I gotta say, I'm glad I decided to check out the NFS Ghost trilogy when it came to steam (Yes I know their name was on Rivals, but that was basically HP 2010 2 and Criterion was still on the bill then, so it doesn't count) I found Payback to be exactly how the reviews said it would be... The story was a bit silly and the voice acting was cringey for I'd say everyone except Marcus Weir and Barracuda, Robert James and Lee Majdoub are the only two voice actors I actually liked here. The speed card system isn't as annoying as I expected, but I'd certainly rather it not be there. I love that colored nos and tire smoke and underglow are in game, but why are they locked behind loot boxes? The game gives you enough lootboxes for free that it doesn't really bother me, except for the fact that you can't pick what you actually want... I don't think I have a single green underglow option, but I have to scroll through countless variations of blue underglow to get to anything... The UI for that really was poorly designed, it needed a filter. Also, why was it so rare to get colroed nos and tire smoke compared to those stupid horns?.. My biggest grievance about Payback isn't the story, or the voice acting, or the EA loot boxes, but the inability to do much in the end game. I fully intended on 100% the game until I finished the story and realized there is no good way to earn more credits, the final mission doesn't give you any real amount of credits, and there's no post story discount on anything. And no sandbox like the older games had where you can play with car customization free of charge. That really killed it for me, I was ready to keep playing but I'm not going to spend an hour grinding credits after I finish the story just to buy a single hypercar... That really pisses me off, it's kinda a big thing to leave out in a game with car customization so central to half the franchise, and a big draw of EA bringing back the old school style games with visual customization after so long without it. NFS 2015 was the second one I played, and...I can't believe I'm saying this after how awful the reviews were, but I like it. The cut scenes/characters/actors are actually better than they are in Payback... It certainly is weird seeing the live action stuff, but I'm glad they tried it. I'd also be happy to not see it again, it's fine as a one off... The vehicle handling isn't my favorite, but it's not nearly as bad as reviews had me believe (though I suspect this was changed, as there seems to be a fair number of differences between the steam release and what I saw being reviewed 5 years ago). The customization is actually really good, the performance customization is an absolute joy after playing 40 hours of speed card simulator, and the body kits in game are amazing. I just wish we had some underglow and roof scoops (I know they are out of fashion and I wouldn't even use them, but it's the principle of not even giving us the option)... Also, who's the idiot that came up with this 10 car limit?.. I will say, the AI is even worse than the reviews had me believing, I've never seen cops to inept and racers so bad (this rubber banding on steroids is aggravating at the best of times). I'm neutral about the map, I don't think it's as bad as reviews were saying, but it certainly isn't as good as other open world racing games of the era either. I am worried I will face the same end game issue as I did in Payback, but with a stupid hard cap of 10 cars in the garage, and with less to do in the world, I doubt I'll want to continue after the story anyway. But why can't I pause the game, even in a single player world? Why did they do this for Rivals and think it was a good idea that they should do a second time?... I've yet to play, Heat, but I'm honestly really looking forwards to it. I really hope to see the best bits of the previous 2 games, I played their mobile phone sandbox customize but forgot what there was. I do remember feeling like a lot of the customization is the same across the roster and I was making every car into an identical copy of the last, but that was on a pre-release mobile thingy so it doesn't mean much. Once again I'm worried about the end game, every game with such extensive visual customization needs either a sandbox mode or an easy way to earn credits after the story (or do what GTA V did and give the player a ton of money after the story) TLDR: I tried the ghost games NFS trilogy and was pleasantly surprised. I went into 2015 and Payback expecting to hate them both, but actively liked both overall.
This makes me oddly more uncomfortable than it should --- Post updated --- Dont wanna discourage you but don't get your hopes too high for Heat. All support (updates) for it pretty much ended last month so there isn't much post-story content. The story is excruciatingly short (despite being better than 2015 and Payback imo) and there isn't a huge payout after the story, so you're left to do races and challenges over and over again if you need a bunch of cash. Also, if you liked Payback's soundtrack and it's diversity, you won't like Heat's soundtrack. It's all latin pop and hip hop, and even as someone who really likes both genres, the song selection isn't really good. Other than those issues, Heat is a pretty good game. I don't think the Ghost trilogy deserves all the sh*t it gets from super-jaded NFS fans.
I didn't even notice the soundtrack in Payback, only two songs even grabbed my attention for them to be anything more than background music. From what I've heard, Heat is just an evolution of the others, so I was expecting the next game to be pretty good. It seems they had things finally figured out for the most part. I have mixed feelings about Criterion taking the reigns for 2021. Yeah they made Hot Pursuit 2010, which was an awesome game (still waiting to get the DLC on PC though...), but Ghost was finally getting into their stride.
I'm sorry. I was just pissed off this morning. I don't blame ya, honestly. I just hate noises in my house at night and I thought that would be cool.
I think Criterion knows what us fans want at this point and are gonna try to do everything that Ghost did good and possibly make those things better. I loved Hot Pursuit 2010, it was basically the first game I ever played, but I think that they should try what Ghost did (or tried to do) and just go back to illegal street racing instead of the action movie stuff they did while they were in charge of NFS; those games were great but the powerups and whatnot have their place. --- Post updated --- I get it. I don't like weird mechanical noises in my house either. It's just that, as a black person, that particular part made me wince a little.
small PSA: You’re allowed to have an AMD CPU, but please stop hating on Intel because you think you’ll be in the kool kidz klub, AMD has it’s pros and cons and so does intel, so please for the love of God stop hating on intel. You're not cool if you hate intel just because you think it's cool, if you hate them because you had an intel product and it was faulty, that's different.
I hate on intel because it genuinely seems like everything they put out is all around worse than it's Ryzen counterpart... I'm no CPU enthusiast, but that seems to be the conclusion of everything I read/watch/hear about them
... and that's fine, I'm not saying you have to love intel, but rather I'm telling people who hate on it because they think it's cool to hate on Intel to stop. that's nice to hear.
Maybe when they innovate and stop releasing the same furnace year after year, then maybe I'll respect them for the chip fab they are... except they don't make their own chips anymore. Come on, man. The last time Intel had a from scratch design, it was NetBurst in 2000. Two decades ago. And you know what? It was horrible. The last versions of NetBurst had a 40 stage ultra long pipeline, which cause pipeline stalling even WITH branch prediction and SMT. It was so bad that they had to fall back onto the P6 architecture which was released in 1995 under Pentium Pro. The Core architecture may have changed and been optimized, but its the same macroarchitecture Intel released 25 YEARS AGO. 10nm is a disaster, 7nm isn't even off the ground yet and the test wafers are yielding so bad that Intel had to push back the release of the chip before it's even close to finished. It was confirmed by an Ex-Intel engineer that Apple dropped them because of the whole fiasco with Skylake. Not to mention how hilariously insecure they are at a hardware level. I've had my Intel and I'm done, frankly. My 4690K refused to clock beyond 4.3 without turning into a nuclear reactor, I have a 7700HQ equipped laptop that sounds like a jet engine opening Chrome. The only success I've had with them is an i3-6100 and my ancient Xeon server.
As far as I can tell, AMD has all of the pros, and Intel has all of the cons. Sure, Intel has a slightly clock advantage, but it requires so much power that it's not worth it outside of extremely niche applications, such as stock trading. Intel also has some embedded systems, but if you're doing anything embedded, you're probably going with ARM. Do you mind listing some advantages that Intel has over AMD, especially any that make a case for consumers to buy Intel over AMD?
When did I say you couldn’t have opinions, those are valid reasons, I’m talking about people who hate intel for no reason. I’m not switching to AMD btw. @Funky7Monkey my core i5 9300h beats out my sister’s ryzen 5 third gen. There’s also that Intel CPU insurance thingy right(or was that discontinued). What I especially hate is the internet goes insane when Intel does something wrong, but quietly shoves AMD’s mistakes under a bus, which is something that pisses me off. My take on AMD is that everyone says they’re so good but when you actually use the product(especially on laptops) it turns out to be no better (even worse in my case)than an Intel CPU. Intel also has slightly better gaming performance, but people buy AMD because it’s cheaper. But not me; I’m gonna buy a core i9 10900k for my PC, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop me.
Allegiance to the name of a brand on the package is always dumb. Go for what makes sense for your budget and requirements, nothing more.
I rated like because I feel like that's the new informative on here. My take on intel is that they're okay. I don't think I've ever used AMD. Also, is gaming performance on AMD actually that bad? Also, what about Alienware? Is that any good?
Yes. Follow your gut. --- Post updated --- 2 things: 1. Intel does deliver slightly better performance then AMD 2. Alienware is a PC building company by Dell, and I think dell has a license/partnership with its intel.
