At first, this game seemed better than heat. A much more interesting art style, even if they did not go all the way with the effects, a more interesting driving model with the burst and normal nitrous system being split, and a flawed but still serviceable progression system.

Then I started dealing with the cops. The amount of playtime you see on this review is how many hours of the campaign it took before I got extremely sick of them.

The heat system in NFS Heat is leagues and bounds better than here. In that game, it was a guarantee that they would appear, sure, but only once you reached heat level 4/5 in the night. A good cop chase would be the duration of a race - essentially the cost of risking it all for extra reputation. In unbound, on the other hand, cop chases appear more frequently, in both the day and night, leading to situations like doing one high heat race in the night, increasing your heat level from 3.5 to 5, and being steamrolled by Ford Raptors you can do little about as they are as fast as your vehicle, way tankier and can go offroad. At lower heat levels, however, the cops are still a nuisance, as they will chase you out of roughly 1/3rd of all races.

It is a shame, really. The races are more fun in Unbound than in Heat, and a lot of the other positive qualities of Heat are carried over here. With that in mind, you should probably try NFS Heat instead.

At first, this game seemed better than heat. A much more interesting art style, even if they did not go all the way with the effects, a more interesting driving model with the burst and normal nitrous system being split, and a flawed but still serviceable progression system. Then I started dealing with the cops. The amount of playtime you see on this review is how many hours of the campaign it took before I got extremely sick of them. The heat system in NFS Heat is leagues and bounds better than here. In that game, it was a guarantee that they would appear, sure, but only once you reached heat level 4/5 in the night. A good cop chase would be the duration of a race - essentially the cost of risking it all for extra reputation. In unbound, on the other hand, cop chases appear more frequently, in both the day and night, leading to situations like doing one high heat race in the night, increasing your heat level from 3.5 to 5, and being steamrolled by Ford Raptors you can do little about as they are as fast as your vehicle, way tankier and can go offroad. At lower heat levels, however, the cops are still a nuisance, as they will chase you out of roughly 1/3rd of all races. It is a shame, really. The races are more fun in Unbound than in Heat, and a lot of the other positive qualities of Heat are carried over here. With that in mind, you should probably try NFS Heat instead.