Review:
Need For Speed: World Review

Welcome back to Rockport.

Need For Speed: World is an MMO racer, set in the same city as Need For Speed: Most Wanted. Unfortunately, it lacks the rest of what made Most Wanted so popular – a story giving a true sense of accomplishment, and actual boss characters to race against.

The game relies heavily on its multiplayer races, which sadly is not enough. Whilst a chance to race against your friends online in personalized cars sounds great, the same is easily achieved in any of the other Need For Speed games fans are likely to have. Now using the same basic story from Carbon or Most Wanted would have worked well here – the presence of NPC racer gangs to duel, trying to earn better equipment to beat them and rise to infamy in Rockport following the events of Most Wanted, but EA neglected this route, probably to their loss. The addition of a coherent storyline would have immeasurably increased the experience of playing, making the game feel more rewarding. Instead we have a set of races, which can be repeated over and over for no other reason than to increase ones level and the cars and upgrades they can get, in order to win more races and do the same thing repeatedly, with no real sense of achievement. Even the police chases, some of the most thrilling and fun segments of the Need For Speed games, feel pointless, often being copied straight from Most Wanted. The same issue was raised in reviews of Carbon, and still nothing has changed.

Now the chance to meet up with pals and play some quick races online for free is a good thing, naturally. However, it is not enough to hold up a game on its own. Sure many FPS work on that principle, but there is less action and attention grabbing in a car race. Sure you get powerups which keep things interesting, but after a while the game becomes repetitive, and nothing is left to hold your interest. Races can be done multiplayer or single player, at which point you're merely playing a Need For Speed game that feels unfinished.

Also, whilst free roaming, you will encounter other players, mostly clustered around areas where one can trigger race events. Once you join an event, all other players vanish, except those partaking in the event, which takes away from the feel of an MMO – that of other people always being around, seeing what you're doing. Police chases for example would have been made more interesting by making it possible for other players to join an ongoing race to divert police attention or sabotage another player's escape. Actually that reminds me – there is no hit detection in this gmae in regards to other players in free roam. Probably a good idea though as with everyone driving cars at high speeds, things would get troublesome fast if that feature was included.