The Hollywood set-pieces are jarring cut-scenes that rob you of the satisfaction of pulling them off, and the corny dialogue comes across as inept, rather than knowing.
That appeal, the central kitsch of F&F, is lost in translation in Payback. Those movies which, famously, exist on a precarious ‘so bad it’s good’ appeal hanging above every set-piece like the sword of Damocles. After all, if Vin Diesel one liner-ing his way through wafer-thin scripts about cars driving through skyscrapers makes for a box office smash, why can’t a game appeal to that same appetite? Everything about Payback-the quasi-Vegas setting Fortune City the revenge plot the love for tuners getting airborne and smashing things-harks back to those movies. The problems begin with the esteem Need For Speed Payback holds the Fast and Furious franchise in.
