After a year off, Electronic Arts’ long-running arcade racer series Need For Speed is rebooted and back – but has the wait been worth it?

Here are 10 thoughts from my time playing the game over the past few days:

1. It looks awesome. Truly awesome. In Ventura Bay, EA’s studio Ghost Games has created one of the most impressive, realistic looking settings seen in any game so far on current-gen consoles. The open-world network of highways, city streets and country roads looks gorgeous, with a level of detail and believability that is properly jaw-dropping on first sight. The game takes place exclusively at night, and the way the dazzling lights reflect off the rain-soaked roads is outstanding – it’s like being inside the movie Drive.

2. The setting possibly wouldn’t look nearly as glorious in daytime hours, but the game’s constant night does become jarring after a while. There are occasional glimpses of dawn, but things quickly shift back to full-on night, sometimes during the same event. Some of the immersion is lost due to this odd cycle of night, nearly morning, then night again.

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3. The game’s looks are helped by the developer’s interesting choice to go with live-action film during cutscenes. The cheesy bunch of five main characters are all one-dimensional, such as the always enthusiastic rich kid Spike and the feisty tomboyish mechanic Amy, and they’re hardly blessed with the best writing to aid their ‘performance’, but they do add a certain charm to the game. Although the plot is just about non-existent (it’s never explained why you’re in their gang or why they’re so welcoming), having real people instead of computer models is weirdly engrossing. I’ve found them fun to have around as they’ve grown on me, despite their terrible communication that involves far too much ‘dude!’ and fist-bumping.

4. As well as looking so good, the game also sounds great. The soundtrack with its strong electronic/dance flavour helps set the mood while there are very satisfying roaring, burbling and clunking noises from the cars.

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5. Beautifully glistening in the night lights and sounding pleasingly growly, the cars can be visually customised in many ways. Unless I’ve missed it, there isn’t an option for importing your own photos and textures but there is a wide range of choices for getting the appearance of your ride just how you want it. Once you pull up the menus it's easy to spend a long time playing around with paint jobs and decals.

6. Seeming to hark back to Need For Speed’s younger days, there are many ways cars’ performance and handling can be adjusted too. The performance part of it isn’t especially deep – you just buy the best upgrades you can afford with the game’s currency and these help make your motor run better. The handling is more nuanced – there are three main options (drift, grip and a middle setting), but 16 individual sliders allow petrolheads to do more advanced tuning. There is a big difference in handling when shifting from a grip setting to drift, and you’ll need to find the right balance when taking on the different types of events that include style challenges, time trials and races.

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7. When you get your car out on the road you’ll notice two things. Firstly, your in-game chums Spike, Amy et al never stop calling you on the damned phone. Secondly, there is a lot of very noticeable rubber-banding during events. If you’re struggling you’ll never be far off the pace from the rest of the field unless you’re making a real hash of it, whereas if you’re out front having the race of your life your competitors are strangely never far behind. Rubber-banding is a staple of arcade racers to keep things close and tense to the end, but sometimes it can be done quite subtly – this is not one of those times.

8. Police chases are part and parcel of any Need For Speed game, so you can expect to have the rozzers on your tail from time to time. It seems a little random when they will strike, though – some major waves of destruction have led to flashing lights in my rearview mirror and others haven’t. The police are thankfully less aggressive and superpowered than in last year’s The Crew, and there is a nice touch of being able to pay a fine upfront or try to outrun the law and risk a bigger penalty later if you’re caught.

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9. Need For Speed is controversially an always-online game. There is no escape from this even if you want to play on your own and not jump into events with other human racers (the main multiplayer component). This is annoying for two reasons – first, enjoyment of a game should rest on quality of hardware alone and not be affected by internet connection or infrastructure that you have no control over. Secondly, it means the action can’t be paused – if your significant other walks into the room wanting to chat you can either risk a row or risk losing your progress in an event.

10. To end, here is some controversy of my own. For me, Need For Speed just isn’t as exciting as it could and should be.

The handling models are solid, controls are responsive, everything works as it should – there are no complaints there. But the driving lacks some wow factor and some, well, speed.

It feels a touch pedestrian – there have been times when I’ve ‘felt’ I’ve been driving slowly at maybe 40-50mph, only for my speedo to tell me I’ve actually been doing around 100mph more. Need For Speed's version of 150mph doesn't feel like what 150mph should be. The two front-of-car camera angles, as opposed to the three different third-person (or third-car?) views, do seem to provide some extra pace but this is offset by steering becoming much harder.

I want a racing game to make me feel like I’m on the very edge of control. I want it to be adrenaline-pumping- edge-of-my-seat action where I finish a race taking deep breaths and with sweaty palms. Need For Speed doesn’t deliver here, and I think previous versions such as Hot Pursuit and Rivals have had a more white-knuckle sense of speed.

Additionally, the way the game is structured doesn’t offer any surprises or innovations. It’s mainly a rinse and repeat process of pulling up the map, driving to an event, doing an event that takes a few minutes and then looking for the next one. It’s all been seen before. The appearance of some automotive ‘icons’ (the only one I’ve heard of being Ken Block) doesn’t add much.

The verdict:

Overall, Need For Speed looks and sounds like a highly tuned supercar but drives more like a family saloon. It’s incredibly beautiful but otherwise is somewhat safe, predictable and, dare I say it, bland. This is a reboot but the formula hasn’t really been freshened up – if it had been, and if the driving was given a bit more oomph, we’d be talking about one of the top racing games rather than something that turns out to be just another one. Has the wait been worth it? I’m not convinced it has entirely, unfortunately. There are some great things about this game, marred by some disappointments.

6 out of 10

Out now for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. PS4 version played