EA are still chasing glory with their Need For Speed franchise over 20 years since the series began. Bleached with streetlight neon, this game looks like it was filmed on Michael Mann’s iPhone. The open world of Ventura Bay, a cross between Los Angeles and San Francisco, is gloriously filmic: an interactive version of Ryan Gosling’s Drive.
The live action cut scenes, on the other hand, are more like Sharknado. You play a member of a street gang – B-movie actors who continuously fist-bump and preface every sentence with “hashtag”. In an ideal world, you’d run over this crowd with a Ferrari.
The gameplay involves winning races and outrunning the cops, customising your wheels for grip and drift. The single-player storyline is too short, while the roster of cars isn’t a patch on Forza Horizon. Online-only gameplay means the game is a dud during broadband blackouts.