I have played these games since the original PlayStation but once switching to PC in 2000, I stopped playing racing games abandoning my Dreamcast and PS2 until Rivals. Rivals, other than the miserable 30 fps lock for consoles which found its way to PC, was fun but quickly became boring with only challenges to do and no story. I moved on to The Crew and was blown away at not only the scale, but the multitude of race disciplines I could take part in. I picked up Need For Speed (2015) but didn't play it, but instead continued to play The Crew and Forza Horizon 3. I picked up NFS-Payback but again didn't play it because I was playing FH3/TC and then FH4 and TC2.
It wasn't until I saw a video online comparing graphics of NFS-Payback, TC2, and FH4 that I install NFS-Payback to see if it looked as bad as the video made it seem. I honestly didn't expect much which is why I hadn't installed either NFS game since purchasing them because of the boring gameplay I experienced in Rivals, which was a preorder. I suspected the game wouldn't look as bad because even an aged Rivals looked better, but I was blown away with Payback. The story was fantastic and the interaction of the characters was perfect. The graphics, I can only assume the person doing the comparisons either used a console for video recording or the lowest setting on PC to intentionally make the game look bad because Payback looks very good on the Frostbite Engine with everything maxed out. Not Forza good, but still very good.
I still haven't finished Rivals even though I have kept it installed all these years, but I am looking forward to playing NFS (2015) now and very excited to see the next title you introduce into the series because NFS-Payback was the most fun I have had in a racing game in a long time purely because of the story. So thank you Ghost games and I hope that your next title will stick to this formula of racing and story telling. It was a blast!
