In his middling review, Phil Iwaniuk praised Need For Speed Payback's "enjoyable arcade handling", but criticised its scope to become "monotonous long before it rewards your time investment." The racer's latest complimentary update arrives tomorrow, and hopes to give players more bang for their buck with a new event series and new cars.
Speedcross marks the racer's first big update, bringing with it steering wheel support, abandoned cars, new vehicles, and the eponymous Speedcross mode—the latter of which includes a score-accumulating feature wherein players tackle drift zones, jumps, speed traps and "smackables". Speedcross includes 16 new events spread over four zones: Canyon, Construction, Ember Valley and Airfield.
(Update: Payback's Speedcross update is free for owners of the game's Deluxe Edition, and will be purchasable as a separate standalone for everyone else. Abandoned cars, on the other hand, will be free to all owners of the base game "very soon".)
Here's a trailer:
On the new cars front, Speedcross promises the Mazda RX-7 Spirit R, Volvo 242DL, Volvo Amazon P130, Plymouth Barracuda, Nissan Skyline 2000 GTR and the BMW M3 Evolution II E30—each of which can be unlocked by competing in specific events, or by stealing abandoned models and successfully outrunning the authorities.
Once the latter is ascertained, each car will be available to purchase from the game's dealerships.
"Abandoned Cars will start appearing across Fortune Valley very soon as a free addition to all owners of NFS Payback," says this blog post. "The first car to go find is the Mazda RX-7 Spirit R, with more cars to arrive in the comings weeks."
As featured in the trailer above, Payback's Speedcross update also brings with it the Mini John Cooper Works Countryman and the Infiniti Q60 S. "These won’t be the only cars available within the Speedcross class," says publisher EA, "joining them are the; Nissan 350Z, Ford Focus RS and Dodge Charger."
Need for Speed Payback's Speedcross update is due tomorrow, December 19.
