Which one's the Neediest?

Levelling all the way up and assaulting Merv Tower in River City Ransom: Underground only to get one-hit knocked-out by the jet with no checkpoint kinda ground the game to a halt for me. Will get back to it, but... Ugh.

On that note, Alice: Madness Returns is such a slog... There're moments of brilliance in the visuals, gameplay, and narrative, but it all just feels so unnecessarily padded-out.

RetroPie was released for Raspberry Pi 4 though, so that seemed like a good excuse to jump into Bare Knuckle III on Genesis Plus GX; I own Streets of Rage 3, and it's just kinda awful... The Japaense release is so, SO much better! What were you thinking, SOA :(

Anyway, then the Epic Games Store coupon sale hit, and I snagged Control (haven't tried it yet), Tetris Effect (finished it on Beginner in VR), and Metro Exodus - Gold Edition... Considering Trackmania Turbo next. Tetris Effect is a really, really good Tetris game - Tetsuya Mizuguchi's trademark design and the addition of the Zone mechanic... Not the revelation I was led to believe, but probably the best Tetris game I've played since Tetris DS.

Also, with the bigger SSD, I decided to bring back some casual racing games - namely Burnout Paradise and Need for Speed Rivals. This led me down an NFS rabbit-hole to figure-out which NFS game really is the best to focus on today... Here's how I like to break it down:

The original series; none have aged particularly well, but they were all great upon release:

• The Need for Speed (1994)
• Need for Speed II (1997)
• Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit (1998)
• Need for Speed: High Stakes (1999)
• Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed (2000)
• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (2002)

Underground kinda totally re-invented things, and this seems to be the nostalgia that most people cling to:

• Need for Speed: Underground (2003)
• Need for Speed: Underground 2 (2004)
• Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005)
• Need for Speed: Carbon (2006)
• Need for Speed: Undercover (2008)

Somewhere in there, they kicked-off this track-day approach, and it was solid:

• Need for Speed: ProStreet (2007)
• Need for Speed: Shift (2009)
• Shift 2: Unleashed (2011)

Then Criterion handled this transitional era that really seems to have divided the fanbase, and it's also where I stopped playing:

• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010)
• Need for Speed: The Run (2011)
• Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012)
• Need for Speed Rivals (2013)

...Not really touching V-Rally and Nitro, or the online, portable, and mobile releases, but they're generally fine.

Some context and thoughts then: I didn't spend much time with Carbon, haven't played Undercover, didn't get very deep into ProStreet or Shift, didn't touch The Run even though its approach is intriguing, I hear the 2015 reboot and Payback are a love-or-hate proposition among fans, and Heat is supposedly a welcome return to form.

Personally, I loved the 3DO and DOS versions of the first-ever game when they were released, thought Underground was a revelation, and played the hell out of Most Wanted (2005)... And I don't really want to revisit any of them.

Hot Pursuit (2010) feels like the best version of the original 3DO/DOS game out there, and I suspect that's why it's so revered among die-hard fans. Most Wanted (2012) was fine, but just kinda felt like Burnout to me.

...And that's where Rivals comes into focus; it's Criterion handing-off the franchise to Ghost, everyone getting familiar with the eighth generation of video game consoles, and just kinda laying-down a foundation. I can't personally say if the three subsequent games did well on top of that foundation - the reviews and videos don't suggest any great advancements - but I also don't really care because I'm still having a great time with Rivals.

I've read complaints about a lack of content and direction, but it's a well thought-out and varied sandbox with a clever and minimal narrative... It's all a little melodramatic, but don't forget that this is a Need for Speed game ;) Other complaints include how buggy it is - I've gotten caught in the geometry once, and been stuck between menus twice, but it never really bothered me; I just restarted the game and jumped right back in. Even when my session inexplicably migrates hosts mid-event, it does a solid job of picking-up right where we left-off. The sillier complaints I read were that cops were too aggressive and people hated losing unbanked SpeedPoints when busted... I assume these people don't actually like video games. I, for one, love the excitement and challenge that tangible penalties bring. There isn't a huge amount of content, no, and I don't care for the online aspects of it; but I also don't plan on playing this forever - it's already been out for seven years and three more games in the series have been released.

Rivals looks better than everything before it, and just about as good as anything since; it has a satisfying damage model, a gorgeous weather system, and a great day/night cycle. As for controls, Raycevick put it best when describing what stood-out about Most Wanted (2005): "The feeling of being in total control... But just barely." - I feel that in Rivals as well; it drives like a Need for Speed game should.