About the most important thing that you should know about Need for Speed: Rivals, We have already written as part of a report with Gamescom 2013, and just recently we managed not only to play the project at the stand, but to spend for Need For Speed: Rivals for four hours. We tested the version for PS4, looked at how new network mechanics Alldrive and Overwatch work, and at the same time talked with Chris Roberts from the Ghost studio, one of the leading gamemeracies of the project. A video interview with him will be on the site later, but for now – the first impressions!
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You can't leave me
Redveh district. The place at first glance is unremarkable: fields, forests, snowy peaks of mountains, canyons, small settlements – a typical American outback. The pastoral, however, cannot be enjoyed: the strained sounds of police sirens, the roar of engines and the tires of the tires on the damp pavement after morning rain are torn off the silence. Street dashings go to the war on the war, who do not care about public order and state property.
They, of course, lay out their feats on YouTube, so this risky fishing is becoming more popular and popular. In the district, dozens of talented drivers drive gasoline to adrenaline – always on the tip, always with bare nerves. Still, because the police are opposed to the riders, whose preparation and equipment (a cop on the domestic Marussia B2 is a familiar business!) they make you believe that Prevve is a kind of important strategic object, and not at all there is a backwater.
► In the statics of Need for Speed: Rivals does not look so impressive, there are no effects, and there is no sensation of speed at all. But in dynamics ..
The new game world is very different from what was in last year's Most Wanted – another mechanic is all to blame. According to Chris, Rivals is a game about the most cool chases that you can only imagine. Here, first of all, it is important to behave aggressively, as if I had traveled to the track for the last time; distracting all sorts of little things there is no time. There are no too sharp turns, I had to get rid of the urban environment, to enter the turns and the controlled skid here is very easy. We got used to management after half an hour, you also get used to the behavior of different cars, and this is good – when a flock of cops fly behind you, there is no time to run up a new car.
► Unfortunately, on PlayStation 4, we noticed FPS subsidence – usually with a large number of objects on the screen. We hope that in the final version this will not be.
You can play both for criminals and for the forces of law and order, and for each there is a separate plot campaign, and history is presented in between the tasks. During the races, no one distracts, and the game world is completely open from the very beginning. You can switch between campaigns in one of the shelters or command posts, which are enough in the Redve. It is necessary to advance on history for the sake of new cars. The tasks are quite ordinary, like “defy three cars, cross the finish line first and still maintain a certain speed within five seconds”. Set of tasks can be selected, and in the breaks between them we watch simple videos either about the police or about criminals. Skopes and racers tell about their lives very seriously, without a share of irony, almost like in a trailer for the movie Need for Speed. Gloomy monologues about strength and opposition, about adrenaline, about the risk.
We are rivals
The forces are unequal, because the police certainly do not risk anything, and it feels like they can do everything: exceed the speed, ride on the oncoming lane, bring down pillars, horror visitors of summer cafes, spreading tables in chips. We have repeatedly closed that the environment in the game is more or less destroyed, all sorts of fences, small walls, display cases – those objects that usually seemed impenetrable in other races, they think and break here at a time. Did not fit into the turn, carried out a metal fence and flew off the cliff to the river – and this happened.
Frostbite 3.0 can be praised, however, not only for destruction, but also for touching attention to the little things: the autumn leaves are soared into the air, the drops on the glass of the car are trembling from speed, and if a storm has already played out in a prying, keep in mind – it will be the same impressive as on the Paracel Storm map in Battlefield 4. But damage to cars does not look as great as everything else. Yes, the sheathing is coming, the glass is cracking, the case gets dirty, but these little things do not affect driving – as before in the series.
► Police under the control of AI does not use gadgets, but is actively trying to compete even with the cape player. The Uzlya Virtual Police steals the "fragments" for one or two.
Skopes receive glasses for successful persecution and exchange a reward for various gadgets like an electric bumper or EMP with a guidance system, almost like in NEED for Speed: Hot Pursuit. The police of the police are stock, no improvements can be delivered. New vehicles are opened for the implementation of special assignments, and the player always has three sets of tasks. Somewhere they ask to act aggressively and fulfill the missions to disable racers, speed and accurate driving are valued somewhere. So if you are not a fan of too rude driving, then there is always an alternative.
Each car opens in one of the three options that differ in painting and quite a bit – characteristics. In this situation, we could not open all the variations of cars in this situation, out of three you can choose only one.
► all these drops from the rain seemed to be real, and the race during the rain, of course, leaves an unforgettable impression.
But with racers, everything is much more complicated and at the same time more interesting. They also have their own storyline, and the tasks are also thematically separated (someone will like to set speed records, the other will be more annoying cops), but the new car, unlike the police, opens the same for all three branches. In addition, it still needs to be purchased for glasses. But freedom for creativity is maximum: you can repaint the car, and do the airbrush, and even replace some spare parts: improve the engine, facilitate the case, and so on – not Underground , But tuning fans will be satisfied.
The racers also have their own gadgets, and they are slightly different from the police. The police have remote toys and mainly work from afar, and the criminals have more defensive ones: a shock wave, powerful acceleration, protection against an electromagnetic attack.
The key difference – extremes receive points for almost everything: you can initiate duels with other drivers, arrange races, perform tricks. During the race, the police will probably sit on the tail, and over time, the persecution will be more intense, and more and more points.
The reward is growing, you are already mentally calculating the amount that you are going to spend on a new car and improved it … But there is a snag: if your car breaks down, all the points scored will disappear. And no improvements, no new car – you will have to start everything again. So that such awkwardness does not happen, you need to stop into shelters in time, scattered throughout the radio: there they will fix the car there, and the glasses will save.
Everyone for himself
It is then that the mechanics of Alldrive, the multi-user regime in Rivals, and it becomes relevant: in this regard, Rivals greatly surpassed Most Wanted. After all, players need not only a sandbox and the rules for interacting with it, but also an interesting conflict.
As it was in last year's Most Wanted? Cars are scattered around the city, for each there is an individual series of tests, and all records and results are carefully noted in Autolog – the system of accounting for your actions. In fact, the player had complete freedom. Know for yourself, earn glasses, gradually eliminate the top ten likhachi leaders. The rest of the entertainment time had to be invented by himself, and most often they were tied to the active use of an “autologist”. Roberts emphasizes that you got the main pleasure of the game from the fact that you tried to beat a friend's record.
► Each place has its own mood. If we start playing in a fairly sunny and pleasant area, then we will have to drive both the canyons and the snowy valleys.
Of course, there is a charm in this, but the feeling of a call and a sense of progress abandoned to you was seriously missing. Most Wanted more like a landfill for the renewed Autolog 2.0. If the latter is the embodiment of an asynchronous multiplayer (you compare your results with the results of other players and are trying to break their record with all your might), then Alldrive erases the line between a single and multi -user game.
It seems to be nothing supernova and amazing. Well, yes, several players can ride the same world, but the main conflict makes Alldrive one of the most interesting and contradictory features of Need for Speed: Rivals. On the one hand, we have a police, which is always in a favorable position – there is nothing to lose, and other racer would like to cause pain and suffering. On the other, pure adrenaline in criminals. They have something to take risks!
In four hours of play, Alldrive gave us a bunch of impressions. For example, to get a new car, you need to go through the race for "silver". We begin the race, in the process inevitably angry a couple of police officers – so, a trifle, it will not be difficult to escape from artificial intelligence.
… but then he appears. Police car player. Under the hood powerful engine, on board the best gadgets. The enemy collapses like snow on his head, and does not stop the persecution, despite anything. The race is already difficult, but here the situation is sharply complicated!
Of course, we do not give up so simply – we come off from a reputable cap and even finish the first. It remains all-to get to the shelter and save everything earned by overwhelming work. But next to a safe place we are waiting for the "Committee on the meeting". A powerful blow to the side, the car turns over and fails, there are no more points – they were earned by the same insidious copper.
About the same sensations caused us Dark Souls at his best moments.
► Once I even had to ask two people who constantly hunted us, politely retreat into fog: it is impossible to score glasses when you are constantly pursued.
Here, however, there may be a problem with matchmaking. Either on the server there will be a couple of riders and a whole pack of evil police officers, or some particularly experienced player will sit in an incredibly high-speed justice car with the most effective gadgets and will open the gates to the hooligans in the world of pain. Chris Roberts emphasized that players can really be in different places in the plot, and therefore ride on completely different cars in power, but still be in the same game. It is also worth considering that the game for police officers was conceived by joint: cops are required to act in the team, while riders compete with each other and can only rely on themselves.
The potential for bringing the player to white heat in Alldrive colossal. Here, nothing will prevent another person from going on his own and by chance to collide with you on the forehead, while you are going through an important race.
You can advise, of course, not to include Alldrive and play in your comfortable world, but the creative plan of the developers was just in such a neat combination of two modes. In theory, this approach should create unique game situations when racers unite and help each other or police officers arrange a plan-interception. But while it feels out that Alldrive has been done specifically for lovers of packing. The chances will probably be closer to the end of the game, when the cars will more or less coincide in the characteristics, but there will probably be lost the meaning of making precious glasses.
When asked, what to do with those who do not want to use Alldrive, Roberts replied that AI will actively try to imitate the game of a living person. Sometimes this is noticeable: riders do not go along a pre -prescribed route and tend to make mistakes: we replayed the same arrival several times, and the behavior of drivers varied.“Other riders under the control of AI evaluate your car, pretend to be successful and offers races. In a word, they do everything so that you believe that you are playing on the network, even if it is not so, ”says the developer.
I follow you
The second newfangled chip is called Overwatch, and yes, this is an iPad application. In addition to obvious functions, such as an interactive map and access to Autolog information, there is a separate mode in which we observe how the players in the form of depersonalized arrows move on the map.
A person with a tablet can bring down all the power of the police into unfortunate drivers (organize road blocks, cause air support) and simultaneously arrange different nasty things: steal a charge for gadgets, damage the car a little at a distance or for a while to disable electronics. We checked in practice: the race from this interferes quite a bit, helicopters and police barriers to get around it is quite simple.
Feeling like a brilliant villain-tricster is not at all. The positive actions of the owner of the tablet, on the contrary, affect significantly. Additional charges for special equipment, a sudden repair of a car is a little less than half – this help may well change the course of the game. The rest is not enough to sit for Overwatch, the map and arrows do not at all transmit all the intensity of passions, and the system tied to timers (the player will not be able to constantly save, you need to wait until the conditional resource accumulates) gives you too insignificant bonus in the form of additional points. The best application is to keep the tablet next to you and in which case to check with the card and repair the car. But this, if that, completely kills all the excitement from the game for the rider.
► Although the routes on the map are quite straightforward, without insidious turns, almost always we can cut the distance or choose an alternative path.
Development of companions application for Ghost Studios is still an unknown territory, but to the question of whether such programs can turn over the perception of the usual games upside down, Roberts answers as follows: “We are delighted with the Wii U Controller, even when we worked on the transfer of MOST Wanted. Moreover, as a game designer, I like that when using an interactive card, a person does not miss important details and is more actively trying to explore the world ". If you consider that Autolog 2.0 to some extent encourages a competitive game-we get a powerful tool that completely changes the player's habits.
We will wait?
For a person who does not quite love racing games, Need for Speed: Rivals has many ways to captivate. In this game there is a sense of progress, in addition, Rivals constantly puts a lot of mini-zadach in front of the driver and fuels interest to a rather cruel system in which you can lose hard-earned glasses in the light.
The main thing here is to understand whether Winstler Casino Alldrive will take root in Rivals, and look at the reaction of the audience to The Crew from ubisoft. It is possible that it is these two games in a sense that will determine a new trend in the development of arcade racing games.