Need for Speed Payback is the kind of arcade racer that never requires you to lift your foot off the accelerator. Its brazen drifting is effortlessly achieved with aggressive cornering and feathering the brakes, and judicious bursts of nitrous are your best friend down any stretch of open road.

Simple driving model produces occasional arcade thrills; Expansive and diverse open-world; A decent variety of events fends off repetition

Hackneyed and pervasive story; Restrictive story missions; Sense of speed is lacking; Flagrant emphasis on grinding; The open-world isn't especially memorable

looks the part, sounds the part, and is surprisingly reverent to real-world car culture. I like the direction Ghost has taken here, and I think it's the right one, but beneath its flashy exterior it's not quite firing on all cylinders.

Great visuals and sound; Drifting feels satisfying

Story is brief; multiplayer underdelivers; Rubber band AI; daft time-of-night effects; No drag racing; and no pause button

Need for Speed takes driving into a gorgeous world with a modern edge, but its pesky attitude and strict online-only requirement make you yearn for the good old days.

Ventura Bay lays out a gorgeous; rain-slick city; Car customization is rich and fulfilling; Drifts take time to tune and master

Completely unplayable offline; Pestering story mode; Parts of the world are a lifeless sprawl

To some extent, a racing game should be all about the cars. But Need for Speed Payback goes to such an extreme in fetishizing the different parts and builds of its vehicles that it gets stuck in the technical weeds, failing to consistently deliver on the adrenaline-pumping highs of previous Need for...

Need For Speed has repeatedly attempted to reinvent itself, trying out new twists within the arcade racing milieu to stay fresh after 20 years of releases. In pursuit of that novelty, Payback throws an enormous array of activities at the wall to see what might stick, including car customization,...

Welcome to Ventura Bay, the featured city in the latest Need For Speed where the sun never shines and it rarely stops raining! Everyone here absolutely loves to race - except the cops, but they're total squares who don't get the streets like the kids do.

A great sense of speed and lovely visuals

The braindead; cheating; rubber-banding opponent AI

Terrible narrative aside, Need For Speed: Payback is a fun addition to the prolific racing franchise

The Need for Speed franchise is in trouble. The series hasn't seen a decent entry in the better part of decade, and Need for Speed: Payback is yet again a

Last year's Need for Speed tried to return the franchise to its original name and vision. It was a celebration of racing culture, with real cars and real aftermarket parts, alongside a focus on nighttime street races. On paper, it sounded great.

Need for Speed probably didn't need a reboot, but nevertheless it's here and is a solid racer with a great city to explore. It brings the series back to it's roots and rarely faults, despite some performance issues it's well worth going behind the wheel once again.