Here the next major problem of the game happens, most of the cutscenes just didn’t work for me! They would start fine, freeze, and after the time the cutscene should have played for passes, the next gameplay scene would start. Sometimes the cutscenes would just skip completely, and the only reason I noticed it’s because there was a jump in the story that made no sense otherwise. In order for the game to make sense I played with “FAST & FURIOUS CROSSROADS All Cutscenes (Game Movie) 1080p 60FPS HD” opened on my phone so I could watch the parts that did not work. I don’t think I need to tell you this is a bad gaming experience.
So you meet Vienna’s boyfriend, who got involved with the local mob, and will die in like 3 missions. You also find out Vienna hasn't raced since “something” very bad happened the last time she raced, and that’s why she (and notably, Cam, who had nothing to do with that) fled from Miami (and the USA at large) to barcelona.
The gameplay is often criticized for being boring, and while I don’t disagree, I don’t think it’s that bad. The world sometimes tries to trick you into thinking it is an open world but it is dreadfully linear. Most objectives are “get from point a to b”, without there being anything really to make that a challenge. To the merit of the game, all of the drives are filled with well paced character chatter, the dialogue isn’t great but at least it’s fitting the format.
The dialogue would become a problem only if you have to repeat certain sections over and over again, and I am sure that doesn't happen often - haha.
After like the midpoint of the game, at which point I wasn’t sure you could fail a mission, I started failing missions. Some because, well, sometimes you lose, some because the instructions of what I need to do are unclear, and some because of missions I am not sure how the game wanted me to be able to clear any faster. So I had to hear the same lines again and again and again and again.
Also remember that there are cars with special abilities? Let's talk about the worst one.
Cam is a hacker, that is part of their trans swag. So they can try hacking enemy cars. and when you do you get a dead by daylight style minigame, like a circle that has a little colored part in it moving around and when it reaches a glowing section you need to click it.
Who the hell told the developers that the best minigame to put in a driving game where I need to look at where I drive, is one where I need to stare at a circle instead, depending on the difficulty you’ll need to do it up to 3 times in a row. and if the car you're hacking gets out of your line of sight well bad luck bucko you failed the hack now wait for your cooldown.
