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I can’t see a need for a Busted Bar if our cars can only take a finite level of damage if I can force my way through a gaggle of pursuit cars without writing off my ride, let me. Also, the Busted Bar timer that ticks down to an automatic loss is absolute baloney.
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I don’t necessarily mind that – it’s a lot to ask that an AI should be able to out-maneuver a human driver without some sort of leg up – but I do hate that it cheats by spawning in cops in close proximity out of nowhere, and their supernatural bursts of speed get old. There’s now a damage meter for your car, so while you can fight back a little and earn instant repairs from gas stations up to three times a night, too much rough stuff and you’ll wreck and be arrested.Ĭhases are definitely biased more towards the cops now. While in Payback you could punt them off to the side, Burnout 3 style, in Heat you can’t really go toe-to-toe with the cops in quite the same way. They are a fair bit tougher, though certainly until you can secure the best upgrades.
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Heat’s cop chases aren’t restricted to pre-set time trial routes like they were in Payback you now have the freedom to escape in any direction. The racing is also more exciting, with traffic to avoid and more aggressive cops to deal with. Night is absolutely the superior visual experience, especially when it rains. If, on the other hand, I need rep points to qualify for more missions and more potent performance upgrades, I’ll race at night. I’m a big fan of the crash barriers being real, individual objects in the world, too there’s a lot less pinballing off invincible walls here. Heat looks a bit plainer in daylight – overall, the environment looks better whipping by at 150 miles an hour than under intense scrutiny – but the racing is decent. If I want money for parts and cars, I’ll race during the day. It’s also worth mentioning that Heat can be played online (where other players can join your events) or completely offline, but you have to opt in to either mode from the main menu it’s not quite as elegant as the seamless online/offline switching afforded in the likes of the Forza Horizon games.Īfter multiple generations of open-world racers where the sun rises and sets without awaiting my instructions I initially didn’t know what to make of Heat’s unique time-of-day switching system but, after some time with it, I quite like the power it grants me to focus on what I need.
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There’s some nice fan service towards the end but ultimately it just tapers off suddenly like a mid-season TV finale and didn’t leave much of a lasting impression.
There’s not a huge amount of story it’s more of an occasional diversion from Heat’s regular racing events. Both are needed to progress through Heat’s story, which still plays out like an off-brand Fast & Furious, but the writing’s a lot more restrained than that of the regularly cringeworthy Payback. Daytime Palm City is defined by regular, sanctioned street racing on marked courses for cash payouts, while night racing is all about illegal, underground racing and running from the fuzz to build up rep points.
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“Heat’s interesting hook is that there are basically two distinct experiences to be gleaned here, and switching between each is a manual process.
It’s obviously only a sliver of the size of something as wildly ambitious as The Crew 2, and a bit lifeless on closer inspection, but it’s far denser than Payback and makes for a more interesting driving experience.
The city itself is the big highlight here – the surrounding countryside is a little unmemorable – but there are a few other cool spots, including a mini Cape Canaveral-style space centre, a fun abandoned racing oval, and a big container yard begging for a shred session. Palm City is Need for Speed Heat’s new playground, and the neon-drenched, Miami-inspired map is a great fit for the classic Need for Speed motif. It’s all been ripped out and sent to the scrapyard.
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Best of all, it’s completely purged of the free-to-play style lottery-based performance upgrade system, the ill-conceived obstacles preventing access to body mods, and most of the other horrible dreck that plagued Payback. It’s a back-to-basics approach with some modern modifications, and it works. Fewer encounters with momentum-killers helped to keep my pace high and my pulse higher. Like in Forza Horizon, even stone walls crumble and trees splinter if you careen off course. The result is deep vehicle customisation and hectic cop chases, but in a world featuring fewer hazards that’ll bring cars to a dead stop. Heat combines elements of fan-favourites like Underground and the original Most Wanted with some welcome tweaks inspired by its contemporaries.