Need for Speed: Heat Review

About the game
Need for Speed: Heat is the fourth of this generation's Need for Speed game, having become a series released every two years instead of annually. This time, you are a racer who participates in legal races during the day and is banned at night.

Positives

The game is beautiful, especially cars. The game takes place in Palm City, which is similar to Miami. There is beautiful lighting at night with neon bulbs and reflection of lights on wet roads and precipitation, while in the day the effect is weaker but still a nice game, although not as smooth as those in Gran Turismo and Forza games. Good diversity and open-world offer different enjoyable environments. In the daytime, you choose a race and collect money while at night you participate in prohibited races to enforce your reputation and spread your name. The way the game is that you can move at night from the menus, while at night you collect reputation for racing at an increasing pace, but you are vulnerable to being caught by the police, and the police are more dangerous and difficult at night and lose all gathered, so there is always a risk and reward in completing the races or resort to the nearest safe house to move For the day and keep the reputation points, which you use to open new parts for your car. Optimizing your vehicle, both formally and improving its performance is beautiful and in-depth. With simpler control, you'll feel that your car is yours and your design.

Negatives

The cars are somewhat heavy in control, although slipping with turns is easy, hitting barriers and even trees do not affect them as if they were made of paper. The game is somewhat lost between wanting to be a realistic and unrealistic car game. Add to that the movement is not as soft as its competitors (30 frames instead of 60). Online development is somewhat superficial and is not an essential part of the game story or game. You can wait for others to take part in the race, but you will often get tired or you will not find anyone, and the story is generally better to ignore.

good to mention
There are two coins in the game, money (called a bank) and reputation (called a rep). You get the first from winning the races and buy the parts and accessories, while the second gets the night's win (and double when you increase your heat or heat) and make more available for purchase.

Summary
A fun and varied game, although the series is still looking for its identity even after a two-year break. The best part of the series is this generation, but there are opportunities for improvement.

Video of the game