^Stay tuned for Thursday Night Roar!
Need For Speed Unbound has existed as a ghostly whisper for years: a vague apparition that haunts EA’s shareholder meetings but never actually manifests itself in physical form. It wasn’t until October of this year that it was revealed that not only did it exist, but that it would be released in just a few weeks, and that it featured a left-field art style that superimposed animated graffiti and manga-style art onto the series’ traditional surrealism.
To put it mildly, this made a lot of people raise their eyebrows. Some of them come in pairs. But thanks to EA Play (and, for most of us, it’s included with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate), we’ve been able to take a content-packed 10-hour trial and confirm that the risk has paid off: Unbound is a slick An open world racer with fresh ideas, not afraid to be punished for player mistakes.
It’s not a Sunday drive car collector’s sim like Forza Horizon (I like it, but actual racing isn’t the point, the pun is definitely on purpose). This isn’t a thinly-veiled follow-up to arcade crash simulator Burnout Paradise, like many Need for Speed before it. No, this is a stylish game about high-stakes speed racing, and it feels so good in the hand that putting up with your mistakes is all part of the fun. As Sherif said in his recent article, Need For Speed has finally figured out what it wants to be.
So… why doesn’t EA seem to want to show it to anyone before its imminent release? We thought about that and more on The Thursday Nite Rant, a show we couldn’t think of a title for, so we stole it from Dril’s tweet. Let us know in the comments if you think we’ve run out.
