Matthew Smith

The storyline is plain and uninspiring, which ultimately loses momentum at the 3rd week. Drifting is near impossible in this game as the physics for it are horrible, being more of a glorified powerslide than an actual drift. The AI opponents rubberband like crazy and it worsens the higher class you race in. The S+ class is downright unplayable because of how bad the rubberbanding is (I'm looking at you Shimizu). You can be over 200 yards ahead and out of nowhere the AI will catch right up to you and fly by you exceeding what should be possible in the class. The cop chases are too frequent and happens almost every race. Your heat builds up FAST and carries into the night as well. At heat 5 the heavies come out and will decimate your car to bits. The heavies are overpowered, being as fast as the corvettes, having ridiculous armor, insane maneuverability, and will smash into you nonstop doing big amounts of damage. The heat goes up so fast you're almost always at heat level 5. The cops will keep calling in reinforcements prolonging the chases to last over 20 minutes, they can take jumps and anything you throw at them making them really hard to lose even when drifting around since the corvettes and camaros can corner like an F1 racer. No matter how fast your car is (even if it's an S+) the cops will always be faster. The worst part about cops is that they are all over the place in freeroam (and no, there is no fast travel in this game) making it a constant hassle having to avoid being spotted by them, not to mention they drive along the same route you are if you set a waypoint. The races barely pay anything, and the buy-in system just makes it worse because not only is it hard to upgrade your car (simple mods like a turbo costing over $30,000) but you also need to have enough just to race at all. And if you get busted you lose it all. The voicelines are predictable and very repetitive and nothing to write home about. The characters are very one dimensional, with the only unique character being Rydell. The music is horrendous with only a few songs that are actually good. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this game. The graphics and cartoon effects are amazing, but the gameplay just ruins it.