Are We WRONG About Need for Speed Payback?

The most controversial Need for Speed of modern times, also (kinda) the reason that Ghost Games was closed by EA... were we wrong?

[Necrtic]

Hate to admit it but true, I’d always be grinding for the best parts in payback just to have even more speed and acceleration. And people are saying they were locked behind a slot machine to progress through the game? Nah you could beat it with some of the worst parts
Oh and it also made me feel a lil more attached to the cars I had, since I’d be playing with them constantly and never rlly had to switch to a different car. I’d often grind the money to buy a certain car, then whenever I’d unlock it, I went straight into the shop to upgrade it to finish the rest of the events and finish the game
F off-road events tho, hate those…

[hey_manny]

The separation of the garages in Unbound is what killed the game for me. I built some really good cars. No way I was gonna grind 100+ more hours to get them back

[not_kjb]

I'll give this to payback: the heists have the absolute best in-game cinematics ive ever seen in a racing game

[Rassirektu]

Knowing that someone in the nfs dev team will probably see this makes me happy

[elboss]

NFS payback was hella underated tbh, Driving at the night was a different vibe tbh! And one of the last nfs with a good sound track too! And the cars in the garage look so good!

[めんめと-wu]

Cancelled some DLCs, cancelled Toyotas, unfinished story, but there is Aki Kimura in PB.

[GREENY-wu]

Payback we always one of my favorite games. But it does have alot of problems with online mode, for example people will try to ram you every time you try to drag at the air strip.

[succulenttrash]

Im willing to die on this hill:
Payback was fun despite it having multiple problems.
It should have never had those stupid cards for upgrades. I get the Vegas theme but the gambling for parts should've been left out. And the characters were a bit annoying. But, the online was very fun to be honest. and the drifting was handled better than all the other Ghost games because of just how smooth and fast it was. I really did enjoy how they didnt try to do either grip or drift with it, it was fully arcade drift handling and it was very fun and I'm still not sure why everyone has a problem with NFS having actual arcade drift handling like actual arcade machines

[Talibanhunter-fz]

hot take, nfs payback is the most underrated recent nfs game. i love it, yes it has problems but its fun in my opinion and i like the class system and upgrade system. Loved the map and the derelicts.

[Ho_Justin]

People can hate this all they want, but in my personal opinion payback is very severely underrated. Yes the upgrading system shouldn’t be the way it is, and there aren’t any free roam cops, but the way the game feels and the way the cars feel when you’re going fast I think feels better than unbound and maybe heat.

[RohinNair]

I still remember the lead up to Payback and Theo getting to cover the game at E3 before the gameplay streams at the end of 2017. I feel so much nostalgia for that time that no other NFS since has managed to match

[Flo-eutt]

What I liked the Most was this minimal delay when using NOS. That Little delay with the Sound before the nos kicks in was great

[ReboyGTR]

*No. Among all the "modern" Need For Speed it is definitely the worst. Progression shold NEVER be locked behind a literal slot machine.*

[ragingfred]

The one thing the speedcard system did right was make upgrades marginal and frequent and after every race your car would get a little bit faster. Compared to unbound where you max out your car early in the week and drive the same car for the rest of the days.

[dravidianking]

Drag racing on the runway in online was peak

[rizerstake]

This is where I still prefer Heat, the high heat races that give you better parts. I'm on the fence between letting us just unlock the part for all cars and grinding them to earn the part each and every time.

What i do think payback did good was adding the additional perks of acceleration vs top speed or having both and so on and so forth.

[Theoverlord]

I still play it till this day, yeah it had problems but i still loved it

[kenta]

*in payback, you take corners in circles, not in squares.*

this is a saying that gets thrown around a lot in the payback crew i run - controversial (i think) opinion: the powersliding handling model of payback is more fun than the "realistic" model of unbound, and i think thats the underlying reason for why its more fun just driving around. Also, nowadays its standard practice to use mods to max out your car to its legal limits, max performance is kind of a given so it actually comes down to the driving skills, also due to the game (with the exception of the regera on highways) being acceptably balanced in its cars

[drifzyy]

Payback is hella underrated, im starting to slowly feel nostalgia for it.. jeez this game is getting old

[commandersarge]

Biggest thing I miss about payback which is very minor but I absolutely loved it’s how the dirt would fly when you would drive through it, it looked beautiful in off-road racing but heat and unbound got rid of it and now it’s not that fun to drive through dirt bc the visuals just look stale