Just this past week in San Francisco I managed to get my hands on some next gen Need for Speed: Rivals, the latest in the Need for Speed franchise.  Playing on both the Xbox One and the PS4 my time with the game was short, around 3 hours or so, but I walked away really impressed with some of the innovation that Ghost, one of the newest EA studios, has brought to the racing genre. Both consoles were running beautifully with native 1080p resolution so I have to say sorry fanboys, no ‘resolutiongate’ to argue about here! Primarily focusing on the new ‘All Drive’ element of the gameplay I played as both cops and racers in what’s shaping up to be one of the best arcade style racers we’ve seen in a long time.
It’s safe to say that the team working on this latest NFS title are fans of the series. They’re taking the best of Hot Pursuit and the best of Most Wanted and merging them together to make an action packed thrill ride of a racing game. After playing a short tutorial that explained to me the basics of playing as a racer or a cop I was thrown into the open world with no limits whatsoever… everything was there for me to drive right away. Choosing to advance as a racer I was presented with three speedwall lists to choose from. Each of these lists has two to four objectives that I need to complete in my single player campaign to advance further. Under the headings of either Race, Pursuit, or Drive each one is unique and you can choose any one of them at any time. I chose the Race list which had simple objectives such as bronze medal a time trial, win a race, and escape a pursuit. As simple as that I’m in game with these objectives to complete at my own pace.
Traditionally when you’re playing a game your single player component is separate from your multiplayer component. Ghost has very smartly integrated the two into a smooth and very easy to use system in ‘All Drive’. Despite being focused on my own single player objectives I was also in the world with five other players, each focusing on their campaign as well. Completing my very first objective I drove past another player who happened to be playing as a cop and initiated a pursuit by very subtly slamming my car into him like a freight train. Now while I’m focused on my single player objective of escaping a pursuit I’m actually involved in a multiplayer game by having another gamer being the one chasing me down. It’s entirely likely that one of my opponent’s objectives was to bust a racer so he was also pursuing his own single player campaign at the time.
As you play through the game you’ll build up SP points to upgrade your vehicles. Each vehicle upgrades separately, right down to the weapons you use, but doesn’t necessarily take a long time to max out so while I might be a level 4 racer I can easily max out my current vehicle and complete against a level 20 racer and not necessarily feel outclassed. It’s nice to know that no matter where I am in my own campaign I can be competitive against pretty much all other racers or cops out there.
Another quick thing to focus on is Overwatch. Overwatch is an iPad/Android second screen experience that has friends following your every move on the map and choosing to either help or hinder you in your gameplay experience. I was involved in a very heated pursuit and while demoing the Overwatch component I had my companion dropping me weapon supplies on the fly. Of course once he was done playing nice with me he also had the option to ruin me and that he did. A quick flick of the fingers and he dropped a road block in front of me that I narrowly missed escaping. I’m now busted by the cops losing all my built up SP points (you have to find hideouts to bank your SP points) and he’s cackling like a maniac quite clearly taking great pleasure in his ruinous ways.
I sat down with Marcus Nilsson, the head honcho at Ghost, for a quick chat about what he wants to bring to the table with Rivals. It should be noted that Nilsson is the former DICE executive producer responsible for some of the multiplayer focused Battlefield titles so he knows a little something about playing well with others. More than anything he wants to ensure that the SP to MP experience is absolutely seamless without the pain of waiting in lobbies for the action to get started. Some of his most fun personal experiences with the game come from joining a few other friends as racers and a couple friends as cops in total Hot Pursuit chaos. Each friend is chasing down their own single player goals but everyone is playing together just the same.
I could easily go into a lot more depth about what I managed to see but quite obviously I don’t want to say too much as this is just a taste of the overall experience. You’ll want to keep your eyes peeled here on COG for our review which should be on its way within the next couple of weeks.
