Need for Speed Critic Reviews

A gorgeous-looking, very well designed game that offers five different racing styles to tackle - and a bevy of interesting cars to modify and make your own. Its story is a lot of fun, and it's set in an impressively large environment that is very enjoyable to drive around. A great arcade racer that's both challenging and addictive.

The live-action scenes are a great idea and work well at times, but I also felt they were just put there to move me from race to race. I never fully found myself connecting to any characters or the story.

One of the best Need for Speeds ever. Even if Ventura Bay can be a bit boring, the game is pure fun and adrenaline-driven.

Ghost Games brings us a Need for Speed game with many fan-favourite features such as customization, impossible skids and arcade driving. Although being always online could have been optional and some of the game aspects could have been taken from another perspective, the game is great and most fans won't be disappointed.

The customization features are a welcome return, and the five-layered career lets you play with different approaches to driving. Some aspects of Need for Speed could use more variety, but it’s a solid foundation to move the series forward.

Need for Speed listened to its fans, and that’s why this game deserves to call itself a reboot of the franchise. There’s a few minor flaws, but especially in its multiplayer, this Need for Speed is the first fun one to come out in years.

Need for Speed on the PS4 goes backs to basics and delivers a sturdy racing game on this console.

The game is far from perfect, but it is, at points, truly exceptional. Its jaw-dropping visuals, adrenaline-pumping audio, and highly-customizable handling make screaming around the darkened streets of Ventura Bay an intense thrill. The sense of ownership that comes with tuning a single ride to perfection rather than simply grabbing the flashiest vehicle available proved tremendously rewarding.

There's the racing, which benefits from better customization, diverse handling models, competitive visuals, and assorted racing challenges. These are the things that you expect, and Need for Speed delivers. Then there are the full motion video sequences, which thrive on first-person fist bumps, Monster energy toasts, and people saying the word "hashtag" without irony.

Ghost Games is onto something seriously promising with this franchise reboot. However, being unable to pause the game as well as no option to play offline may prove two obstacles that are not surmountable for some players.

A rebirth for the series, but not the perfect one fans hoped for. While the Tuning is awesome, and the campaign is long and satisfying, seeing rubber band AIs in 2015 is truly appalling. This choice, paired with the “always online” structure) kind of ruins an otherwise great arcade racing game.

Need for Speed it's a great game full of good intentions. But the franchise still has a long way to travel.

An enjoyable, solid and extremely accessible racing game.

Racing feels amazing and organic, with just a small amount of depth which could have been a bit more refined. We could have done without the storylines told by actors that try too hard to be young and modern.

Need for Speed offers nice arcade racing action. It is a good thing tuning your car to your own taste is back, but the acting that is full of semi - hipster words might be a tad annoying.

It's a good starting point to build on. Celebrating 20 years for the NFS brand, Ghost Games delivers an experience filled with content. There's room for improvements in the online and in the AI, but the foundations for a new interesting direction for the saga are all there.

Need for Speed returns with a title that lacks innovation and content, but it still is very fun and engaging. Also, if you've missed tuning your cars, you'll love this episode.

Need for Speed is fast, fun and good looking.

Need for Speed certainly looks better than ever, but in the process of recovering its visual identity, it loses some of its more amusing gameplay features such as over the top chases and simple but effective multiplayer structure. Need for Speed is more about neon lights than actual spark.

Need for Speed, like the world of Venura Bay, is full of dark and light areas. The tuning, the speed feeling, the visuals are good, but the AI and the lack of variety make its tires blow.