Before this game, the only other racing game I've put a substantial amount of time into has been Mario Kart. I know that it is a different type of racing game, since it's a kart racer, but it is really the only other racing-like game that I've put any amount of time into. I've tried other games, like Asseto Corsa and Forza, but I felt that the driving mechanics were too stiff and "realistic". I enjoy Mario Kart's mechanics like hard drifting, giving the vehicles a light feeling to them. NFS Heat is very similar to this style of racing.

I guess it would be better to say that the driving in this game is a mix of both simulation racing and kart racing. Sure, you have some cars that you'll need to break a lot to take corners, but there are also some cars that are drift focused and you can take a turn at 150 miles per hour. There is a car for every play style.

What makes this even better is the car customization. Each car is able to be modified to your liking, with the stats of the car leaning towards two of four extremes: Drifting or Racing, and Track or Off-road. I always make my cars be drifting race cars, allowing me to take those sharp turns on a high speed race. It is cool that you are able to take what ever car you want and make it your own functionally.

But wait, there's more! What's even better is the visual customization. I worry if I ever play another racing game that the customization of the cars would not be even close to the customization in NFS Heat. You are able to design what ever look you want for the car. First off, there is physical changes to the car from a list of options given to you. This would be different spoilers, different fronts, different lights, different tires. Each car has a customization rating telling you how much freedom you have over the car. Unfortunately the super cars have the least amount of options, but this makes sense.

In my opinion the best part of this though is the paint job customization. You have access to hundreds of different shapes, fake company logos, and other graphics that you can modify to your hearts content and place all over your car. There are so many amazing car designs that people have made online, it is really impressive how much you can do with the options that the game gives you. I suck at designing cool cars, so what I usually do is download someone else's design and then modify to whatever colors I want, and add branding to the sides. The only addition I would make to this system would be to allow certain shapes to have their color set to a 'secondary color' so that in the paint menu you just change the secondary color and it changes the colors of all the shapes. Right now you have to modify every shape and icon, which for some designs may take forever.

And we're not even done yet with the customization. You can also change a car's tire smoke and exhaust color, under glow lights, and even the sound of the car's engine! It is insane how much power you have over your car, making it your very own. What's even more surprising is that there is no walls between anyone of this, which is surprising for an EA game. Raycevick has a good video about this. All of this is free and accessible as soon as you open up the garage. In fact, there is only two micro transactions: one car (a McLaren F1 I think), and an option to buy the location of all the filler little events like flamingos and jumps. It is a breath of fresh air to see a game where you get everything from the get go and have no restrictions.

The things that people complain about the most with this game is the story and soundtrack. I would agree that the story kinda sucks and is really uninteresting, but I feel that it is kinda hard to make a gripping narrative with the only game play being racing. I don't care about most game stories anyway, so it didn't bother me. For the soundtrack, I thought it was fine and fit thematically. My only issue was that there wasn't enough songs to make the radio not be annoying. I felt like the same songs kept playing over and over, so while I did enjoy the soundtrack for the first few hours, I turned it off after a while and listened to my own music.

All in all, this game is awesome with tons of customization options, and if you like Mario Kart and cool super cars, you'll love this game. 4/5.