Need For Speed 2015

I feel that with Need For Speed 2015 EA was trying to reboot or at the very least reinvigorate the franchise. To be fair, I feel that there is far more good Need For Speed games than there are bad ones and this one here I think is just teetering on the edge of something that is really special.

The King Of The Road

The main single-player campaign in the game is actually a great deal of fun. You are the new racer on the block and you want to prove your worth. The game has five different “racing disciplines” for you to master to prove this. They are, speed, style, crew, build and outlaw with each one having different things that are required of you. It is a solid game mode and one that I think does not get the love it deserves, perhaps this is because you can plow through it in just a couple of days?

The single-player aspect of this game is way better than the multiplayer mode if you ask me. The multiplayer flat out sucks! The always-online thing just did not click for me as I would much prefer being able to play against who I want and when I want.

Is This The Sega CD?

One of the things that I love about Need For Speed 2015 is the way the story is told. This game uses FMV and it is awesome. The game plays it straight, but you can just tell that these actors were having a great time doing all this stuff. Some of it is downright cringy, but I love it. Not many games use FMV these days so it is cool that this is a series that loves to do just that.

Watch It There Slick!

On the road, this is a fast and furious arcade-style racer, and the most like the Underground series we have ever gotten up to this point. The fictional city of Ventura Bay is massive and has three very distinct locations that you can race on. The way you can glide around corners is really cool and I like the way the game lets you decide if you want more focus on the grip or the drifting.

The presentation is fantastic. The car all look amazing, even if the selection is a little limited compared to a Forza or Gran Turismo game. It sounds like a strange thing to get excited about, but I love the way that the road looks when rain is pounding off it. The only downside to the “presentation” is the sound, I got royally sick of the soundtrack after about an hour!

Check Out, My Ride Man!

Need For Speed 2015 has a great amount of customization for you to play around with. You can have a few different cars in your garage at any one time, but I found that I just stuck with two as I kitted these things out to be freaking supercars! It was a lot of fun to do and many of the cars let you tinker with pretty much every aspect of them.

The only downside here is that some cars (I am looking at you Ferrari) do not let you change much at all. To be fair, I am assuming that this is a licensing thing where a company like Ferrari did not want people messing with their car designs.

Pros:

• The game looks fantastic
• It is the closest we have come to the Underground series
• Tons of customization options
• It is very easy to get into
• The FMV stuff is awesome and hilarious

Cons:

• The game is rather shallow in pretty much every regard
• What were they thinking with the always online thing?

As far as racing games goes, few series are more well-recognised than Need for Speed. NFS has been a staple in the racing genre for years, creating highly exciting environments and enjoyable storylines. While the series might not be producing too many games these days, Need For Speed 2015 was an impressive release at the time. Now we are around eight years since its release, how has Need For Speed 2015 aged? Does it still feel like a racer of the modern era, or has it been left behind?

An interesting reboot for NFS fans

The first big thing to note about Need For Speed 2015 is that it was a franchise reboot. So many games had come and gone before it that the 2015 release had to be a total restart for the entire series. That was interesting and it managed to offer a freshness that did indeed feel like a new start for the series. However, on release, the always-online component caused controversy.

Most fans of gaming do not like always online, as it can mean that games are eventually removed from being playable due to server costs. However, other issues came with the always online element. For one, it was not possible to pause – which meant that any kind of distraction mid-race would probably mean failure. Also, performance issues were rife – and while improvements did come along during the games lifespan, it was a poor first impression for the rebooted series. In terms of actual gameplay, Need For Speed 2015 continues the series direction of being rapidly paced and arcade-y in the way it plays. It is probably more akin to something like Burnout than it is to Gran Turismo, for example. The game was well-received in general for fun gameplay, but the elements above definitely soured its initial impression.

A required reboot that failed to finish first (7/10)

Given the time period that Need For Speed 2015 was released, it came out during a highly competitive era for racers. Therefore, it is fair to say that it quickly fell by the wayside. The fact a new game came out in 2017 meant that 2015s NFS offering was soon forgotten.

The game did bring together an interesting enough story mode, and the racing was fun enough. It felt slick, the visuals were impressive for the release time, and they still hold up pretty well today. Cars felt slick and fun to use, and the level of customisation was pretty incredible. However, the mission types in the story mode became quite dull and the AI could be a bit annoying to race against.

Pros

• Fun racing game with visuals that still stand up pretty strong to this day
• Excellent vehicle customisation made it easy to build exactly what you wanted
• Impressive world detail that made races feel engrossing and enjoyable

Cons

• Story mode was fun, but the actual plot and characters were hard to warm to
• Always online controversy caused performance issues and held the title back