Completing items from these Speed Lists will earn you Speed Points, which can be used to buy and upgrade your cars, while completing the Speed Lists themselves will unlock more cars. Along the way you’re free to take on any of the branches, called Speed Lists, picking the objectives you’d prefer to tackle, or the ones that suit your racing style best. Since Rivals lets you play as either a cop or a racer, there are branching paths to follow to work your way up through the progression. While that might not sound exciting, it works pretty well as a way to keep players engaged.

When you boil this game’s structure down, it’s a series of checklists to complete. It’s all about going fast and doing what you want as either a racer or a cop, speeding around in a big, crazy racing world. Sure, there’s a single-player progression and a light story to follow, but that stuff really doesn’t matter in the long run. Need for Speed: Rivals is an open-world racing sandbox that you’re free to do whatever you’d like in. Release: Novemfor PS4, November 19 for Xbox 360, PS3 Need for Speed: Rivals (PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC) In a sense, they’ve made it so players can jump in and go fast without having to worry about the details. The rest - including the cops, the cars, and the crashing - stay the same.

The latest in the franchise, Need for Speed: Rivals, takes a big step by going all-in on one mode that combines a single-player campaign with online multiplayer. They’ve come a long way since the early ’90s, though the last few years’ releases have been more about refinement of the formula than anything else, moving more towards an open world structure. Like any good racer, the Need for Speed franchise never stops moving.

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