Need For Speed Heat: 5 Years Later

YES OFFICER

Need For Speed Heat was released 5 years ago, and has consistently maintained a lukewarm reception in the community, with some hailing it as the best, and others disliking it for its flaws. In this video, I discuss the game in retrospect.
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Intro - 0:00
Improvements Off Of Payback - 0:27
Heat's Neon-Lit Aesthetic - 2:09
Daytime - 3:45
Nighttime - 7:05
Story - 11:30
Conclusion/Outro - 15:00

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DISCLAIMER:
This video is not underwritten by any sponsorship arrangements unless otherwise mentioned. All viewpoints expressed herein are unadulterated reflections of my own subjectivity.

In addition, this video adheres to YouTube's policies and regulations as well as Fair Use guidelines as per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

[ijtipee]

If Nfs Heat still got updates it would be much better than unbound tbh

[burtininkas]

For me personally, heat is better then unbound

[sayinsker]

The only thing I hated about this game was how your car gets damaged even if you’re not crashing

[bjank]

Just picked this up for $5. Can’t wait to play

[TypeVertigo]

For me, Heat was a modern throwback take to Underground 2. Both my favorites of the franchise. Good points raised in the video. It's also a shame EA didn't seem to want to promote Heat all that much...when it's their best modern NFS title.

[otavioaugusto]

I started playing 2 weeks ago and it's one of the best racing games i ever played. It definitely needed more time in the oven, though, because the story feels rushed and the only way to get away from cops - especially when you're just starting out - are through jumps and cheese spots. In fact, i nearly rage quitted altogether because i didn't know this, it just felt like the cops were impossible to evade.

Driving a JDM icon, like me? You're screwed.
Driving an old BMW? You're screwed.
Driving a Mustang Boss? You're less screwed.

Eventually, i found a plausible explanation for why they're so hard to wreck and now i'm fine with them. Those are COP CARS, they are made to take and give hits. In the meantime, ours is just a normal road car, it was not made for combat. But jumps and glitches (cheese spots) being the only way to evade them still feels wrong. A few pursuit breakers here and there would be nice. Still, in other games when i got in a police chase, i would feel annoyed because they felt like they were just there to get in my way and sometimes i would engage them ON PURPOSE just to have a few laughs. In Heat, i avoid them at all costs, because i feel scared. Yeah, i know to evade them: jumps and cheese spots. The problem is getting to those before you get wrecked into oblivion

The festival feels... non-existent. Until you start a race. I've been driving around for quite sometimes and i'm yet to find anything throughout Palm City that even remotely gives the idea that a car festival exists.

As for the AI being slow, that is because they don't have rubber-banding, hence why there may be a 235 performance rating car in a 200 race.

[Dimchez]

As a person who enjoyed the OG games (MW, Carbon, Prostreet, etc.) I never thought I'd find an enjoyable Need for Speed ever again, yet this game did just that for me. While the storyline was questionable at best, it was so much fun to play, and it didn't feel like it was necessary to spend more money to progress than just having the base game. It was a huge upgrade from the other recent releases they've put out - it genuinely felt great. Then I bought Unbound, was hit in my face with 50 offers for some DLCs (Volumes they call them) which would unlock cars - an art style that matches Mario Kart more than a Need For Speed game, and a storyline which is worse than Heat's (the only bad thing about Heat imo). Hopefully they take Heat as an example for the new game when it comes out instead of Unbound...

[ISAK.M]

Heat is peak modern NFS its actually just SO FKIN GOOD 💯🔥

[SlamTF]

I'm glad that the story is completely optional after the intro missions, I got a lot of hours out of Heat just restarting from a savefile set right after the final mandatory story mission then trying new cars on the path to 400+ all over again. Heat is a ton of fun (when it isn't crashing every 15 minutes)

[abdullahkinggames]

THIS MASTERPIECE NEEDS UPDATE IF ONLY EA COMEBACK TO IT WE NEED MORE FROM IT ALL THE CUT CONTENT NEEDS TO COME BACK

[Optimusprime]

Started playing this a couple of weeks ago, having a blast! This is the first NFS game I've played properly, played a bit of MW way back in the day but never I was young so didn't get far haha

[TrustMeBroImReallyThatGuy]

If unbound took the money earning mechanism from heat it wouldve been one of the best need for speeds ever. I found myself playing heat for HOURS a day without a break, one of the best need for speeds ever.

[HiMiTSU_]

What's more great about this game is that it always had a big discount on steam. I was surprised when it got 95% off

[KZ]

Tbh I miss the nitrous sound of the older titles, the new backfire and exhaust customizer options are cool, but man, I'd kill to hear the old nitrous in a new game.

[breeze.]

Heat and Unbound are defo a step in the right direction imo. But the story in both were... ass...

At least the new devs (criterion) are listening to the community and creators, which gives me hope for the next NFS... They are currently using Unbound to test things for the future.

[Pucius_]

For me the most fun aspect was the multiplayer night racing with friends. It substitutes for the way too easy to beat npcs and makes being chased by cops with a friend is a lot more fun. I still do think that the cop system could be made better with more aggressive cops and better mechanics (so that you can't ditch cops by driving over a small ramp)

[emoelmo]

Had way more fun playing this game than I thought I would

[wispstarz]

I've been playing with my friends, and we usually just challenge the lobbies to races. I use the Rx7 and mark down every time I beat an RSR, and add another skull to my wrap. Then I messege them to sell the RSR because it's slow.

[WSPonPlayStationandXbox]

Right. NFS Heat is good I admit. But, there may be a few more flaws that you missed or didn't know to point out.

There are more flaws in general gameplay, like curbs. NFS Heat's overall vehicle handling reacts really badly to curbs. At high speeds at least. And due to this, travelling over numerous curbs at over 200mph will cause your car to "clip" which means the suspension or splitter is interacting with the ground/floor when it shouldn't and when it does, it causes the car to react in such a way that'll make it jump up and then have its front bumper collide with the ground/road at an angle that makes the car flip around and take damage from it. Which can ruin the flow of racing at high speeds entirely. This, and understeer. The grip handling in this game can be so stiff to drive even with the right setup that you're forced to drift pretty much every single corner, because if you don't, you don't turn so you'll be put off course with no proper reason why other than the handling is a big problem at high speeds in NFS Heat.

This (minus the handling understeer) can also correspond to Cop chases, NFS Heat has a lack of crash cams unlike NFS Unbound, which is good, right? Well, yes, and no. NFS Heat's lack of violent or unnecessary crash cams from hard collisions is the good part, but then, the overall reaction times from accidentally crashing and landing upside down or sideways take forever, that's the bad part. As far as I know, on consoles at least, there's literally a pitch black loading screen that can take 30 seconds to reset you back on your wheels.

And what does Cop chases have to do with this? Cop chases are a factor in this because at night you can enter a Cop chase at any time with a Heat Level any higher than Heat Level 1 without the ability to pay a fine, and due to the lack of crash cams but terrible reaction times from said lack of crash cams, you'll have at least 1 random Cop unit that finds you if you're not in a Cop chase already, because of the loading screen, you are almost 100% guaranteed of getting busted because of the pitch black loading screen I mentioned before. Meaning that even just somehow landing on your side from a collision or a "clip", you'll lose a lot of your REP plus some money from it. Which would really suck in the long run if you're a newer player trying to grind for REP at night or just looking for ways to earn a lot of REP in one night session for the sake of it. Which can dwindle the experience. This is one thing that NFS Unbound's crash cams do right, because while the way they're caused is annoying, at least their react times (minus the new manual reset feature they added fairly recently) are fairly fast that nothing bad or game-breaking while just waiting for your car to be back on its wheels will happen.

In addition, there is a flaw that corresponds with the car roster itself, there is no incentive to play using other cars once you've maxed out one car outside of just playing with other cars for the sake of them. This is another thing that NFS Unbound does right, because it has a Class/Tier system that gives a motive, a reason to have multiple cars in your garage and to upgrade them. But for NFS Heat, because of a lack of a proper feature or reason to own multiple cars and use them during a session can make almost the entire car list just become useless.

Another flaw is that the Cops, even at night, has a glitch caused I think from server lag where they go completely braindead. Like worse than NFS 2015 or NFS Unbound AI Cops-like braindead. At random times, they'll just let you escape like you don't even exist, even if you're right in front of them, and then even if you're right behind them, in front of them, beside them, they don't initiate another chase like they should. Which is very strange. Because even if you physically hit them even to the point you take damage, they just ignore you like you're a ghost that you think you're alive. Because as bad as NFS 2015 and NFS Unbound's Cops are, this doesn't happen at all.

One more flaw, the online multiplayer is (almost) completely dead. It can be so lifeless as an online multiplayer mode that trying to race with other players in a public server, other than your friends, no one will accept your races. Like of the time, no one will accept your races, let alone even see other players while free-roaming and cruising or being chased, hell, you can't even find other players on the mini-map a lot of the time. Which is very odd because NFS Payback's online multiplayer features an AllDrive multiplayer system, as well as Speedlists which exists so you can enter a full lobby of players with ease (apart from nowadays of course because the game itself is pretty much dead). But damn did NFS Payback's online multiplayer be so good back then (and now NFS Unbound's online multiplayer has PVP which does the same thing).

This flaw right here is why Criterion Games made the decision to separate the singleplayer and Lakeshore Online garages in NFS Unbound, and soully because the NFS Heat online multiplayer is so dead and useless that Criterion Games just wanted to have NFS Unbound be more of an online multiplayer focused game which is why most of the new NFS Unbound content are Lakeshore Online exclusive.

But other than those, NFS Heat is a fairly solid game. However, due to the issues that you may have missed or didn't know about, are what may had held NFS Heat back from being one of the best NFS games in the NFS franchise as a whole. Not just modern NFS, the *ENTIRE* NFS franchise.

Bear in mind, all these flaws I've mentioned are what happened from my personal experience playing NFS Heat.

Oh and NFS Heat is locked at a 30fps cap on consoles (even next-gen consoles) and PC (minus mods that unlock the fps cap). Which isn't necessarily a major flaw, but it's another thing worth mentioning.

P.S. Sorry for the long English essay lol. And I love your content! Keep it up! Loving it! Finger-lickin' good 👌🏻🤙🏻👍🏻❤

[sparrrow_z]

Enjoyable video I still play this game to this day.