The articlegameplay, story, development, reception
Gameplay
Need for Speed: No Limits has a heavy focus on street racing, vehicle customization, and avoiding the police.
The player must race in "Campaign races" (essentially the game's story mode), "Car Series races" (where only certain cars may participate to gain more campaign levels or 'reputation') and "Rival Races" (ghost-based multiplayer races). The player can also participate in time-limited special events, with a special car loaned for use in the event. If the player is able to complete the event within its time limit, the loaned car will be permanently added to the player's garage as a completion reward.
Development
The game was developed by Firemonkeys Studios (Real Racing 3 developers) and was published by Electronic Arts.
The game was released on iOS on January 6, 2015, but only in Taiwan and the Netherlands. The game was initially only playable in Dutch as an alpha version for early testing. The game was released on Android on February 17, 2015 as a beta version, and was still only available in Dutch. The worldwide launch was in English, with better compatibility for quad-core and octa-core devices in which the game often crashed at its beta version.
Reception
Need for Speed: No Limits received mixed reviews. Critics praised the game's visuals, controls, and gameplay, but criticized its aggressive free-to-play system and short races. Review aggregator website Metacritic gave the game 67/100 based on 8 reviews.
Harry Slater of Pocket Gamer gave the game a score of 4 out of 5 stars, praising the game's visuals, fast gameplay, and free access, but criticizing the game's short races. Keith Andrew of Trusted Reviews gave the game 3/5, criticising the need to pay a considerable amount of microtransactions if players want to access all cars.
