Electronic Arts Need for Speed Unbound for PlayStation 5

I bought this as a gift for my son. He wanted a racing game. Certain other racing games have a lot of cursing and violence. This is a much more appropriate game for kids that is full of action.

Buen juego, los gráficos realistas y animados le dan buen toque, se ve bien. Lo malo, es que me llegó la caja rota…

Dato: Para ponerlo en español, a fuerzas tienes que cambiar el Idioma de la consola a Español España, si lo dejas en español Latam el
Juego queda en inglés, y hasta los subtítulos.

I received the UAE/Africa version of the product from Amazon instead of Asian version. But thankfully, it worked without any issues.

As for the game itself, I played only the campaign and enjoyed it very much. The new handling model is excellent and it suits the game world very well. The burst NOS system is genius and makes the driving exponentially more exciting. I love that the game gives the players a choice between grip-based and drift-based driving, which can be tuned on-the-go provided the car is built to do both, and both of them are distinct and uniquely fun. The overall gameplay mechanics are rock solid. The race tracks are good, with some tracks much better than the others, like The Drop. The different races like drift events, takedowns, corner king, etc.., provide good gameplay variety.

The art style of the game is a mix of hyper-realistic world and car models and cell-shaded character models and driving effects. It is unlike anything we’ve seen in this genre and it looks gorgeous. The driving effects add a lot to the sense of speed when ripping through long straights and elevate high moments like jumps and perfect drifts. They add elements of playfulness and cheekiness which are sorely missing from racing games these days. The graphical fidelity of the world and the cars are also stunning, with great amounts of detail in every model.

The car selection is solid. Not everyone’s dream cars are guaranteed to be in this list. Nevertheless, it’s a great collection of cars that has a good amount of variety. The lack of newer cars launched after 2020 is slightly disappointing.

The story is decent and is a marked improvement over the abomination in NFS Heat. In Unbound, the player character is actually a core part of the narrative unlike in Heat and has stakes in the goings-on. The characters are likeable enough, except for one. The rivals in races have distinct dialogues and models which encourage a sense of competition that is far greater than the preceding entries in the series.

Some people may be deterred by the grind involved and may think of it as repetition. But to me, I was happy to grind as it let me buy and customise the cars I wanted.

I have very minor gripes with the game that can easily be overlooked. Overall, I had a blast with this game and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a solid arcade racing experience with great arcade driving physics.