Need for Speed Payback (PS4) - Completed

I've had an itch to enjoy a racing game for a long time and nothing could scratch it until Need for Speed Payback was added to PS+ in October. 

Yes it has a really bad story but where it matters most in the driving it is great fun with four different classes in Drag, Race, Off-Road & Drift. Lots of events for you to complete which follow the main story arc in taking down various car leagues. There are also chips to collect, billboards to smash and tons of challenges from top speed, drift zones, jumps etc. In fact there are too many of these challenges that just litter the map!

To upgrade the cars you can complete events which you can replay if required to earn a card that will upgrade one of six components of your car. You can also visit a tuning shop to purchase these cards using the credits earned during the game. It is not too difficult to get cars up to the max level 18 and 399 rating.

When driving around you may get lucky and find a bait crate. These are great fun, you collect the crate & have to race to the destination with cops chasing you down.

Overall a great fun racing game that I enjoyed playing & it has definetly scratch my racing itch!

New Game - Need for Speed Hot Pursuit

I did not enjoy the demo, I found it very difficult to control the cars. Yes I know it's a racing game & I'm crap at them but I'm sick of playing FPS games online all the time. Criterion done a very good job with Burnout Paradise so when I saw Hot Pursuit on sale for £23.99 it was a no brainer to buy.

You can start the game as a cop or racer and completing various events gives you experience points to level up which unlock cars & more events. The events are different types from your bog standard race to a classic chase HQ take out the racer in your cop car. I even managed to set the fastest time on some events which had my son shocked & amazed at my 'Skillz'. He then promptly spent the next hour trying to beat my score & did but oh well for that brief moment I enjoyed the notion that I was good at racing games. Your times are posted to an Autolog feature which challenges you when friends beat your time on a particular event. I have not yet tried an online race, hopefully a few on ugvm will have gotten this game over xmas so we can have a PMG in the new year.