Overall though Payback’s vehicular combat system completely lacks the precision of the one found in the decade old Burnout games. You do get the odd sequence where you must fight off cop-cars, and there's a mechanic which lets you barge into them, sending them off the road into spectacular Hollywood-style pile-ups (although the game doesn’t dwell on those as much as it should).
Although the off-roaders have an annoying tendency towards fish-tailing, for the most part the cars are satisfyingly tail-happy and eager to drift, so you can turn in early and back them into corners, Ridge Racer-style. Payback isn’t an intrinsically bad game: its open-world is large and varied, and the cars handle as you would expect in an arcade-oriented game.
While the story missions are something to be endured, there’s better news elsewhere: you must grind to unlock each story chapter and, for once, the grinding is the most enjoyable part of a game. Payback’s action takes place in Fortune City, loosely based on Las Vegas (although, mercifully, with much more elevation changes than its real-life counterpart). Past Need For Speed games often featured a cops versus robbers theme, but Payback eschews that in favour of street-racing – along similar lines to Rockstar Games’ much-loved but now dormant Midnight Club franchise. The shadow of the far superior Burnout – an IP still owned, although apparently shelved, by Need For Speed publisher EA – still looms large over the Need For Speed series, and the likes of Microsoft’s Forza Horizon games have offered stiff opposition recently. The Need For Speed games have had various high points in the past such as 2010’s Hot Pursuit and 2013’s Rivals, but the series’ most recent outing, a reboot released in 2015, attracted a critical mauling mainly due to its annoying online-only structure.īoth Hot Pursuit and Rivals were made by Criterion, British developer of the revered Burnout series of games.
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