Need For Speed: Rivals

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Game Description :
Developer: Ghost Games, Criterion Games
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Genre: Racing
Release Date: November 19, 2013


Synopsis:
Need for Speed Rivals is a 2013 racing video game set in an open world environment. Developed by Ghost Games and Criterion Games, this is the twentieth installment in the long-running Need for Speed series.
As a Racer, the player will be playing the role of a veteran street racer, Zephyr. Upon his uploads of his videos, of his car outrunning cops in illegal, street races, a number of other racers also begin to post their own videos of themselves outrunning police cars. By this, the police force of the county begins to challenge the racers, and in the process, Officer McManis, the head pursuit drivers, is injured after a racer busted and wrecked his car. After this incident, the police begin to use excessive force on racers.
In the Cop storyline, the player starts by going to his training to be a member of Redview County Police Department. After he completes his training, he becomes a member of the police force.
One day, the RCNN (Redview County News Network) broadcast a instant flash news report, in which a video shown of street racing was trending online by Zephyr. Also, a large number of racers began to upload similar videos similar to the featured video, and it was revealed that street racing became a viral activity around the county and they seek notoriety. By that, the public accuses the police of intimidation, and they hold several rallies and marches against The police force.


Plot:
In Rivals, there are two whole different storylines that the player can choose to play in, as a Racer, and a Cop.
Wile in process, you are allowed to switch sides between the racer career and the cop career at anytime, saving your current progression as a Racer/Cop Rank. Completing missions which are called speed lists, completing a certain number of a set of goals, the storyline moves forward, giving us players new cars and abilities such as pursuit techs in the process.
These are the two main plot of the first parts of rivals, I won't get too much in-depth because it would start originating spoilers.
The story about police trafficking of the Racers in Red View County, the main characters in the racing storyline: Zyphyr and F8, aka Faith, will be able to run away and record themselves running away from the Cops, and upload it to the internet to get viral, in oder to inspire a lot of street racers in red view county; to take over the county from cops, to street racers. The head Cop Force MacMain, will be taking part in taking down Zyphyr and H8 over the street races and viral videos. In both sides, there are no hesitations in loosing nor winning, which leads them stronger in both sides.



Gameplay:
After beating the storyline and accomplishing all achievements in the game, I will give a full statement on the gameplay.
As I wrote in the plot, players take on the role of a Racer and a Cop, with each side of the law offering its own set of challenges, tasks and type of rewards. In Rivals, there are eleven Pursuit Techs such as EMPs, shockwaves and the ability to call in roadblocks, helicopters and spike strips. They can be purchased and upgraded using speed points, which you get completing speed lists and tasks, even driving around Red View County. The game takes place in a location called Redview County in Europe, which is a completely free roam map and features over 150 miles of total open road, to show how big it is, Grand Theft Auto 5 has 21 miles, which makes Rivals 7 times bigger for example. The open world features a very similar set-up to the past titles with several jump spots, speed cameras, repair shops, and even shortcuts that are not shown on the map.
Rivals features a full career progression for both Cop and Racer. When playing as a Cop, there are three types of career. They have Patrol, Enforcer, and Undercover. When the player completes a set of objectives such as Race, Time Attack, the player levels up and will unlocks new items, and is presented with another set of objectives to choose from.
Rivals features a new social system called the AllDrive, which allow us players to smoothly transition from playing alone, to playing with friends. This allows us players to in engage co-op and online gameplay as well as playing against each other. The game also features a dynamic weather system, and also a Day-Night cycle.


Sounds and Graphics:
The graphics in this game is absolutely remarkable. The game operates very seamlessly even with an amazing high graphical resolution on the current generation console like how I myself use to play Rivals, the light reflection and the weather dynamic system peers with the Need For Speed feel relentlessly. There were a few graphical issues when I first downloaded the game on demand, but they were tiny icon issues that fixed itself in no time. The landscapes and the whole open world offers an very in-depth and detailed texture, even after 50 hours of gameplay I did not notice one graphic issue.
Onto the sounds and soundtracks, as the previous titles, need for speeds includes with a large variety of songs during races, starting from dubstep, electronica, electropop, electronic rock and hip hop. These songs are all well done, all songs are originally made by the game studio, copyright free on YouTube.


Controls:
In Rivals, most of the controls are same to the previous titles, the only difference is the use and deployment of the Pursuit Techs. When you buy, select and upgrade your Pursuit Techs in the garage, you can set two Pursuit Tech at once, one for the A button and one for the Y button. The problem I noticed here, is on screen it doesn't indicate which button is which: which allows you to get confuse in sticky situations pressing and deploying the wrong Pursuit Tech, which can lose you your winning spot on a race or even get you busted by the cop. This happened to me numerous times, a very easy way to fix it was to simply input the command on the HUD. Other than that, there are nothing wrong with the controls in this game, the car handling and the command placement is nicely executed.



Ratings:
Plot : 9/10
Gameplay : 9/10
Graphics : 9/10
Sound : 7/10
Controls : 7/10

Over All : 8.2