There’s not a huge amount of story it’s more of an occasional diversion from Heat’s regular racing events. Both are needed to progress through Heat’s story, which still plays out like an off-brand Fast & Furious, but the writing’s a lot more restrained than that of the regularly cringeworthy Payback. Daytime Palm City is defined by regular, sanctioned street racing on marked courses for cash payouts, while night racing is all about illegal, underground racing and running from the fuzz to build up rep points. “Heat’s interesting hook is that there are basically two distinct experiences to be gleaned here, and switching between each is a manual process. It’s obviously only a sliver of the size of something as wildly ambitious as The Crew 2, and a bit lifeless on closer inspection, but it’s far denser than Payback and makes for a more interesting driving experience.
The city itself is the big highlight here – the surrounding countryside is a little unmemorable – but there are a few other cool spots, including a mini Cape Canaveral-style space centre, a fun abandoned racing oval, and a big container yard begging for a shred session. Palm City is Need for Speed Heat’s new playground, and the neon-drenched, Miami-inspired map is a great fit for the classic Need for Speed motif. It’s all been ripped out and sent to the scrapyard. Best of all, it’s completely purged of the free-to-play style lottery-based performance upgrade system, the ill-conceived obstacles preventing access to body mods, and most of the other horrible dreck that plagued Payback. It’s a back-to-basics approach with some modern modifications, and it works.
Fewer encounters with momentum-killers helped to keep my pace high and my pulse higher. Like in Forza Horizon, even stone walls crumble and trees splinter if you careen off course. The result is deep vehicle customisation and hectic cop chases, but in a world featuring fewer hazards that’ll bring cars to a dead stop. Heat combines elements of fan-favourites like Underground and the original Most Wanted with some welcome tweaks inspired by its contemporaries.
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