Need for Speed: Unbound - A love letter, and important tactics on racing through the game

 

Just over a year ago I (unfairly) put together a review for Need for Speed: Unbound, giving it a measly 6/10. Since then, I've played this game - and I mean I've played this game a LOT, in fact it's the one racing game that I've consistently returned to over and over again, often deleting my game save just to start right back from the beginning - and perhaps take a different path with my car and modification choices. But I digress, this article is a love letter to Criterion's sublime Need for Speed: Unbound, possibly the last great arcade racer we'll see from that studio before they're soaked up into creating crappy content for Battlefield. 

So let's pretend my previous review didn't exist, and let's review it properly. 

Unusually for this day and age, Need for Speed Unbound has a story mode, and that's where I spend the majority of my time. You start out as a nameless character, working at Rydell's Rides - a chop shop for custom autos, alongside your bestie Yaz. The pair of you are hard at work turning one of Rydell's old barn finds into a sublime racing machine, and it all gradually starts to look like a very rosy future on the racing scene. 

Then one night, after some stroppy phone conversations and a misunderstanding, Yaz teams up with an ex Juvie Hall buddy, and cleans out Rydell's Rides, stealing a bunch of custom cars and your beloved co-creation. From then the story is a classic "Drag yourself up by your bootstraps" story of you starting all over again, establishing a racing and customisation rep before entering "The Grand", a pink-slip competition to win back your ride from Yaz and her nasty little cohorts, and perhaps the chance to win back her friendship too. 

Yeah it's all as cheesy as hell but the important thing it does is frames the game with a (sometimes grindy, as I mentioned in my original review) method of slow-building a progress game that can be deliciously satisfying and frustrating in equal measure. 

The dude in the little red Honda needs a dry slap!

So I started out with a fairly basic car (a Nissan Fairlady seemed like a good choice) and over the course of the next year or so of dipping in and out of this game I learned a hell of a lot, so I'm going to pass on that knowledge as I write. 

First up, it doesn't matter what you do, you're going to be stuck with a B class car early on, and it depends on what you're looking for in terms of the types of races you enjoy to determine which is a good choice. The Nissan was a fairly good all-rounder, tuned with a little bit of drift (If you fit a custom Limited Split Differential you can tweak the levels of drift - 25-30% seems to be the sweet spot) and maxed to the top of the B class. You'll get a feel for what modifications you need to do in order to collect yourself a nice spread of B, A, A+, S and S+ cars - and this becomes vitally important later on in the game. 

Upgrading your rides

Basically it breaks down like this: 

• Try to build a garage of at least three cars that all have subtly different tuning. A drift-crazy RWD car is a great fit for Corner King and Drift events, obviously. But you'll also want something with off-road capability for those Takeover events
• For out-and-out racing with mostly straight lines (ie those endurance or long-distance mostly straight-line races) you're going to want something with maximum downforce, the best racing types you can buy, a low profile and as much boost / nitrous as you can cram into the thing. 
• Muscle Cars make excellent Drift racers. They're big, they're heavy and they're tail happy. Try to avoid anything with AWD for Drift (though surprisingly some of the AWDs like the Subaru Impreza can really rock a Drift event with the right LSD installed)
• Supercars look gorgeous but in my experience they are as unstable as hell at higher speeds, and tend to get lambasted into tiny pieces by the cops, so avoid them until later in the game even if you CAN afford them!
• As boring as they are, the Audis are good all rounders for street racing or corner king events, a good trade-off between acceleration and speed (kinda lucky you win one or two during the course of the game then!)
• Always, always consider upgrading your vehicle's ability to take AND dish out damage. Cops are as annoying as hell, so make sure you can go on the offensive and take them out without damaging your ride too much (I gave up trying to avoid them, now if I see a cop and it 'scans' me I'll go out of my way to trash that sucker as quickly as possible). 
• Tyres might look like a cheap and insignificant upgrade but the best tyres can make or break a race, so always upgrade them to the max for whatever class of racing you're building your vehicle for. 

Driftin!...shake it shake it shake it shake it babeeeeee!

Avoiding or taking on the cops

Cops in Lakeshore are a fairly dumb bunch as you can probably tell from their radio chatter. but they become like irritating wasps later on in the game as your "Heat" level goes up. Here are the best tactics to deal with cops: 

• As previously mentioned, max out your vehicle's offensive and defensive capabilities with the two add-on slots at the end of the upgrade bar. One of the best upgrades is the 'self repair' module, which means that even if your ride does get trashed, you get a couple of chances before you're busted up too badly to continue (and will likely get busted in the process if you're stuck a long way from a repair garage or you've used them too many times and are waiting for the agonising timer to tick down till you can use them again
• If you see a lone cop driving towards you with something like a bog standard patrol car or an intercept car, just ram them crap out of them at high speed as quickly as you can to take them out. Better that than being drawn into a needless 5 cop pursuit later on (as they radio their buddies and backup)
• Around most race meets, there are ways to give cops the runaround (and most also have repair garages fairly nearby) so learn the art of evasion. For example, the Ski Resort venue has a car park above it, and you'll be surprised at how effective it is to just rag around up there above the venue, giving cops the slip (or ramming them). 
• Be aware of Heavies and Choppers, these two are the most annoying cop types in the game (Undercover units are also annoying as they don't crop up on your map / radar). Later on you might get beefy enough to take on heavies (three or four good hits side-on will take them out) but helicopters can only be avoided by ducking under cover, into tunnels or in some cases, by hiding under the protruding lip on the entrance on some of the meet venues!
• Choppers have to duck out to refuel, so this gives you an opportunity to quickly nip into a garage, a safe house or the meet venue so listen out for their radio chatter.
• Cops are TERRIBLE drivers (despite all the criticism they level at YOU while they're chasing you). Quite often they'll go head on with traffic, or hit immovable roadside objects (learn what these are because you can use them to your advantage, nudging cops sideways into them for an instant takedown). Sometimes during a 5 Heat chase it's quite fun to watch the Cop AI stuffing up or doing the most ridiculous things just to try and stop you
• That said, Cops are also horribly unpredictable (Criterion really did do an amazing job in making the cops pretty effective later on in the game) so never second-guess 'em, and always retreat if you end up with 7 chasing you because that's going to be a real difficult situation to get out of
• Last thing about cops, the little tunnel next to Rydell's Rydes will become your MVP later on in the game. If you basically just keep going round and round the garage building and through that little tunnel, that seems to be too much for the cop AI, and once they lose sight of you or your chase meter turns blue for "escaping" you can quickly duck into Rydell's Rydes, and cash in!
• If you get busted with a ton of cash, it's horribly annoying and frustrating. Suck it up, and get back out there (as you'll have no heat) and get back racing and earning. Once you've lost that cash there's nothing you can do about it so regular dips into your safe houses or Rydell's is always a good tactic. Set your earnings bar at a realistic level (say $50,000 early on, then $100,000 later on and so on, and so on) until you feel confident enough about escaping cop chases
• One last thing, avoid going anywhere near places you're going to get boxed in by cops. Some of the entrances to venues are nasty, because once you get trapped in there by a bunch of heavies you won't be able to ram your way out of it!

If you drive a BMW in this game, you are instantly marking yourself out for more abuse

The cars

Choosing the right car versus choosing the dream car you'd love to drive in real life is often a fine tuned balancing act in this game. Some of the most boring cars in the game are also (annoyingly) the most effective in certain race types, but I have a selection of favourites that have always worked out well for me, so no judging!

Class B

• Plymouth - Made this one drift heavy as it's RWD, great little B class drift monster with plenty of power
• Dodge Charger - The classic, again rigged for drift, this thing's like a whale so it's great for ramming cops and opponents
• Golf GTI Mk I - This is the car I rigged for racing. Lowered the suspension as much as possible, with plenty of grip (race types, downforce and as much boost as I could fit into the thing to keep it under B class). It's surprisingly effective as it's small, nippy and great for squeezing through gaps in traffic or scenery for short cut opportunities

Class A

• Boss Mustang - This one was rigged for drift again, and lowered. Absolutely peerless widebodied drift action!
• Mercedes Hatchback - Nice little hot hatch that you can max out for racing (with around 20% drift added for neat cornering action)
• Nissan Fairlady - Upgraded this one to A class, with an all rounder approach (maxed out road types, about 15% drift so it doesn't get too out of control)

Class A+

• Subaru Impreza - Rigged with off road tyres, but with an LSD for about 20-25% drift, this thing is a surprisingly effective all rounder, absolutely RULES at takedown events but also great for street races with lots of corners
• Mustang softtop - Just because I love Mustangs and you have to have at least one car that's open top, for extra pose value. This one was rigged for road types, 35% drift (so it's VERY tail happy) and loads of power

Class S

• Audi RS - Zipped up for power and grip, pretty much rules S class races but pretty rubbish for any drifty stuff
• Land Rover - This is my takedown / off road vehicle of choice, with all the body kit removed, just the bog standard Landie look and off road types obviously!

Class S+

• Mclaren F1 - All the grip, all the power, all the speed and the only car I could get to 400 power. Almost unbeatable other than that annoying Ferrari Shimzu drives which does still seem to trump this thing now and again
• Nissan GT (pretty much any model) - A great car to outfit for a little bit of drift and offroad (for takeover events) but also a fantastic car for twisty turny street races as the AWD provides more than enough grip to get you round almost every corner unscathed. Also nice and heavy for taking cops out
• Mazda RX - This is my drift machine of choice for S+ class, you can max this out to about 398 Power wise. I went completely over the top with about 40-50% drift, drift types and the biggest spoiler the durned thing can fit (though I'm still not convinced spoilers actually do offer anything handling-wise in the game)

Lots of strategy guides advise you not to splurge too much on cars, but having a mix of all classes will save you time later on when it comes to the final event in story mode, and it's also a good way of offering options at the start of each race so you can pick the right car to suit the right event. 

The grind

The game is a bit grindy at times. Sometimes before a big saturday night race event you can fail a couple of races, but thankfully at least you can spin back in time to the friday before the event to earn a bunch more cash, upgrade your rides a bit more, and then try again. The game modes (regular / challenging / super-hard) are nicely balanced so I would say complete the game on regular at least once, to get a feel for all the tracks and race events before ramping up the difficulty level. 

Losing cash to cops is frustrating, the best way to deal with that is by taking the fight to them. Later on in the game when all the safehouses get locked down you'll need to learn how to use the areas around Rydell's Rydes to either avoid or take out cops, so get good at it in easy modes first. 

Last but not least, the tracks and race types

Some tips for the locations around the city and the different race types. 

• City races - These are the most fun, usually with plenty of abrupt right-angle corners so get a car that can glide around those nicely. Remember, MOST scenery breaks very easily so don't worry about taking short cuts through scenery, skinny trees, single barriers, post boxes, petrol pumps, fences, whatever. Learn what breaks and what doesn't because it's not only useful for short cuts, but V useful for steering your competitors (or cops) into
• Race dirty. Ram, smash, side-swipe, use every dirty trick in the book
• Ignore the in-race chat. It's all hot air. Concentrate on the road
• Use your restarts wisely. You can still claw your way back from 8th place to first if it's early on enough in a race but if you're left for dead with over 1000 yds between you and the front runner, give up and try again
• Takedown events - These are great moneyspinners so if you see a high-value one of these, go for it. Always have a side bet with the top contender if you're confident enough you can ace these (and believe me, they are ridiculously easy). Choose a car with off road tyres but a fair bit of drift (use boost and drift between hitting objects) so you can constantly keep your multiplier at X5 (that's the key to winning these events). A bit of practice and you can win these as easy as falling off a log
• Drift Events - These are not quite as easy, you will obviously need a drift-capable car, and you will literally need to drift your arse off, and also use boost to keep your multiplier at X5. When you start the game you will be rubbish at these but once you get a feel for the absolutely gorgeous drift handling model that Criterion built here (as good as Metropolis Street Racer / Project Gotham, and that's high praise indeed from me) you'll ace 'em. 
• Race events - Depends on the track, but if it's twisty, pick a ride with 15-20% drift to rag round those corners with minimum braking, or something extremely grippy and stable with plenty of downforce for straighter races on freeways (particularly important for S+ and endurance races)

About that handling model

I initially thought this game had a terrible handling model for cars. That was before I started mucking about with the drift / grip settings in the 'handling' menu, and realised that the differential settings make all the difference (pun intended) in how cars handle. You can go from a frustrating rigid feeling car / drive, to something absolutely brilliant, with light dabs of the handbrake easing you round corners like classic Criterion games of yore. As my favourite arcade racing games of all time were built by Bizarre Creations and Evolution Studios (who mastered the art of that handbrake-turning loveliness I really crave in these games) I think Need for Speed: Unbound is the first game in decades that's captured that handling model perfectly. 

Tuning might be a real drag but you really don't have to do much at all. Just buy one of the LSDs that allows for drift / grip tuning, and tweak the slider to your taste and get busy with that handbrake!!

Overall: Criterion's finest arcade racer to date. Sure I miss Burnout, who doesn't, but if Criterion never develop another NFS game it'll be a crime!