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21 years on from the series' debut on Panasonic's 3DO, billing this latest Need for Speed as a reboot feels somewhat gratuitous. These are games that have always relied on reinventing themselves with each iteration, and just as Final Fantasy is a broad church held together by airships and chocobos, so Need for Speed is a loose collection of games only ever defined by the act of pushing fast cars to their extremes.Ghost Games' latest take, its second after 2013's enjoyable Rivals, certainly has a keener eye on the series' past than more recent efforts. Folding in the customisation of 2003's Underground, the open world of 2005's Most Wanted and some of the muscular physics of Criterion's excellent run, this Need for Speed apparently intends to be something of a greatest hits compendium. The problem is, it also chooses to fold in some of the worst excesses seen in the likes of The Run and Undercover - and struggles to competently handle any of its components. The result, sadly, is a Need for Speed that's flat, awkward and a sizeable step back for the series after its recent purple patch.
A shame, as once you've got past the awkward mugging of the cinematics that frame this Need for Speed - thankfully, they're largely skippable - there's much to enjoy here. The partnership between Need for Speed and car culture website Speedhunters - a site owned by EA that, since being set up in 2008, has flourished into the premier destination for those who want to ogle cars that have been sculpted to within an inch of their life - has never been better exploited. For the most part, anyway.
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