Dave takes Ghost's debut for a spin - and finds a familiar Criterion vibe:
As I sit down to perform Need For Speed: Competitors, I tell Todd Sullivan, Criterion's former innovative home now 'on loan' to Phantom Activities, that Ghost's first appearance has a lot to stay up to after Hot Desire and Most Desired. "I think it could be better," he says.
And you know what? He might be right.
So, what do you need to know about Need For Speed: Rivals? Well, first and major, it's basically Need For Speed: Hot Desire 2, but with the best pieces of Most Wanted's tangible play area tossed in alongside: the latter's leaps, difficulties, discovery and independence, along with the former's impressive activities, expansive globe and feeling of competitors.
There's a restored concentrate on activities here, and Phantom informs me that there are always 6 competitors and 6 police in the experience globe, with each dynamically turned between AI and individual competitors as other gamers fall in or out. You can perform on either part, and both have accessibility their own Desire Technical, such as EMPs, turbocompresseur, raise pieces and the like.
Races are activated in one of two different ways: firstly, by challenging other racers driving around the game world to a one-on-one battle, or by driving to set points on the map and activating the race. Races start instantly, and there are zero load times or countdown timers: hit L1 (the version on show was the PS4 version) as you approach the start line, and you'll start the race immediately. If other human racers are at the start point at the time you activate it, they'll replace the AI (which ordinarily race up behind you as soon as you start) - and if they're already involved in another race themselves, it's quite possible that you'll cross paths mid-race.
But winning races is only a side point to Rivals. Rivals is built around a risk/reward system, building up points to become the game's best racer. Everything you do in the game world - as a racer, at least - earns you points. Drifting, speeding, jumping, taking down others and finishing races each contribute to your score as an overall multiplier ticks over, increasing after a certain amount of time passes or upon completing particular objectives. But if you're taken down by a cop before banking the points at a hideout, you'll lose them all.
Cops, meanwhile, can earn points by taking out racers with the highest score. The higher score they have, the more points the cops will earn when they take them down. The mechanic leads to some intense games of cat & mouse, as the racer desperately seeks a route to a hideout before they're taken down by the pursuing cop. It's terrific high-stakes fun.
It seems like a Requirements Need For Rate, too. Vehicles are a little bit bulkier than they were in Most Desired, resulting in Hot Pursuit-style glides once you start to expert the managing, and the globe seems like a mixture of Seacrest Nation and Fairhaven, with the lengthy non-urban streets of Hot Desire mixing easily with the city forest of Most Desired. It's large, too. Though accessibility the globe is limited in the E3 trial, the map seems to be far larger than that of any past Need For Rate headline.
I'm almost assured, then, that Phantom could have out-Criterion'd Requirements on their first go. Need For Speed: Competitors is the best fun I've had at E3 so far and, if first opinions are anything to go by, could be the next-generation's first must-have speed.
