Need For Speed Payback: Someone Pay Me Back

[dizzariot]

Don't ask why. The answer is I don't have PS4 for Gran Turismo and the sad truth is that this game still has better customization than anything else out right now. Rockstar should really shit out another Midnight Club.

Story:

Fucking garbage as expected. I muted most of it and what I didn't have the pleasure of missing made me cringe every time someone talked. I'm honestly amazed that someone thought this shit would seem cool. Pornos have a better story and obviously a way better payoff. I'm pretty sure whoever wrote the story is a sociopath that wore a trench coat to school year-round while trying to get you to duel him in Yu-Gi-Oh. After beating you he'd tell you that he's like, totally had sex with like, soooo many chicks.

Customization:

They said it would be more in depth. That's a lie unless you consider headlight/tail light shaders and colored smoke to be the level of customization you were looking for, nay, dying for.

I'll start with the obvious here: The 180SX Type X. Same level of customization as the first game...but wait! You can give your car sleepy eyes! *sarcasm*

Seriously this is fucking stupid if you're like me and only bought the game to modify cars. You have to perform different tasks in the real world to unlock the ability to customize different parts of the car. Certain challenges unlock front fenders, others unlock tail lights, and so-on. I kept hoping that when I unlocked a different part of the car to work on I'd see some new shit. No fucking chance. They have a 'grilles' section for the 180SX and I thought that MAYBE I'd get to choose some N1 style vents for the front bumper. Nope. The 'grilles' section applies tape exes on the headlights. Not making thing shit up.

They also removed the (only cool?) part where you can adjust the 'track width' to fill out your fender wells. They left F/R camber and ride height but you'll end up with sunk rear wheels and bulging fronts in most cars.

To make matters worse, the game forces you to have one of each 'class' of car. Not classes like you and I would lump them to, no...there's Race, Drag, Runner, Drift, and Offroad. Whereas games like Forza require you to purchase a certain car to do a certain series at your leisure this game forces you to have all 5 at once thus taking up storage space in the garage. The real kicker here is that once you buy a platform for that drive style you're stuck doing only that in that particular car.

I got to the part where I needed a drag car so I chose the R32. The drag racing is a boring enough endeavor on it's own but when you purchase a car it permanently looks like a drag car (i.e. the R32 has drag car 'fitment' and can't be modified to look like anything but.) If you buy an R32 at a Drift Store you can only use it for drift. Mine was purchased from the Drag Store so I'm fucked. I'd buy another one for a different type of driving but that brings me to my next point...

Purchasing a car is the biggest crock of shit in this game. I don't know why in the fuck the prices have skyrocketed but an R32 in the game costs about $88k and the BRZ goes for $55l iirc. You genuinely can't buy a few cars until you've played the shitty campaign and even then you spend all of your money on a car BEFORE you have to spend money on upgrades. I bought the 350Z for $70k after the developers toted it around in videos. There are less options for it than the 180SX. Went to sell the fucking thing and the game gives you less than half back.

Gameplay:

It's an arcade game so don't expect Forza, for obvious reasons.

The cop cars and other villains are magnets. The pursuers magically 'boost' whenever you use nitrous rendering it effectively useless. They also become suicidal locomotives barely impaired by surrounding traffic. It makes for a game that, no matter your driving 'skill' level, will end up frustrating you because no one can out-magnet or out-run the computer. Seriously these Dodge Chargers must have 918 Spyder engines in them.

I'm sure I'll add more if we end up talking about it enough. I can't say I was duped because I knew the game would be bad but I'm still left wanting more in the modification department. Hopefully someone reading this can save themselves some money. At this point I'm hoping Rockstar gets back into the mix with Midnight Club...at least the Rockstar guys really do their homework when they make games.

[LoneStarSilvia]

You know what story driven NFS game I actually enjoyed? The Run. It was short, the acting was crappy, the button prompts scenes, meh, but that feeling of blasting across the country was actually a ton of fun. Other than that, the series has totally lost me after the handling model from the previous NFS. That shit was TURRIBLE.

And yes, another Midnight Club would be super dope. PS4 is missing a Forza Horizon type of game other maybe than The Crew? I haven't had the urge to play that one.

[collegekid]

Haven't played a NFS since Most wanted. My wallet and sanity seemed to have thanked me.
Gran turismo 5 or 6 on ps3 still seem REALLY good. I think GT5 shut down their online server but 6 is still kickin and you can find lobbies that are pretty good. I enjoyed most of the midnight club series. Honestly Grand theft auto is okay enough in terms of car selection, for the short bursts that I have been playing.

[Phlip]

I was THIIIIIIIS close to buying Payback back at the beginning of the month. I had finally caved and bought Need For Speed a couple of weeks prior for $17.96 after I had only played Rivals like twice since I have had my PS4 (it came with mine in a package).
Now I know I am not buying Payback until it goes down to the sub-$20 bin.

[exitspeed]

The reviews for it have not been positive.

[OutlawLui]

Forza or bust

[lunchmeat]

Haven't touched nfs since the PS2 was a thing. Played the shit out of Tokyo xtreme racer too.
Yea, I'm way out of the loop.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[Phlip]

NFS Fell off HARD after Shift for the PS3, and was stumbling a bit before that. I ignored the series for the whole time I had my 3, and it seems I will be doing the same for the time that I own my 4, lol.

[dizzariot]

Originally Posted by Phlip

NFS Fell off HARD after Shift for the PS3, and was stumbling a bit before that. I ignored the series for the whole time I had my 3, and it seems I will be doing the same for the time that I own my 4, lol.

Yeah we might get a PS4 since we're in Japan. The games available out here actually look good.

To all the Forza guys: I'm on your side. I play Forza all the time...but I still feel like it's bullshit that I can widen my wheels and have them look the fucking same (no face depth, lip, etc) and as a 180SX nerd how the fuck are you not going to put the Type X in. We have to stop settling for less lol.

[nisileighty]

Originally Posted by OutlawLui

Forza or bust

Agreed. Forza is the obvious best racing game although I do agree that widening wheels literally only makes the wheels wider, without the thought of hitting suspension components or offsets that would fuck your stock quarter panel.

They bandaid-ed that in Forza 7 allowing some cars to widebody and such, but that aspect is still shitty.

What’s even funnier is that the game keeps the same wheel fitment in respect to the body, so the wheel hub/rotor/entire suspension assembly moves INWARDS into the car to account for different offsets. Don’t believe me? Go into the wheel selection menu and zoom on the wheels. Go to the Speedline F1 wheels that have crazy low offset and zoom in on the wheel. Move one wheel over and watch the hub jump back out to normal position. Seriously Forza, that needs to be fixed.

Need for speed has always been shit and I haven’t genuinely enjoyed playing one since I was in elementary school on a PS2 and didn’t know shit about cars.

On a side note, I haven’t played anything but COD WWII for the past 2 weeks or so. Great game.

[exitspeed]

Originally Posted by lunchmeat

Haven't touched nfs since the PS2 was a thing. Played the shit out of Tokyo xtreme racer too.
Yea, I'm way out of the loop.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Man Tokyo Extreme Racer was just so rad. Still have all mine.

[turbronegro]

man nfs hot pursuit 2 on ps2 was the last great one. underground and underground 2 were alright if you like rice, I used to play the fuck out of those two. Most wanted wasn't too bad though, it's the only one I've played as an adult though.

[smoked240]

Originally Posted by exitspeed

Man Tokyo Extreme Racer was just so rad. Still have all mine.

My thoughts exactly!! I use to rip that game up till early mornings doing street races.

[lunchmeat]

All this talk about Tokyo racer is making me want to break out the PS2 and do an all night binge race. Maybe a bit of underground to satisfy my inner ricer.
If I do though, I'll never get my 6 yr old away from it.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[ZenkiKid]

Tokyo Extreme Racer was fun but a lot of the bosses were just unrealistically fast. Only way to beat them was to wait for them to crash.

[LoneStarSilvia]

It's not easy for me to go back to TXR games, I've been spoiled by next gen graphics. Import Tuner Challenge on XBox 360 was legit, just wish it wasn't so condensed compared to the older games. The engines mod visual were ridiculous though.

[tb13]

I understand that the Devs can't add every mod into the game, but if they are going to make a huge deal about how much you can modify your car leading up to release they better add a respectable amount of mods to each category. Really sucks they dropped the ball on it, but what can you expect from recent EA... I feel like these companies should reach out to car communities and create polls about what people want to see instead of letting some internal "car guy" decide what makes it into the game.

As for Forza, as everyone has said it sucks you cannot adjust the "offset" of wheels you put on your car, they are sunken pretty much regardless... I bought Forza Motorsport 7 because its the first Motorsport game to come to PC and I love it, but the mod choices are meh which makes me sad. At least the actual game is a lot of fun.

[dizzariot]

Update:

It seems like common news, but I was unaware Toyota (AND Rays?) didn't join the game this time around. I was also unaware all these cars you race against as NPCs (FD, Hakosuka, Amazon, etc.) weren't unlockable...aaaaand surprise surprise: they said they're coming later. Read that as: you can pay for them later. Fucking cunts.

Bonus:

LMGT4s available on more cars than just the R34, air ride/underglow as vanity items are cool, I finally understand the 'card' system so that's better.

Still haven't beat the game but the dialouge just gets worse and worse. Still want rear valences as an option for the Type X (I know they were a factory option, but the R34 gets a good selection of factory stuff soooo) and I still mist the ability to widen/narrow the wheel base.