I’ve beaten Need for Speed Payback twice now, and honestly, I think the game got way more hate than it deserved when it came out.
For me, Payback is way more fun than both NFS 2015 and Heat. The characters, gameplay and story are all much better than I expected. The handling still isn’t perfect, but I actually prefer it over 2015 and Heat. It’s not amazing, but it’s not terrible either — it sits somewhere in the middle. The engine sounds, however, are still ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awful. I don’t know why NFS keeps struggling with engine sounds.
The map is also really good. In fact, I think this might be one of the best-looking NFS games in the series. It gives me a huge Forza Horizon 3 vibe, especially with the open world and the overall atmosphere. The day/night cycle is another nice touch.
The story honestly isn’t nearly as bad as people make it sound. What I really like is how much the races change throughout the game. You have normal races, drag races, drift events, off-road races, etc., and different cars actually feel suited to different events. It keeps the gameplay from becoming repetitive.
One of the best things about Payback is the sense of progression. Taking down different crews and moving up through the ranks gives me some Most Wanted 2005 vibes. Obviously it’s not exactly the same as the Blacklist, but having specific rivals to beat and working your way through them gives you a satisfying feeling of progression.
The lack of cops, though, is probably one of the biggest flaws in the game. Having a huge open world like this with basically no police is just weird. The game could have been so much better with proper police chases.
The card upgrade system is probably my biggest complaint. At the beginning, I honestly didn’t hate it. It feels like a different upgrade system and it can even be fun at first. But later in the game it becomes a massive grind. You buy a new car and then realize you can’t properly upgrade it because you don’t have the right cards. Then you have to keep doing races and hope you get the cards you need.
It’s especially annoying toward the end of the game. You can make money pretty easily — I had around 1.5 million at one point and still had a ton of money later on — but money isn’t really the problem. The problem is getting the right upgrade cards.
Another stupid thing is that completed races aren’t properly marked on the map. You do a race and then the same event is still sitting there with no clear indication that you’ve already completed it. I actually ended up skipping some races after finishing the story because I couldn’t tell which ones I had already done. I normally love clearing maps, so this was pretty annoying.
There are also some minor bugs. Sometimes the sun glare on the screen flickers, graphics can randomly pop in and out, and there are other little visual issues. Nothing game-breaking, but they can get annoying after playing for a while.
The multiplayer is also pretty mediocre in my opinion. The single-player is where this game really shines. That’s where most of the fun is.
I also thought some music had been removed because of licensing issues. I was absolutely sure that “I Win” played during Mac’s first scene, but when I didn’t hear it, I thought they had removed some songs. Thankfully, they didn’t. That would have been a pretty big negative for me.
Overall, Payback definitely has problems. The card system sucks, the lack of police is a huge missed opportunity, the map tracking is dumb, and there are some annoying bugs.
But the game is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fun.
It has that old-school NFS feeling that I really like. The progression is satisfying, the races are varied, the story is perfectly fine, the map looks great, and somehow the game never got boring for me — even after beating it twice.
I’m not saying Heat is bad. Heat is still one of my favorite NFS games and probably my #2. But Payback absolutely does not deserve the amount of hate it got.
Flawed? Absolutely.
Perfect? Hell no.
Fun as ♥♥♥♥? Definitely.
One of my favorite NFS games. I highly recommend it.
