Ranking Every Modern Need For Speed From Worst To Best

After three years, Need for Speed has come back with Unbound, and with it is the return of Criterion Games who last worked on the franchise nearly a decade ago. With fan anticipation through the roof, is the new game worth playing?

Thankfully, the answer is yes.

For starters, Unbound boasts a unique art style with cars exhausting anime-esque smoke effects and wings during jumps. Another big improvement is with vehicle handling as grip builds can now be as effective as drift-based cars. There's also the day and night cycle which continues where NFS: Heat left off and offers a risk versus reward system. The more you play during the day, the higher the Heat and risk you get when playing at night.

But while the game is solid enough, the rubberbanding AI can be unforgiving even at lower difficulties while the limited amount of restarts is an odd design choice. Aside from that, after three years and a developer change, it's also disappointing to see that Unbound doesn't push the series forward and is way too similar to its recent predecessors.

Regardless, it is a fun time and players will most likely enjoy the game at least until the next one comes out.