Need for Speed Heat

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Need for Speed Heat
"Street racing has no place on public roads. Mark my words, if you are out there and you're engaging in this type of activity, we will find you. And if you think that you can get away by just hitting the gas, then you're in for a surprise. Because, we're coming after you hard and we're coming after you fast. Trust me: there is no escape." — Lt. Frank Mercer
Genre(s): Racing Platform(s): Microsoft Windows Xbox One PlayStation 4 Release Date: November 8, 2019 Engine: Frostbite 3 Developer(s): Ghost Games Criterion Games Publisher(s): EA Country: Sweden United Kingdom Series: Need for Speed Predecessor: Need for Speed Payback Successor: Need for Speed Unbound

Need for Speed Heat (stylized as NFS Heat) is an arcade racing video game, and the twenty-fourth and current installment of the Need for Speed series. It was developed by Ghost Games and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows, PS4, and Xbox One.

Good Qualities

1. More than 127 cars to drive, including the Polestar 1, the "Holy Trinity of supercars" consisting of the Ferrari LaFerrari (which only appeared in the mobile title Need for Speed: No Limits before), the Porsche 918 Spyder and the McLaren P1.
   • Also, this marks the console debut of the Lamborghini Aventador LP 770-4 SVJ, which debuted in the pay-to-play game CSR Racing 2.
2. Iconic legacy cars return, such as Eddie's Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34), Rachel Teller's Nissan 350Z (Z33) and the BMW M3 GTR (E46) from the original Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Additionally, the Lamborghini Diablo SV from Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit finally has its standard SV vinyl logos again after being absent from past Ghost Games entries. (Although, the car's standard spoiler still isn't black, but there is a workaround for that using custom paint and vinyls.) Also, the legacy cars came with great details from the previous games, so detailed that it make you think Ghost recycle contents from a series of games made in late 1990s to early 2000s (same body kits, same vinyls, same decals), unlike previous titles' "legendary cars" in which they look like a drawing-event-winning scribble that was made by a kid with dyslexia.
3. Great and enjoyable story, focusing more on street racing and the conflict between racers and cops. It's overall a noticeable improvement over the nigh-nonexistent one in the 2015 reboot and the cheesy, over-the-top Netflix adaptation of Fast & Furious in Payback.
4. Great and realistic environment of Palm City, a fictional city based on Miami, Florida.
5. Two sides of the game, day with sanctioned races that earn money for the player, and night has aggressive police chases that earn the player REP. That's right, the cops return to free roam after being absent in Payback, they are also made to be tougher and harder to shake-off compared to the ones in the 2015 reboot.
6. Unlike in Payback, it's no longer needed to purchase separate builds for the same car. You can simply swap out some of the performance parts such as tires, differentials and the chassis to adapt your car to various roles such as drifting, grip racing, or off-roading.
7. Incredible graphics, as is standard for any main Need for Speed game. The night side of Palm City in particular looks gorgeous.
8. Large amount of customization options, you can modify your car's body kit, rims, underglow, stance and even its exhaust tunes.
9. Ghost managed to address the criticisms regarding the arbitrary power limits found on certain cars in NFS Payback by bringing back the engine swapping mechanic in Shift 2: Unleashed (eg. swapping the Nissan VR38DETT or McLaren M838T to any Silvia, forging any regular tuner engines such as the RB26DETT, or even swapping in the Lamborghini Aventador's V12 to certain cars.). This essentially allows all vehicles to reach maximum performance level.
   • If you install the UNITE mod, there are more engines you can swap into your car like the Toyota 2JZ-GTE and the Ford EcoBoost.
10. It is one of the few Electronic Arts games that don't have microtransactions! That's right! No more loot boxes or surprise mechanics, in Heat vanity items and performance upgrades are bought with normal in-game cash, with better upgrades unlocked by levelling up or completing high heat races.
11. Great amount of Driving Stories, which unlock the aforementioned legacy cars.
12. Lots of Easter eggs referencing past Need for Speed games going all the way back to the original Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed in 1994, twenty-five years before this game was released, making this game truly a celebration of Need for Speed.
13. The player character's motion capture artist, male voice actor, and Caucasian male character model is Andrew Lawrence. That's right late 1990s/early 2000s animation fans, you can play as T.J. freakin' Detweiler (well, at least in spirit).
14. The March 2020 update adds two side story missions where players can receive a free Aston Martin DB11 Volante or purchase the legendary McLaren F1, then help out a black-market dealer get an Aston Martin DB5 back. It even comes with new customization options such as new vanity items that are unlocked from completing Black Market missions with the cars.
15. The final update of the game makes it the first EA game to support Cross-Platform Multiplayer.
16. After being absent from many recent NFS titles, this game marks the comeback of BBS Kraftfahrzeugtechnik AG rims with the CC-R, CH-R, CI-R, LM and RS rims being featured in the game.
17. Of course, like the majority of NFS games, this has mod support.
    • There are mods ranging from overhaul mods such as UNITE and Heat Remix, to a fan-made Indonesian localization mod and even a tool to unlock the Red Bull Car Park Drift Nissan 370Z (Z34) and the McLaren F1.

Bad Qualities

1. The police pursuits during night require some balancing:
   • There's a massive difficulty spike between Heat level 2 and 3, as in the latter, the cops will not only deploy roadblocks and spike strips, but also send Dodge Charger SRT-8s (LD) to pursue you, making it nigh impossible to outrun them if you have a low-level car. This is more or less a beginner's trap as higher heat levels are not locked away until you gain better cars like in Most Wanted 2005.
   • Making the aforementioned issues worse is that Heat puts a heavy emphasis on using speed to evade cops, as now the average cop car is about as rugged as an APC while your car is about as durable as a wet paper bag. This may throw off some veteran players that rely on going on the offensive and immobilize the police cars.
   • Another issue is that during nighttime, outside of high heat races, you can only earn REP and no Bank from winning races, this makes it feel like as if you're forced to race at night when you could have just remained during broad daylight and earn money risk free.
2. Some cars (most notably the "Icon" cars) have very limited customization, which are high performance variations of certain cars such as the NISMO versions of the 370Z (Z34) and GT-R (R35), as well as the Ferrari 488 Pista, FXX-K Evo. This is due to the strict licensing deals of Ferrari and NISMO.
   • Also, the Porsche Cayman GT4 (981) and BMW M4 GTS (F82) have the same aforementioned customization issue, despite having customization in previous games.
3. The aforementioned McLaren F1 is not free, it's paid DLC. Fortunately, it's the only paid content DLC, and if you can't afford it, you can unlock it for free using a tool.
4. The player loses a large amount of money ($10,000 per heat level you've gained) when busted, which can be overly punishing during early game.
   • This also goes for when being wrecked however, you don't lose your money as much.
5. Inferior soundtrack, especially the Latin songs which are criticized by people.
6. The Rep/Bank payouts nerf as the player continues to race.
7. The Beck Kustoms F132 from both the 2015 reboot and Payback was cut, despite remaining in the game files.
8. Despite how gritty and brutal the story was, it is woefully short. You can easily finish it with a barely upgraded BMW M5 (F90).
9. The tap-gas-to-drift mechanics are really hard to get used to. Fortunately, there is an option to switch to the more familiar brake-to-drift mechanics in the game, but they have to be enabled for each and every car.
10. Most of the avatar customization options (a new feature for the series) looks gaudy. You might want to change into the plainest looking clothes as soon as possible.
11. The car roster in general is similar to Street Racing Syndicate, where a large amount of the "new" cars are either convertible versions, facelifts or different factory trims.
12. The nitro system is ripped off from Need for Speed: ProStreet and is uncomfortable to use, as nitro fills up on its own instead after drifting or getting airtime unless you install special parts to your car.
13. Some Speedhunters parts and body kits look horrible.
14. As the game was abandoned only 7 months after its release for unknown reasons, many Black Market cars planned were cancelled, with two of the known cars being the Lamborghini Aventador LP 750-4 SV Roadster and Bugatti Chiron Sport.

Reception

There were major concerns over this game after Ghost Games' past titles ended up being mediocre with Need for Speed: Rival, Need for Speed (2015) and Need for Speed: Payback. But surprisingly, the game received generally positive reviews from critics with a score of 72/100 with many of them praising the return to form of the much older NFS titles. Whilst fan reception was still a bit mixed with a user score of 6.2 due to the frustrating difficulty of losing money, short story and lack of licenses like Toyota, they still managed to find positive things about the game.

However, despite being an improvement over Ghost Games' past titles, it was not enough in EA's eyes. The publisher moved the NFS IP back over to Criterion Games in February 2020, while reducing Ghost Games to an engineering support studio for the whole publisher and renaming them back to their original name EA Gothenburg.

Trivia

• A part of Danny Shaw's phrase from the trailer "Nice ride, but I'm gonna need those keys right now. I SAID RIGHT NOW!" has become a meme, albeit short-lived.
• Giving the player a simple name which is "Player", is a reference to the protagonist with the same name from Retro City Rampage, according to TV Tropes.

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