I wanted to play Need For Speed Unbound as soon as it released last year but the reviews were not really favourable. So I thought i’ll hold on and get the game when it is on sale.

Last month, in the UK, EA Play had a deal going where you can access the service for just £0.79 a month and Unbound was one of the games in the playlist. So I signed up for a month of EA Play and installed Unbound straight away.

I really liked the first few hours of the game and the game was tough even on the challenging difficulty which is equal to the normal/mid level difficulty. The races were tough because the car I had was underpowered and to power up my car I needed money, and it was pretty great trying to manage winning races and then deciding which parts to get to upgrade my car, etc.

The game progression works where you race everyday for a week (in-game time) and you go one level up after a major race at the end of the week. And at the end of the fourth week you win the final race and complete the story. At the end of each week you are required to buy a new level of car to unlock new races. So managing finances and taking risks was greatly done – you can’t keep playing all the races available as every race adds to your heat level, meaning cops get more aggressive as the day (again, in-game time) passes. I loved all this and after the end of the first “week” the fun stopped.

Why did the fun stop? Because I had a EA Play Membership, I was given some exclusive rewards! I wish these were just cosmetics but no, these were a few cars of different levels which took ever the fun of having to manage finances and take risks. I had a really overpowered car for every single week/level that I had to progress towards. This meant I could just use the car given to me and win races easily, which is what I did. I did buy cars I like and did the upgrades I wanted but it was a bit too easy. If I had got this game without using EA Play, the thrill and excitement of the reward/risk management would have been greater as I would have had to buy those cars. 

I did enjoy the game though, the graphics and the animations were nicely done. Game memberships are great, but not so much if they get in the way of the core essence of the gameplay.