Managed to get the game at a discount so here are my first impressions. I’m currently early in Week 2 and playing on Intense difficulty.
- Unbound hands down has the best driving model of the post-Rivals games. Heat's driving physics to me were acceptable at best, but driving actually feels good in Unbound. And thankfully, drifting is no longer the dominant way to drive.
- Before playing, I wasn't sure how I felt about designing the career mode around a calendar system, but now that I've experienced it firsthand, I actually quite like it. While the game is really stingy with money (at least in Week 1), once I made meeting the Qualifier requirements my main priority, everything else flowed nicely. But this system may not be everyone's cup of tea since you don't have as much agency compared to Heat's career structure.
- I personally don't care for the drift and Takeover events and I only bother attempting them whenever they happen to have a high payout. I'm certainly not wasting my money building dedicated drift cars. IMO, Carbon was the last game to have fun drifting.
- I was on the fence about the game's artstyle from the beginning. It wasn't a deal breaker for me at all but at the same time, it did feel a bit forced. I'm glad there is an option to pick gray tire smoke at least, so that it looks somewhat normal. I quickly got used to the effects though and they are the last thing on my mind when I'm actually playing the game. There are more important things to keep your eyes on when racing and escaping cops. Speaking of which...
- Police pursuits are a mixed bag for me. On one hand there are improvements over Heat, like gas stations being on a timer instead of limited uses and being able to wreck cops without damaging your car. However, the game is too aggressive with the cop's spawn rates and I hope they're toned down a bit in a future update. It becomes really annoying trying to reach an event without being detected, especially if it's far away. Unfortunately, this makes the police more of a nuisance than a legitimate threat a lot of the time.
- I have to say this game’s pursuit themes are on the weaker side. Only Heat 5’s music seems to capture any sort of dread or intensity that you want the player to feel when they’re being chased by the police.
Overall, I'm enjoying Unbound so far and looking forward to playing more of it. I just hope that unlike Heat, this game gets ongoing support until whatever the next NFS title will be.