Need For Speed Unbound brings a lot of new things to the table in the long-running series, including stylized car animations, a brand-new Chicago-inspired city, and A$AP Rocky. While It's a good game overall, it is not without its share of problems.

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As indicated by its review scores, there's a love-hate relationship with NFS Unbound. However, the game is not beyond saving, and the changes suggested on this list could easily transform it into a hit arcade racer.

8 A Better Story

Need For Speed Unbound: Story characters relax next to a car.

Let’s face it, no one was ever going to win an Oscar for storytelling in a Need For Speed game. Take a look at the storyline for the beloved Need For Speed: Most Wanted and you’ll realize how simple the narrative in a racing game needs to be. However, the campaign in the Need For Speed: Unbound somehow fails to fulfill this basic requirement.

The characters feel too bland. Moreover, they’re always trying too hard to be relatable and funny. They also talk too much, especially while driving. It's not rocket science to figure out that we'd prefer to listen to car engines scream instead of ‘bro’ and ‘bruh’ too many times.

7 Make The City Memorable

Need For Speed Unbound: An Aston Martin standing in a city square

The cities featured in earlier Need For Speed games like Underground, Carbon, and Most Wanted had a distinct look. You can instantly recognize Rockport or Bayview from a screenshot or an old wallpaper. Even the Miami-inspired city in Need for Speed Heat has a unique look to it.

However, the city in NFS Unbound looks very bland. Maybe it's the overall grayish hue to the entire urban location or something else, but the city's roads just don’t look memorable. This leaves the animated effects to do the heavy lifting of adding some sort of ‘style’ on-screen. And speaking of those effects...

6 Give The Option To Turn Effects Off

Need For Speed Unbound: A car turns sharply, showing the animated drifting effects

Need For Speed Unbound introduced cool new anime-like effects. Whenever your car drifts, does a burnout, crashes, or goes really fast, these stylized effects appear on the screen. However, reactions to these have been mixed, to say the least.

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You'll either love it or you'll hate it, and some of us want nothing more than the option to turn these effects off. A certain PC mod can turn disable them, so it’s something Criterion games could also easily patch.

5 Make Cops More Aggressive

Need For Speed Unbound: A cop car chasing a Lotus Elise

For a game titled Need For Speed Unbound, it sure does like to keep the in-game cops on a leash. The AI for the police in this game is not as fierce compared to other Need For Speed titles, and that's a missed opportunity.

The game offers higher rewards as the heat level increases, but cops acting less competent kind of ruin the experience. Even if you stop the car during a chase, the cops won’t ram into you — which takes away from the intensity of the pursuit.

4 Add A Better Soundtrack

Need For Speed Unbound: ASAP Rocky leans on a black Mercedes.

Good songs have played a huge role in Need For Speed’s success. Many of us became familiar with talented artists like Disturbed, Bullet For My Valentine, Wolfmother, or Element Eighty because of NFS games. We can easily remember how awesome it was when 'Decadence' started playing during a race in Need For Speed Most Wanted.

However, Unbound features no such song. The A$AP Rocky track in the game's playlist — which serves as the game’s theme song — seems pretty good, but it’s not very catchy.

3 Make Car Crashes Less Frequent

Need For Speed Unbound: A cop car crashes into the car its pursuing.

With the addition of stylized effects, car crashes in Need For Speed Unbound look great — but that’s not an excuse for them to happen all the time. Your car feels relatively more prone to crashes, and sometimes even a small impact will result in a crash. It also makes the screen go black as your car refreshes back on the road.

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It really breaks the flow of the race when your vehicle gets thrashed multiple times and is something we think should definitely be addressed in order to improve the overall experience.

2 More Options For Customization

Need For Speed Unbound: Screenshot of the menu showing the process of buying car body kits

Need For Speed Unbound reuses a lot of customization options introduced in Need for Speed Heat. This is a good thing, because Heat had plenty of great ways to personalize a vehicle, but Unbound should also expand a little more. It could include additional cosmetic and performance upgrade options.

For instance, car body kits are very limited in number, and many of them don’t look as good, either. You can still find something new that looks appealing, especially if you haven't played Heat yet.

1 Make Convertible Cars Work In Real-Time

Need For Speed Unbound: Screenshot of the menu process for buying a green convertible Ford Mustang

This might not be a huge deal for everyone, but it also breaks the immersion for a lot of car nerds out there. Although Need For Speed Unbound features convertible cars, you don't the option to change the roof while driving. Instead, you have to go back to the garage.

Unbound really should have a dedicated button to retract the roof as you drive. Grand Theft Auto 5 has that feature, so there's no excuse for a racing title like Need For Speed Unbound to lack one.

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