Need for Speed once led the pack with regards to the arcade racing scene. Recently, though, it's lost what managed to get special while simultaneously being eclipsed by other racers within the genre. A reboot 2 yrs ago was supposed to create the series to once more find traction inside the racing world, but whatever hopes EA had have likely been dashed with Need for Speed Payback, which can serve as evidence that the series might be too far off track to comeback at this point.
Need for Speed Payback follows a little racing crew in Fortune Valley, a fictionalized form of Las Vegas built on sin and street racing. Tyler specializes in drag and traditional races, Mac in off-road and drifting, and Jess is their runner, great for getting away from the 5-0 once they crack recorded on the trio's driving antics. The sport begins with Tyler's crew getting an offer from an old friend named Lina that they can't refuse: help steal a supercar and get a payday that may set them up for life. The only real ones being set-up, though, are Tyler and gang. Now, they're out for revenge against Lina and her boss (the mysterious Collector), and can need to work their way up through Fortune Valley's 10 car gangs to even have a shot at Lina-and maybe getting that big payday after all.
Looking for their contemporaries and racing movies for inspiration, Need for Speed Payback tries to inform a revenge story we have seen almost a half-dozen times already-it's just missing Vin Diesel giving some stupid speech about family. Having said that, its major story beats, which mark the final outcome of each from the narrative's five acts, are in fact an enjoyable experience and things moving in an entertaining direction. Ridiculous car chases, sudden perspective switches, and Michael Bay-worthy explosions will have you slowly inch forward in your chair. And, obviously, everything looks gorgeous as always within the Frostbite engine. The cinematic method of a lot of the scenes worked, and the only times they didn't-when you forced other cars to wreck-is now an option that can be thankfully turned off if you're much like me and hate taking your vision from the action. Unfortunately, it's everything around those major beats that actually let this game down.
From a tale standpoint, the hardest part to obtain behind may be the cast of characters. The bad guys were infinitely more interesting compared to good guys, and i am unsure if the voice-over sessions with this were done during the recent voice actor strike, however i think you could've walked down Hollywood Blvd and randomly asked individuals to audition with this game and gotten better performances. What's worse could it be sounds like some of the actors needed to perform numerous roles (that is more common than you may think), but none of them of these even tried to do a different voice, leading to long conversations where it almost seems like characters are talking to themselves.
And speaking of speaking with oneself, the writing in-between the major story beats is the worst kind of filler, trying desperately to distract you against the grind of the gameplay. Some of the banter between Tyler's crew is entertaining, but many of times you just get a desperate attempt for filling time in the quiet moments driving from mission to mission, with each character randomly times seemingly breaking the fourth wall and talking to the gamer for no valid reason. It just further illustrated from the narrative standpoint that all Ghost Games really had here was a fascinating skeletal structure and never a lot more.
A weak narrative could've been overcome had the gameplay been good, and yet again, Need for Speed Payback falters almost right from the get go. Fortune Valley feels comparable in dimensions to other Requirement for Speed games, however when when compared with its competition within the genre such as the Forza Horizon series or The Crew, things feel small. Although the world comes with a nice bit of diversity with the urban downtown area, plus some evergreen mountainous paths, it all feels artificially segmented sometimes, with so much desert becoming an unusual border for it all.
There is a lot to do nowadays, though. Blatantly borrowing from Forza Horizon, Payback adds Derelicts (barn finds with no barn basically) available throughout the world, developed, and customised inside your garage. There are now also speed traps, drift challenges, and jumps all around the world for a way to earn “Rep,” Requirement for Speed's take on an in-game leveling system that rewards you each time your status increases. You may also earn Rep points-similarly to Forza Horizon-simply by performing tricks in the world or smashing some misconception.
Still, the core for Payback tries to remain the racing, and upgrading in Fortune Valley and knocking from the 10 gangs is difficult when each gang specializes in different things. Drag, drift, traditional racing, and off-road serve as the core of the story experience, with a lot more runner challenges available with Jess that try desperately to setup a backstory for the world-what with EA already (sadly) talking about bringing many of these characters back for a sequel.
In order to have the ability to compete with these racers, you need to have the right car-but complicating your attempts is always that those cars handle a little too loosely, especially when compared with other games currently inside the arcade racing genre. So, it may require a lot of time to obtain accustomed to each car because of this. However, the stock cars themselves won't do you much good for long. Your first three cars receive to you, but next, you have to either get parts to increase your cars' ranking (100 may be the minimum, 399 is the maximum) or buy new cars outright, with lots of of the best ones in each category only unlockable by winning races to start with. So, finding new parts may be the way to go, but usually getting those parts is where Payback's most frustrating feature becomes prominent.
There are tune-up stores scattered around Fortune Valley, as well as in these stores you can purchase and equip different parts for the cars in the form of Speed Cards. As you win races, you'll earn a random Speed Card, which you hope will offer a much better part than something curently have, thus enhance the ranking. In the event that doesn't work-and it always doesn't-you can also take in-game money you earn from winning races and purchase new parts at the tune-up stores. Unfortunately, these also rarely provide you with anything much better than what you currently have, and when they are doing, they're exorbitantly expensive compared to your usual race winnings. This leads you to one of two routes.
The first is the fact that any race you beat, you can re-race for more money and more random Speed Cards, which becomes a clear grind. It's such a grind that what should've been a 10-12 hour experience ballooned to almost 20 hours for me when I reached the game's end. It's a horribly cheap way to make you keep playing a game title, particularly with all the side content crammed into Payback that you might rather spend your attention on. It's such a grind that there are even an achievement/trophy for “grinding” through another race.
Of course, there's also a way around that grind. That's right, it wouldn't be an EA-published game whether it wasn't polluted with microtransactions, and these may be some of the worst yet. When you are getting a Speed Card you wouldn't want, you may either sell it for in-game currency, or exchange it for which is known as Part Token. Three Part Tokens will help you to spin a slot machine (yes, the mechanic is literally a slot machine game) along with you locking within the three spinners-car part (engine block, gearbox, etc.), manufacturer, or boost (nitrous, braking, acceleration, etc.)-and then crossing your fingers. With luck, you'll get only the part you need and it'll be considered a higher level than is currently available to you in either the store or through races.
Payback does offer myriad ways to earn Speed Cards and Part Tokens. Leveling up your Rep or finishing Daily Challenges that are available will enable you to get Shipments, which often carry a vanity piece for the car (colored smoke for when you burn up, novelty horns, etc), some in-game currency, and a few Part Tokens. Three Tokens per spin, though, can easily see you burn through Tokens quickly. So, there's also Premium Shipments that you could acquire by spending real life cash. If you do not do that, you'll be similar to me, grinding for added hours in a system that is purposely balanced to tempt you into those microtransactions. Oh, and to add insult to injury, when you get to the halfway reason for the game, you need to buy completely new cars and perform the entire building process all over again discover utilizing a Derelict.
It's a damaged system and it's offensive they didn't even try to hide the fact that it's all regulated one big slot machine. The rate Card/Part Token product is by far the worst part of this game-it makes the game almost unplayable-and the alternative grind is really frustrating that I literally started to grind my teeth badly while playing this I needed to put in a mouthguard.
What's really sad is when you do lift up your car's level, the races themselves aren't that difficult. They're only challenging if you're not at a level comparable to what is recommended; I tried avoiding the grind and absolutely could not win. You also develop a familiarity with the tracks because of the aforementioned smaller world, where by no more the sport almost all the locations repeat. So, you'll discover the best ways through a particular track, but likely wind up just a little bored racing through it over and over again.
Also, I discovered the AI to become sorely lacking. I played the game on Medium, but as long as I had a car worthy of the race, I saw the AI go haywire more often than actually attempt to produce an aggressive challenge, almost giving me the win. Sometimes my opponents would even take themselves out of the race by looking into making weird turns and drive themselves off cliffs; in other cases I saw them so centered on attempting to just ram me off course that I could easily pass them and cruise towards the finish. Obviously, in the runner missions against the cops, this was their primary directive, and often it would be frustrating to obtain rammed via a barricade that was said to be impenetrable, leaving me not able to get back on the best aspect to finish my getaway.
All of this leads me to the glitches. Even with a day-one patch that has smoothed a few things out and added some nice UI enhancements, there were still plenty of glitches to be seen. If the aforementioned pushing me through a barricade I wasn't designed to go through, or cop cars randomly spawning right in front of me, there were some moments where I wrecked there was simply nothing I possibly could do. I remember when i even saw two cop cars literally spawn directly on surface of each other, riding each other like some horrific nature documentary.
The worst glitches came when respawning following a wreck, however. One thing Requirement for Speed didn't borrow from Forza Horizon was the rewind feature; instead, when you wreck, the game puts you back on the highway, usually in a speed close to that which you were going before your crashed. Unfortunately, when this happens on tight turns, sometimes you'll spawn going at top speed right next to the wall or oddly-placed rock you initially crashed into, and then keep crashing in it. Repeatedly. So much so you need to restart the race due to there being simply nothing else that you can do to escape this infinite loop.
If you do pull through all of this, mostly of the decent things about Need for Speed Payback is the multiplayer. If you have done enough grinding to earn your top-tier car (ranked matches require cars 300 or over, casual matches could be any level), you are able to join the online Speedlists, a well known returning feature from 2023's Need for Speed's final update. It was is a lot of fun, because it only agreed to be 4 to 8 players dealing with a series of five races in the main campaign, with points being dished out a la Mario Kart at the end.
At no more a five-race circuit made up of either off-road or regular races (each race is voted on beforehand), the winner gets a currency and Rep prize that can be carried back to the single-player campaign. (So, this may be another way to grind, too.) The online was entirely stable in my time playing it today throughout the game's launch, and the races against everyone was fun because actual humans performed much better compared to AI did. As great because the online competition was, however, considering the narrative involves three best friends, it sure does seem like campaign co-op not being included was a missed opportunity.
Need for Speed Payback feels like a haphazard mess. The core of the tire fire is the progression system that attempts to funnel you into microtransactions-at best, it is a cheap method to inflate the playtime necessary to beat the game, and at its worst, it's a desperate cash grab from a floundering franchise. The world is littered with glitches, the characters created are uninteresting, and the racing itself still needs work in comparison to the contemporaries within the genre. The only real savior may be the major story beats at least provide a cheap adrenaline rush to wake you up in the lull the rest of the game will settle you into, and the multiplayer-if you can aquire a adequate car-works well, and racing human players is much more fun than grinding from this AI for 25 hours. As I crossed the finish line for that final time, though, Payback was nothing but another disappointing chapter from a once great franchise.
