The Hate List
1 – Stalkerish Friends
It’s understandable that people will call you when you’re driving. Maybe it happens once or twice a day, but it’s almost unbearable in NFS. It’s actually ridiculous. Even during races I would get phone calls and it got to the point where I wouldn’t even bother answering calls until the race or event was over. The excessive phone calls made me feel like I had a stalkerish girlfriend or an aggressive telemarketer on the other line. No sir, I am happy with my cable service. Please stop calling!
2 – Online Only Means No Pausing
Since you need an internet connection to play NFS, there is no pause button. There were multiple occasions where I would be playing the game and I would get a phone call or the bell would ring or my Wife would call me and I had no option other than to lose the event.
3 – Rubber Band AI
This issue isn’t just limited to NFS. Plenty of racing games suffer from this issue and it can get downright frustrating at times. I lost so many of the game’s events due to the rubber band AI. It was rare during an event that I would leave my opponents in the dust even after racing perfectly around the track. The good news is that a lot of the game’s missions such as the drifting events and time trials don’t have you racing against the AI. Believe it or not, I actually preferred the time trials and drifting events over the actual races.
4 – Too Many Fistbumps
By the end of the game’s story I had concluded that either my character or the story’s characters were extreme germaphobes like Howie Mandel or Howard Stern. There are a ridiculous amount of fistbumps in the game’s cut scenes. I couldn’t help, but draw parallels to the Seinfeld episode where Jerry is dealing with an annoying car salesman who won’t stop high-fiving him. By the end of the episode, Jerry fails to secure a great deal on a car because he simply won’t give the salesman another high five. I almost felt the same way.
