Need for Speed: No Limits review - a great game for a very limited time

EA just recently brought its new racing game to the Google Play Store. It’s called Need for Speed: No Limits, and just like other recent NFS games, it features great graphics, a somewhat lacking storyline and tons of underground races. So does this title bring anything new to the table? I’ve spent a good amount of time with this game, and there are definitely some things you should know about it. Here is everything you need to know about Need for Speed: No Limits.

Gameplay and story

In Need for Speed: No Limits, you’ll be competing in countless underground street races on your journey to be the best street racer there ever was. At least, I think so. Just like with most other NFS games, the storyline doesn’t really matter all that much. You’re quickly introduced to a slew of generic characters that for the most part stay out of your way throughout the entirety of the game. To be honest, though, I’m perfectly content with a lacking storyline. No story is better than a bad one, at least in this case. Just let me race.

Even though the story is pretty lacking, there is a lot here in terms of overall content. There are a total of 30 cars in the game, each with their own set of upgradeable parts and customizations. The more races you complete, the more parts you’ll win.

No Limits is brought to us by the folks who made Real Racing 3, which is one of the most realistic looking racing games (surprise, surprise) available in the Play Store. And judging by No Limits’ graphics, it’s very apparent that they put a lot of effort into making this game as beautiful as possible. Like other Need for Speed titles, this game is riddled with reflections, smoke and other not-so-realistic aspects of car racing that make the game look really pretty. I could hardly find a dropped frame playing this on my 2013 Nexus 7, which really helps with the overall experience.

The game’s controls are probably the most simplistic I’ve ever experienced with a racing game. There are no accelerator or brake pedals to tap, and no steering wheel to move around on the side of the screen. Instead, you tap the right or left sides of the display to turn, swipe up on the screen to boost, and swipe down to drift around corners. Your car is always in full acceleration mode, which makes it much easier to navigate through winding roads.

These simplistic controls mean that you’ll never have to actually put on the breaks, only drift around corners. That’s fine, but it can make each track feel a tad monotonous and each car behave just about the same way in the handling department.

There are a few different types of races in the game, including timed races, standard start-to-finish races and more. Each race is extremely short, some being only 30 seconds long. This is great news for folks who don’t have a ton of time to play the game, but this can get pretty old if you just want to race. After each race is finished, you’ll need to click through a multitude of reward screens and wait for the game to load, which really isn’t ideal when you’re finished with each race in under one minute’s time.

In all, though, racing is pretty fun. It’s much easier than most other racing games, and it’s especially easier than other Need for Speed titles. This makes it easy to get hooked on upgrading your cars, parts and customizations, since the game allows you to do so frequently.

Need for Speed: Limitations

Okay, I’m going to be completely honest here. This game surprised me. I thought, “Just how did EA, king of the free-to-play games, manage to get me hooked on a free-to-play racing game?” It’s entirely possible, and it might happen to you. That is, until you hit… the wall.

The folks at Electronic Arts are very smart and know how the free-to-play thing works. They get you completely hooked, almost to an addicted level, and then bam – you magically can’t play anymore. I played for about 3 hours straight without ever running into an issue. You have a limited amount of gas, and each time you race your gas level goes down. At the start of the game, you level up really quickly, and each time you level up, your gas gauge gets refilled. No problem, right? Wrong. There’s a wall, and you’ll hit it eventually. It will stop being so easy to level up, and that means you’ll have to wait a certain period of time before you get to race again. Of course, you can refill your gas tank for 30 gold, and you can purchase more gold with real money. See how this works?

For a game riddled with in-app purchases and limitations, it’s surprisingly not so in-your-face about making you spend money. Only a few times have I run into a pop up telling me to purchase a Monthly Gold Card. And aside from those few instances, No Limits is quite tame when it comes to this method of getting you to spend money.

Wrapping up

At its core, Need for Speed: No Limits is a solid racing game that features simple, intuitive controls, addictive gameplay and tons of options to keep car buffs happy. Look at any other aspect of the game, though, and you’ll quickly realize that fun 30 second-long races can only go so far. If you’re trying to stay away from over aggressive free-to-play titles, you’ll probably want to take a pass on this one. But if you can get past that fact, it’s actually pretty fun.

Need for Speed: No Limits is available for free from the Google Play Store.

Have you played No Limits? If so, what are your thoughts? We’d love to hear what you think in the comments below.