E.A. Used to be a good company. What happened?

[UGotRektBrah]

It seems to me that EA rushed the team at Ghost to get a full AAA game out before they could achieve it and this was the result.

This is a long post so let's get into it...

Handling

Let's start with the handling/physics, it's not good, cars feel unresponsive and heavy, the wheels do not respond fast enough to my input, it takes an age to go from full lock to opposite lock. Even with assists all turned off the game still tries to take control and veers you into walls, pushes you in a random direction, pulls you out of drifts, prevents you from drifting, or randomly throws you into a drift.

You can clearly see when drifting that the wheels will do their own thing and completely ignore your input, if you tap the handbrake while drifting to help increase your angle the wheels will snap back into the center and then freakout.

The handling is a constant losing battle with the game to get the cars to do what I want instead of the game just taking over and * me up.

AI

Both the racer and civilian AI is annoying.

The civilian AI barely follow the roads and will think their path goes across hatch markings or along the hard shoulder and they refuse to go around anything that's even slightly in their way, it's hard to anticipate and avoid them when they drive like damn idiots and don't stick to the road, they'll make random U-turns when there isn't room and get stuck in the middle of the road, and they phase randomly in and out of existence.

The racer AI rubberbands like crazy, I get that instead of a difficulty setting you have tried to make the AI adjust to the driving of the player but it just doesn't work properly, they will be rocketed up ahead of you if you start doing well and then it's impossible to catch them. They seem to completely ignore the fact that other racers exist and will just ram into you and the other AI, sometimes so hard they send each other flipping and flying wildly out of control.

Even your own AI can't figure out how the handling in this game works and will crash into each other and into corners and cause pile ups.

In Drift Train and Gymkhana events we have a score that we have to hit but apparently the AI don't have to hit this score and as such they just speed off ahead without drifting while you are stuck trying to drift but also having to keep up with them. On the subject of Drift Trains, the idea is to all stick together and drift in a nice neat line but the AI won't wait for you and they won't leave you a space wherever you happen to be in the pack, they will force their way past you and ram you and others out of the way, completely ruining the whole point of the event.

There's also the fact that when turning up at most of the cutscene areas like the Diner, Robyn's Trailer etc, the AI would take over and crash the car into the wall as it parks up.

Multiplayer

This is yet another problem going on in the world of NFS: 2015.  The multiplayer aspect of this game is really a joke.  There isn't much competitiveness, and all you ever get in the open world is people wanting to be trolls against others trying to do missions.  Easily fixed by integrating an option to make it so other players can't hit your car, but E.A. won't do that because that requires work.
Map & World

The map itself is pretty small and has very little variety, but the worst thing is the random roadworks, jutted out walls and medians right as you come round a blind corner, this map was clearly not designed with racing on it as the first thought. Then there is the constant night and rain, it's dull and dreary, and your cars never look their best because it's always too dark, wet and grainy to see them properly.

Racing Line

That blue line is the worst, for a start it's too bright and obtrusive, it's on the road as if it's a racing line but it's really not, it's all over the place. It will just snake it's way down a straight road making me think there's a corner coming up or something to avoid even though there isn't, but you have to follow it due to the fact that whoever designed this map thought that random roadworks, jutted out walls and medians right as you come round a blind corner are a fantastic idea, also junctions confuse the hell out of it and it will break and have gaps and stuff.

Police

Up until you hit heat level 4 or 5 the police are basically pointless, they are slow and their AI is terrible, they will just drive into stuff and just keep wheel-spinning at it rather than reversing which means they just can't follow you, after you hit level 4 or 5 and the spike strips come out and more than 1 officer get involved then it becomes a bit of a challenge to lose them but before that they're just a minor annoyance that you have to deal with before you can continue.

Also there's the fact that 90% of the Daily Challenges involve the police so then you just have to spend ages driving around randomly in the hopes that you will come across an officer, why is there not just always (or at least very likely to be) officers outside the police station so that you know you can just go there and get the challenge done without spending ages mindlessly driving about in the dark and rain?

User Interface

Menu - Trying to play with friends is impossible, if we're both already in the game then one of us literally has to close down the whole game and reopen it to get back to the main menu where we can invite a friend to our crew because there is no way to invite a friend to your crew if you game is full which it generally is as it's only an 8 player server, or leave your current game and return to the main menu that we could find.

Phone - Constant phone calls, I know what events I haven't done - they are on my map, I don't need them to call me all the time especially right in the middle of a race to remind me and then every time I start the game or have to leave to join a friend for them all to call me one by one to tell me about the events they already told me about last time - the phone never stops ringing until you complete the story at which point it never rings again and your new friends are no more.

Decal Editor - Really badly designed, cumbersome and difficult to use. Every single button press in the editor is not recognised until I press it at least 3 times which is incredibly annoying, there is no ability to see data on how big or small you are making something, or the rotation angle etc to be able to line things up, there is no option for saving colours or seeing recent colours so you can easily make decals all the same colour, there is no grouping or mirroring which makes things take so long (I know mirroring is coming in an update but it should have been there from the start, and that one thing won't fix everything else anyway).

Screenshots - I don't want to save a screenshot at the end of every race but I have to spend time waiting for this screenshot of my battered up car thats not fully in frame as the camera is glitched through the floor with a bunch of text over the top of it to upload every time - such an annoying waste of time. And then when I do want to look at myscreenshots I have to scroll though all these garbage automatic images to find them, and you can't turn that feature off or delete them - so incredibly annoying.

Leaderboards - No end of race leaderboards to see how close the times/scores were is a feature that should be there, this is a racing game after all.

Always Online

The always online aspect of the game is detrimental to everyone.

For a start it means that you never actually own this game, you simply paid full price to rent it until they decide to shut the servers down at an undetermined point in the future.

It also means that you can't pause the game if something come up so you have to restart whole races if there's a knock at the door or something, it means that if the PSN/XBL, EAs Servers or your ISP have issues that are out of control you now can't play the game that you paid for.

It prevents the Suspend/Resume features of the PS4 and XB1 from functioning as you are obviously disconnected and sent back to the menu.

Always Online DRM just * over all your paying customers by tarnishing their experience in a vain attempt to prevent piracy, as it's already incredibly difficult on the PS4/XB1 and on PC pirates will find a way around it anyway.

Cars and Customisation

The car list is less than impressive, 49 cars these days is not a lot especially as the selection is very limited with many obvious choices that are lacking such as any Audis, newer VWs, Mercedes, Jaguar, Evo X (you used one to advertise the game and then it wasn't even in the game!), RX-8, Gallardo, WRX Sedan etc etc. In a game about car customisation, why even bother including Ferraris instead of something else, when you can't even do anything to them?

The customisation that was touted as the most extensive in Need For Speed history is also less than impressive, plenty of Rocket Bunny kits, but not much of anything else, obvious kits like the Veilside for the RX-7, or the Shelby kit for the Mustang as in the NFS movie are missing, most cars have no options for headlights and taillights etc, 80% of customisation is locked behind "restricted item" barriers too. How can it possibly be suggested this is more extensive than the near limitless possibilities that Autoscupt gave us?

Many of the spoiler options leave you with the only options being a massive great wing or just nothing.

The Need for Speed branded parts are identical parts on all cars and not tailored to them limiting options even further, and often times clipping through things which begs the question as to why some stuff is restricted despite other things just being left clipping through bodywork. There's also certain exhausts that clip though bodywork.

Why is there the option for about 6 different nearly identical Turbochargers in each category? They are basically all identical in stats, some maybe offering 1hp more than others, but it doesn't give you any indication as to the point in them or whether they are designed to work better with specific other parts, sound different or offer anything else, it just confuses things.

No roof scoops, no neons or LEDs, no NOS purge, no door handle smoothing, no replacement grilles in black, carbon or chrome, no smoked/tinted lights etc

An obvious missing option for customisation is Carbon Fibre replacement parts, replace the standard hood with an identical carbon hood or the wings, mirrors, roof etc

What happened to the ability to customise your brake discs and calipers from the beta? Why was this removed in the full game?

All the rims edges stick out about a centimeter from the tyre wall, this is not what normal wheels rims looks that I've seen, and the tyre widths on some cars are a joke.

I bought non-popup "racing" headlights for a Mazda MX-5, when they turn on they still pop up when they shouldn't and look ridiculous, clearly they are broken. I've also seen posts on here suggesting that happens with other cars with popup headlights when replaced with non-popup variants.

The paint sliders are not nice to use, you have to remember the position of each slider for consistency, it's hard to get a bright colour that's not all chromed, matte paints are way too dull, and white wheel rims are seemingly impossible.

Visuals

Graphically it's quite pretty but as I said, the rain and night makes the game look very dull and dreary all the time, the cars are constantly wet and dirty, and always have ugly wiper marks across the windows (despite the wipers never being on), the world itself is also very dull and lacking in much interesting detail.

There is ridiculous artifacting on decals leaving pixelated blocks all over the place on the cars.

The damage serves no real purpose other than to make my car look * at all times, it doesn't cost money to fix it just takes sitting through two loading screens in and out of the garage before you leave the garage and run straight into the back of another player in the cutscene and your car is damaged again.

Story and Cutscenes

The best feature of this game was the live action cutscenes with your cars in them, I loved seeing my cars look like they had come to life in the FMV videos, it's a shame this wasn't utilised more often.

The story itself was really badly written, it wasn't really engaging, I expect a cheesy story in NFS but this was just terrible, they tried to include some drama such as when Spike gets upset but it just makes no sense and then everybody is all happy again a few mins later anyway so it's completely pointless, it was also full of inconsistencies and confusion such as talk about Manu being sexist when I hadn't heard him be sexist at all, the supposed development of a relationship between Spike and Robyn that never goes anywhere, phone calls referencing things happening soon that had already happened etc...

Also you would always arrive to places where your group is but none of their cars are there and when you leave with the rest of the group or some of them, when you got back into the game none of them were there in their cars, it's a small thing but their cars should be there and they should drive away from the place with you to add to the effect.

Conclusion

Need For Speed 2015 is not a good game, it's unfinished and should not have been released yet, the car list, handling, customisation, storyline, multiplayer and map are severely lacking. This game was way too over ambitious for Ghost Games with the time frame they were given and it shows.

We all hoped this would be revival of our beloved once great series, alas it is shaping up to be yet another nail in the coffin that is Need For Speed with mediocre review scores and many complaints.

I hope this isnt the end for NFS but I fear it might be, for me at least.