POSTED 21/11/13


NEED FOR SPEED: RIVALS

EA
PS3 (also on PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC)

Have you seen the little piggies, skidding in the dirt? And for all the little piggies, life is getting worse...

At least in the ultra-Californianistic Redview County. For the inexplicable pull of reality TV notoriety’s seduced local outlaw racers. Voiceovers are so runny with cheese that they’re reminiscent of a Jax Teller monologue. But fuck it, who cares? We wanna race, and as long as that rocks then the ‘X’ button cuts the crap.

Pick a faction – cop or racer. Redview’s big – really big - so there’s lots on. Several racing flavours, with missions varying depending upon which law side you’ve straddled. Initially it seems the outlaws drew the short straw, paying for automobilic beauties and battling to retain ill-earned loot by needing safe house sanctuary to get it snugly bank accounty, while cops amass moolah willy-nilly and blag all the hot cars they can eat for nix. Progress reveals advantages to taking a walk on the wild side, though. No risk, no reward. Plus you don’t smell all bacony, which is nice.

It’s essentially a canny collision (get used to those, BTW) of NFS: Hot Pursuit and last year’s genius NFS: Most Wanted, with shades of Blur’s Mario Kart weapon pilfering (but less adventuring – boo!). Blatting about causing havoc or just having fun’s cool, although missions can get samey.

Still, everything’s gorgeous – especially weather variations - mostly flitting about with polygonical nimbleness, while blood pressure soars when trying to jam into a safe house with the fuzz on you like, erm, fuzz onto crims.

You enter Redview with other real people (the ludicrous handles with numbers enough to break The Count’s brain – pop-ah-ah-ah! - a dead giveaway). Frustratingly, we encountered several freezes, dropouts and glitches until unplugging. We trust EA are onto it.

If not, what they need’s a damn good whacking...

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