Racing modes have undergone some changes, but only superficially. The modes featured in the game are Grip, Drag, Drift and Speed Challenge. Grip races are your standard races with a few variations while Speed Challenges require you to pass checkpoints at the highest speed possible. Drift and Drag are similar to the old games, only they’ve been tweaked to be as monotonous and boring as possible.
Drifting has become more forgiving in the sense that you don’t lose your score if you bang into walls. The only screwup is that the cars don’t seem to swerve as controllably as they did in earlier; they seem more stubborn and unresponsive, and it isn’t as easy or satisfying to drift at extreme angles and speeds anymore. Pumping up the simulative feel of the game has had an adverse effect on the Drifting, which used to be my favorite part in the previous NFS games; now I just can’t stand it anymore.
Drag races have gone to the dogs too. There’s this mini-game you have to play before EVERY drag race, where you heat up your wheels. While it’s fun for a bit, it becomes a real 'drag' all too quickly and makes you positively hate drag races.
If it’s any consolation, the online mode is rather solid. The career mode has been well integrated with the online mode – which is something they should’ve done in all NFS games. Just go online while you’re playing the career mode and the game tracks your progress and compares it on the leader boards. If you wish to play online, you can just hop on to the multiplayer mode and play with either your own car or the ones that are provided in each race. Joining a match is painless, simple and fast... only there aren’t too many servers up all the time.
When you do connect to an online match though, there are the same boring races waiting for you. All the stuff I loved about the NFS franchise has been sucked out of this game, and what’s left is a rather unappealing and uninspired experience. The game is quite stable if you’ve got a good rig though, but that’s nowhere next to enough to warrant a purchase.






