NFS Heat almost a great game

[God_Digg]

First off I would like to start off by saying I have played through the whole game (at medium difficulty [manual])

The Story:

 Having limited expertise in nfs games (having only played underground 2, payback, and nfs 2015) I would just like to say out of all of these games, never have I found the story as entertaining and enjoyable as this one. The characters all had great personalities that fit in with the narrative, and there was not one character that I felt could have been changed. Amazing villains, that I actually found interesting. Especially Shaw. His overall character with his car just fits so well. I was surprised to find myself going back and rewatching some of his scenes (especially the repo scene) just because I thought it was interesting and good plot.

This being said, I found the story quite short. (each story). I mean do the developers just expect the side-races for money and rep to be "apart" of their campaign because they just aren't. Sure the racing and pursuits are fun and entertaining but they do not advance the storyline at all. The only thing that does is the main story missions and although these missions are quite great, they are just to short lived for this to be the end product. Not gonna lie, when I completed the main storyline, at the end of it I thought "oh I feel like im only half way through the game, I wonder what this character will start doing, or what happened to this character..." I expected for there to be more, but there just wasn't. 

Also, what is up with the Showdown storyline? Seriously? A storyline of racing in next year showdown races and races with new rookies to the scene. I feel like this whole storyline was just character background/history for lucas. 

The Controls:

Although I am repeating what a lot of people are saying right now on these forums, I will say it anyway. What the hell? 

No support for wheel and pedal controllers(as of now - release). I mean it is 2019 and you are gonna release a racing game without support for pedal and wheel controls. ok. Look I personally dont own/use them, but if I did, i would be a pretty unhappy customer.

Manual controls! Ok now this is what gets me personally angry. I played nfs 2015 and I enjoyed the controls for manual play, however what is this. For some reason for controller play, they decided to map the shift up button right above the right trigger. Many problems with this! First off; if a player wants to hold the controller normally, in order to shift up a gear they have to release their finger off of the gas trigger, press RB, and then repress the gas again. I dont know if this was what they intended, but if you do not input this fast enough you will lose 1-2mph on every upshift. NO! you cannot change the input commands for controllers (as of release[ on pc - do not know about ps4/xbox]). But you can change input commands for the keyboard... but its a racing game, so I and many people prefer controllers. All in all I ended up playing through the game by adjusting and having to have one finger on the gas and another finger hovering on my RB (upshift) button. Which was very uncomfortable for the first few hours, until I just got used to it.

Another issue with the manual controller layout is the fact that the the Upshift button is the same button to enter garages and bribe cops. Many people have posted about incidents where they accidentally bribe cops, or enter the garage all because they just wanted to change gears. Everytime I leave the garage I have to redline in first gear until the popup to enter the garage finally goes away. (this is such a huge problem that I am pretty sure this is gonna be changed almost instantly - hopefully).

I mean do the developers even test their own game? Or do they consider "testing" inviting a bunch of youtubers and influencers to play the game before release?(im talking about you EA GAME CHANGERS) And if so did none of those people play the game in manual?? Seriously its laughable.

P.S. I have one reason to believe why they decided to go with this default controller layout, and that is due to some missions requiring the player sneak drive and to look at odd angels(other than just straightforward). Maybe thats why the made the camera control on the right thumb stick???

Release:

As of playing this game on release, there is so little people putting out content of this game except for the few dedicated people. I believe this is largely in part to the anticipated game Death Stranding also being released. But I can not blame all of it on that.

I mean seriously, they sponsored David Dobrik (who dosent even have a single gaming video) to fly out to a release party (with all of his friends) where they are given sick super cars to drive around in, along with a ps4 copy of the game and some other cool merch and stuff (watch the video). I mean maybe they were trying to appeal to the female audience that a large portion of his viewers consist of? I do not know who else was sponsored to go, but from the looks of it no actual big gaming influencers. I just know a rapper also got sponsored and he lost to david dobrik who im pretty sure isnt great at games. 

None of david dobriks friends even own a ps4.. what was EA thinking? The manual controls suck,,,, they fly out non gaming influencers and content creators, shower them with a cool experience, its like they want to appeal to the normies out there.(no offense just ranting). I think they shoudve taken that budget they spent on sponsoring that party and some of those influencers and put it to better use.

That being said, I am writing this at 4 am 2 days after launch and who knows, maybe EA will sponsor some actual youtubers or twitch partners to play this game in the future hopefully. Maybe EA just waiting for Death Stranding hype to die down some before more sponsorships. who knows.

Conclusion:

The community hopes they release more story. The game needs support for pedal controls. Allow people to change button inputs (for controllers). EA either is waiting to sponsor or just hasn't sponsored the right people to promote their game (on release).