaky rides earlier in the game. I don’t mind a stout challenge, even in an arcade racer where I know the AI is going to race a perfect line and hit each corner at top speed. To give any driver a new ride is to effectively start over Cars south of that number by more than 5 points will be left in the dust, particularly in technical events like drift racing on pavement. A car that matches that rating, or is even 15 points better, is still going to have a hard time on the first try or two. Each story mission in Need For Speed Payback helpfully gives a recommended vehicle rating to beat it. But to give any of them a new ride - Mustang, Lotus or Charger - is to effectively start over, grinding through low-level races one has already beaten for currency, “speed card” upgrades and other items to then fashion the vehicle into something competitive.Īnd competitive it must be. Sure, there are three main characters with three specialties - the street racer, the drift/off-roader, the wheelwoman. Neither are the humans, in a hackdraft story that is pure expository dialogue and cornball reversals. The problem with Need For Speed Payback is that the cars aren’t really the stars. The wild oversteer and braking power takes some acclimatization, but it’s there to help users of all levels through the game’s wild drift-racing events, and to whip through right angle turns in getaway chases. Notwithstanding the lunkhead competitor AI and trivial pursuit vehicles one encounters, the handling and power inside the cars made the strongest invitation for me to explore Payback’s open world - vacant though it is. It’s a shame because there’s a strong arcade racer under the hood of Need For Speed Payback.
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