Game Reviews

Need for Speed: No Limits - Well, I mean technically there are limits

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Need for Speed: No Limits - Well, I mean technically there are limits

Vroom. Neeeooooowwwww. Toot toot. These are some of the noises I made while playing Need for Speed: No Limits. I also swore a couple of times, did a few little cheers, and clenched my fists in joy.

It's hard not to get enthused when a game looks this good. The world streaks past in rain-slick console-level sheen.

Orange glowing arrows point you in the direction you need to be heading, police cars jump over ramps instead of stopping to dismantle them, and disgruntled co-racers try and ram you off the track.

No no no no, no no no no

The game sits firmly in the arcade section of the racing gamut. You can upgrade your roaring supercars, but there's no real tinkering here. Just stuff new bits under the chassis to make your brum brum car go faster.

The controls are pretty straightforward. Tap left or right to steer, swipe up to fire your nitro boost, and swipe down to start a drift. Complicated things like accelerating and braking are all handled for you.

Races fly by in less than a minute. Sometimes your four-wheeled rocket is fast enough that you can get ahead of the pack and stay there. Other times you're going to have to scrap for position. Anything other than first place is worthless here.

There are different types of challenges. There's one all about jumps, one all about driving on nitro boost pads, and one that involves catching up with an opponent and overtaking them before the end of the course.

It keeps things reasonably fresh, although they all boil down to getting to a set point within a set time. But most of them are a lot of fun, and the sense of ragged speed the game creates is worth the asking price alone.

There's no limits

Ah yes, the asking price. Need for Speed: No Limits is free to play, and about three hours in I hit a wall. Not quite a pay wall, more a I-don't-really-know-what-to-do-now-wall. I found ways around paying, but it took me a while to dig them out.

That's the world we live in, and while it would be nice to play a premium version of the game that just let me drift around corners forever tooting my horn, that's not what we've ended up with.

This is a huge game, in pretty much every area, but if you don't want to dip into your pocket you're going to see parts of it over and over again as you try and earn enough money to make your wheels spin faster.

Still, the payment structure doesn't get in the way of the raw, petrol-stinking enjoyment too much. If you're a funny of pointlessly gritty cop-bashing Fast and Furious nonsense, then this is well worth checking out.

Need for Speed: No Limits - Well, I mean technically there are limits

Technically there are limits, but if you can get past them you'll find a big shiny racer here
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.