Need for Speed: Heat

Pros

• A gorgeous street racing experience
• Features a compelling storyline
• Earn rep points and cash for upgrades
• Offers day racing cash goals and night racing underground mode
• Has a rich singleplayer campaign mode, plus a strong online component
• Part of a mature racing franchise

Cons

• Requires a powerful Windows computer

Classed as a thrill-a-minute car racing game, Need For Speed Heat takes you away from the confines of a conventional race track and down onto the gritty city streets. Speeding through urban environments, you'll be pitted against other street racers, plus you'll be expected to evade packs of police cruisers. You'll need to sharpen your corner-screeching vehicle evasion skills as you try your best to outrun the law and earn rep points.

Intended for moderate-to-powerful Windows machines, you'd better have a fast computer if you're going to purchase Need For Speed Heat. This is a popular racing game franchise, and it demands a high-performance computer. Having said that, some of the earlier editions of this series were released back in the late 1990s. That's not the case with NFS: Heat, which requires the latest and greatest computer components, including a state-of-the-art GPU. If you want the buzz of this high-octane sport to really immerse you, expect to install the game on a modern i5 Intel computer with 8GB of RAM. Since the higher settings use DirectX 11 graphics, an NVidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU is also recommended. However, if you turn down the settings, turn off anti-aliasing, depth of field rendering, and the games realistic reflections, then you should be able to achieve a satisfactory frame rate on a less well equipped Windows computer.

A 64-bit Windows 10 OS is recommended, although the game should work on Windows 7 and Windows 8 as well. If you own a computer that has an AMD system architecture, do equip the machine with at least an AMD FX-8150 processor, plus an AMD Radeon R9 graphics processor. At the end of the day, though, the more powerful your computer, the more eye candy you can turn on while racing around the streets. And the high-adrenaline racing game really is all about street racing. Located in Palm City, a fictional metropolis that has access to scores of highly trained police officers, you'll need to be quick if you're to evade their ever-vigilant senses. If you break the law, if you speed around the city and run red lights, they'll come screaming after you, trying to block your passage so that you can be brought to justice and locked away from your precious sports car. It's fun going rogue and racing against other speed addicts, but there's a price to pay if you're slower than the other guy you're competing against.

It's a gorgeous racing game, let's make that clear. Even so, it takes more than the latest graphics to make a truly compelling game. If you're to become addicted to the game, to find your days and nights lost to the experience, there has to be a strong element of gameplay ingrained inside the program as well. So, what keeps you coming back for more? Well, there's the story. A high-speed task force, commanded by determined Lieutenant Mercer, is covered by the game story. You'll see Mercer talk to the press and lay out his plans for ending your rogue activities. He and his men are rendered in great detail, so you'll see his brow furrow as he describes his tactics. Hit the gas hard when his task force locks onto your tailpipe. During those races, you'll be talking to your crew and working out routes. If things go wrong, you'll end up in an arcade-style car chase, complete with all of those no-fun cops chasing you down.

Goals are also important in racing games, so let's check out a few of the single-player campaign objectives. During the day, you're working legitimately. There are cash prizes to pick up when you come out ahead in competitions. Using the cash, you'll buy upgrades for your vehicle. At night, though, you become a member of the underground, which is why the law is out to get you and your car. Picking up reputation points while skirting the law, you'll be speeding down neon-lit streets, which throw bright reflections off of your glossy car outlines as it prepares to carry out yet another illegal caper. Loaded with 130 performance-tuned cars and 33 different vehicle manufacturer names, there's no limit to the ways in which you can pull off a win. That's not going to please Lieutenant Mercer, but he'll need to catch you, because he sure won't stop you, not even with the full might of the task force under his control.

Pros

• A gorgeous street racing experience
• Features a compelling storyline
• Earn rep points and cash for upgrades
• Offers day racing cash goals and night racing underground mode
• Has a rich singleplayer campaign mode, plus a strong online component
• Part of a mature racing franchise

Cons

• Requires a powerful Windows computer