It went back to its roots, but...
+ Graphic's: Landscape, buildings, roads, road traffic, etc
Its all well design, it becomes a pleasant background (instead of a blurry scenery like on some other games)
Cars are good, but they could be better, just saying..
+ Sound. Although I can't hear the noise of the car I'm driving so well (probably my pc's fault) the soundtrack is awesome.
+ Playing as a Police is a lot of fun.
The pleasure of busting a racer is just too good. Its pure satisfaction.
+ Having the chance to play, both, as racer and a cop.
+ Autolog is great. Was a great idea.
+ Online car racing. (Although have not tested it yet for lags and such)
The bad:
- Car Handling.
In almost corners, most cars will easily drift. All one has to do is, tap the brakes once and turn the wheels, even at almost 200kph. (don't bother with counter steer, the car knows how to do it alone)
Brakes kind of work as brakes, but handbrake will put a car that is going at high speeds into 0 in about 1.5 seconds.
- Car "Body"
Even on Shift, that many fans of NFS series and many others labelled it as a fail simulation game, if cars bash, there will be "exterior" damage. Not here, Bash at full speed and you will probably get a scratch if that much.
- There is no manual shifting. Although im a huge fan of this I kind of see why its not there. There is just too many functions to bind into a controller.
- Free Roam is bad. Why the hell is there free roam in the first place? Bird watching? There are no other racers, there is no Police...
- Car Selection
I find it kind of weird that most of cars Racers have access to, Police have them also.
I was expecting more exclusive cars from each side.
This is an early review, and I probably missed a few things I can't remember at the moment.
Final Judgement:
I gave this game 7.0 not because the game is bad, but it was not what i expected.
I was somehow a lunatic, expecting it to have Shift's gameplay, better graphic's, a good world map (and this game has an amazing one), ferocious AI (both Racer and Police) and an awesome Online.
Although they did a good job with this game, it's just not for me.
Too simple, too arcade.