Games
What can Ghost Games’ reboot do to stay ahead of the pack?
Need for Speed: Rivals is a solid racer. No one is going to argue too strongly against that. But it's equally fair to say that since Criterion took over, the series has become somewhat formulaic. You're either a police officer or a street racer in a simple, uncluttered narrative that requires you to do nothing but drive around, either racing, chasing or escaping as your current role and mission requires. It's all good, but with the latest entry hitting PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and leaving the last-gen behind, it seems high time for developers Ghost Games to switch up the pace and themes of the franchise.
We're not asking for or expecting major changes, but with the likes of Project CARS and DriveClub troubling Need for Speed in terms of open-world thrills, we're at least hoping to see Ghost Games up the ante and push both consoles to the limit. It's not often Need for Speed finds itself competing (Forza Motorsport is a different beast entirely), but this year, for the first time in a long time, Ghost will need to pull out all the stops. Here are seven things we want see in Need for Speed 2015.
A change to the formula
Since Criterion first took up Need for Speed's searing reins, the franchise has been about cops 'n' racers, filled with Fast & Furious-aping crash-racing and a loose storyline about being the best street racer ever or the cop that takes him down. And you know what? It's fine. In fact, it's better than fine, but it is what it is. From Hot Pursuit, through Most Wanted and into Rivals, the cops versus criminals theme has remained a constant, driving force behind the bare-bones narrative, a far cry (thankfully) from Need for Speed: The Run. But sometimes, change is good. We've seen plenty of franchises flog a good idea to within an inch of its life, and we don't want Need for Speed careening down that particular stretch of asphalt. It's time for a shake-up. Maybe a proper narrative again, or maybe a dual narrative with a little more depth than we're used to. If any series has the chops to add a decent plot to a string of open-world driving events, it's Need For Speed.
Dynamic events
That being said, wouldn't it be cool to exploit the open world angle? Imagine tearing down a country road, engaged in a death-defying street race with a handful of muscle cars, when a twister explodes over the near horizon. How about racing from other players and a flash flood, or an earthquake? Would make for a cool elimination mode, right? Forza Horizon 2 added dynamic weather to its open world, but imagine dynamic world events. That alone would be awesome enough, but just think how cool it would be if they were player-triggered, too. Dropping a water tower on your pursuers, scattering debris that can cause a crash, bringing down a string of power-lines... Need for Speed, at this point in the franchise's life-cycle, should be up for taking risks and really pushing the boat out, visually and dramatically.
Massive multiplayer races
Ghost Games should be throwing together the biggest online racer ever right now. Need for Speed has never been an MMO on the scale of DriveClub, but it could be. A dozen racers on the field is all well and good, but what if you had a dozen pursuers too? Twenty-four cars hurtling full-throttle across the dirt, thrashing, crashing and trading paint at ridiculous speeds. Keep your realistic driving sims, we want white-knuckle arcade madness all the way - we want the biggest online races ever. And yes, we remember the uphill battle we all had with DriveClub’s launch (the servers struggled so badly, developer Evolution was forced to instigate a one-out-one-in policy), but if any company has the cash and clout to deliver a smoother race straight off the starting line, it’s EA, presuming it’s learned its lessons from SimCity.
Crash mode
Don't hate us, but the one thing we’ve always long for in Need for Speed games since Criterion took over are Burnout-style Crash events. Essentially just a very silly physics game, the idea – for those who never got to sample Burnout – was simply to hurl your car (or van, or ice cream track) up a ramp into oncoming traffic, and then use aftertouch and rebound physics to rack up ridiculous scores. On PS4 and Xbox One, this would be borderline incredible, and it would help remind the world what having fun in an arcade racer is all about. You only have to look at what current-gen consoles have done with games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt or Batman: Arkham Knight to imagine what they could do with the more static environments of a crash event. Crackdown 3 meanwhile uses the power of Microsoft’s cloud to compute entire cities collapsing in multiplayer. It’s not just a matter of greater visual detail, but multi-vehicle, physics-defying explosions in 1080p/60fps? Ay carumba.
Fixed glitches
These days, it may have become the sadly accepted norm for a game to launch unfinished to be patched later, but Need for Speed: Rivals had more than its fair share of glitches, some of which have never been fixed, from dodgy pursuit AI (sometimes a cop would just come for you for no apparent reason) to visual issues like texture pop and frame rate drops. We don't always expect racers to be perfect (there's a lot going on at frightening speeds), but this being next-gen and all, we want a cleaner, smoother experience.
Dedicated servers
Host migration is to gamers what a brick in the tailpipe is to a car. We're halfway through a race, or worse, we're on the final stretch, we're about to overtake the leader, we've got the inside lane, we're there, we're so, so close – BAM! Host migration. Game over. The only thing that comes close to that level of rage-inducing frustration is constant lag. Need for Speed: Rivals wasn't the worst culprit for either, but it happened with enough regularity to be a major bone of contention in the forums. It's 2015 – we want dedicated servers that will keep us playing together for longer. No more blown tailpipes.
A sense of humour
Racing games are too poe-faced. Either that, or it's Mario Kart. Burnout used to flirt with humour a little in the Crash Events, but on the whole it was all very serious for a series that was essentially about using your car to destroy other cars. A little novelty, a little light-hearted joviality, wouldn't go amiss, and Ghost Games could do it. We’re not suggesting a Go-Kart mode, but a few novelty tracks to break away from the constant sleekness of it all could bring in a lot of new players.
So there you go. That's what we're hoping Ghost Games bring in for the newest Need for Speed. If there's anything you disagree with or think we should have mentioned, let us know!
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