Need For Speed: Payback

The Story and Characters

The development team at Ghost Games returns this year with the third title in the Need for Speed ​​series they developed. The release of Payback is aimed at the PC and home devices, with an emphasis on the story mode, which, as the title of the game suggests, has an emphasis on revenge. The development team hasn’t contributed much to the series in the previous two versions, so will they do so in this version? ? To find out, you should read the following review.

The game’s story follows Taylor Morgan and his two companions Mac and Jesse Miller, who are deceived by a girl named Lina Navarro who gives them a mission to steal one of the fastest hybrid vehicles in the world in exchange for a huge sum of money, but All they find is police pursuit and being put on the wanted list. The owner of the vehicle is Marcus. “The Gambler” Weir will pardon you and ask you to work with him to destroy the organization that defrauded you and stole his cars.

The organization you’ll be competing against is called “The House” and controls the fictional town of Fortune Valley, controlling everything from police patrols to street racing and who wins. They will attempt to compete in the most important annual race the city has ever seen, to win this race and bring about the downfall of this organization.

Gameplay and Graphics

The characters are superficial and boring, the story is weak, the dialogues between characters are disastrous and full of filler, focusing on the story phase is a disastrous decision, and on the various challenges and races that the game offers cannot can be accessed directly, but rather in a specific order linked to the story, making progressing through the story the only solution to participate in the races without having actual missions to complete outside of the story. This story.

The technical level of the game offers nothing impressive and the game seems very ordinary compared to games like Forza and Gran Turismo, which offer better graphics at a frame rate of 60 frames, while Need for Speed ​​​​Payback runs at one speed of only 30 frames. However, the game initially suffers annoyingly from the appearance of details and elements in the environment. Various elements pop up while driving on the road and starting new races, with some glitches here and there, but the game maintains a stable frame rate at least in the busiest situations and frames rarely drop.

Driving and Racing Types

When we talk about driving in the game, here we find one of the few positive aspects, as the driving system is simple, fun and can be customized in a way that suits you. It can be said that the driving system is suitable for this type of driving driving games that tend to be action and arcade, far from realistic simulations.

The game, like its predecessor, offers 5 different types of racing, where we have missions divided into 5 different types and you have to buy a car dedicated to each of these types, which are divided into racing for regular street racing and We have off-road where you drive on bumpy roads and tracks and jump from some platforms to provide an experience. A little enthusiastic.

We have drift races where you “drift” as best you can before the end of the track you are driving on in order to collect the greatest number of points possible. Although the drifting experience is very pleasant and the controls serve it well, the tracks you drive on are very pleasant. The missions placed are annoying and consist entirely of straight roads and are not suitable for this type of racing, and perhaps There are only one or two missions that provide a suitable route for this type of racing.

Additional Features and Conclusion

Finally, there’s drag, where you drive a short distance, usually a quarter mile, and here there’s a manual shift meter for the transmission. These races are all about switching gears at the ideal time and you have to win two laps 3 out of 3 or 3 out of 5. They are short races but are reasonably fun and finally we have the runner where you usually racing against the clock or escaping the police and crashing their car, which is one of the most entertaining racing types the game offers. There are also some missions where you have to pass several different points before time runs out.

During the race, you have to pass certain checkpoints in the game. If you miss these, your progress will not be counted and you will have to return to that point again, which is annoying especially because you will often come across shortcuts that guarantee you victory or easy reaching first place, but these do not. You pass these points which spoils your experience. These points may be understood in racing over time, but in regular racing they seem an illogical idea.

The game features many side activities, such as driving quickly past speed cameras to get a 3-star rating or drifting in limited areas to collect a certain number of points. The game also features tokens scattered around the map and you can collect these pieces and there are media lists that you can browse. This is one of the side activities that the game offers to increase the value of the content provided.

Additionally, if you win over a group of racing teams, you will receive secret locations for a group of classic cars, the parts of which are hidden in different areas of the game world. Exploring the world to obtain these parts and uncover these cars is fun and adds a kind of innovation to the experience. The game world is large but empty. A lot, and most of the areas you race in don’t make up such a big part of this world, and you’ll pass the same streets multiple times while participating in the different races, making the experience seem routine and boring over time .

After completing a series of side challenges, you can modify the appearance of your vehicles, and modifying cars doesn’t seem to be very important or special compared to the previous version. To improve your vehicle’s performance in races, you need to purchase modification cards or get them by winning story missions to also increase the level of your vehicle.

One of the most annoying points in the game is the strange jump in your vehicle’s required level between one mission and the next. In most cases, it is impossible for you to win a race if your vehicle’s level is lower than the required level and the game thus forces you to go back to missions that you have won before in order to win. Money to buy development cards and get them from these races, or by choosing the easiest and most time-saving method of buying card packs by paying in-game, which is very annoying.

You can buy many cars for different types of racing and modify them in your garage. You can find garages for sale in the five different regions that make up the game world. Compared to previous versions, the game does not feature many cars from the series or competing games.

You can connect to the network to compete with other players with a maximum of 8 players and you vote on the type of race and the circuits on which you will compete in the competitive rounds and the content that the group play mode offers limited to these competitive rounds, making the experience virtually negligible.

Final Thoughts

The game’s story will last between 15 and 20 hours as the level of vehicles needs to be increased. As I said, the story is weak and the focus on participating in challenges with them rather than providing the different races for the players from the start is annoying. Although the game offered excellent and entertaining control over the vehicles, it offers an experience that becomes routine and boring with… Time and the development team must think carefully about the next release in the series or pass the role will be transferred to another team that is better able to provide variety and a satisfying experience. It can be said that Need For Speed: Payback is an experience that does not live up to expectations and is not recommended for fans of racing games.