If waking up to the smell of burnt rubber is your idea of a perfect day, then Need for Speed: Most Wanted is the game for you. This game is classic arcade-racing fun, in addition to many car customization and upgrade options, an interesting (although un-stimulating) career path, and high speed escapes from the cops.
The plot for this game is simple: to become the biggest bad-ass in the city. Basically this means three things: raising the price on your head by running from the cops and demolishing federal and public property, climbing up the blacklist by systematically beating other opponents, and winning drag and other kind of races against AI opponents.
Here’s a list of all the features from EA themselves:
Wake up to the smell of burnt asphalt as the thrill of illicit street racing permeates the air. From the makers of the hit Need for Speed™ Underground series that has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, Need for Speed™ Most Wanted challenges you to become the most notorious and elusive street racer.
Combining illicit street racing and tuner customization with the intensity of strategic police pursuit that surpasses any Hollywood-style chase scene, Need for Speed Most Wanted should be on your “must-have” list. Out-race rivals, evade cops, and exploit hundreds of miles of open road as you make your way up the Blacklist.
To become the most wanted racer, build up your street cred and Rap Sheet with gripping, white-knuckle, head-to-head races against the top drivers on the streets. Pull daring, evasive moves to out-run and out-fox the cops that patrol the open road. Manage your heat or use strategic tactics to keep the cops off your tail as you leave your rivals behind to suck your exhaust fumes.
Need for Speed Most Wanted also features a variety of the hottest cars, from tuners and super cars to muscles and sports cars. You can tune your ride to race against any class of vehicles. The streets are your playground!
- Open road, open world: Rule the streets as the most notorious street racer in distinct regions that include edgy industrial and upscale urban environments. The street can be a friend for a foe. Master short-cuts and use the traffic and destructible environments to your advantage.
- All-new gameplay: New and exciting gameplay combines strategic cop pursuit and skill-based evasion techniques with illicit street racing.
- Visual customization: Whether you’re trying to lose the cops or you just want to pimp your ride, Need for Speed Most Wanted offers extensive visual customizations.
- Blacklist: As you enter the world of street racing, go up against the best drivers on the scene to earn respect and rise to the top of the Blacklist.
- Rap Sheet: Build up your Rap Sheet with record-breaking times, epic races, and wild headline-making stunts. Out-fox police vehicles, tactics, and technology.
- Performance tuning: Can’t compete against a sports car? Head to the safehouse and tune up your ride to race against any class of vehicles.
- Next-gen features: Need for Speed Most Wanted for the next-generation console delivers a new level of graphical excellence in video games. Utilizing graphical techniques including normal mapping, digital scanning, and real-time lighting, the game’s visual experience outpaces other racing games on the market.
- Online racing: Challenge your friends or rivals in online play for Xbox Live.
The career path is simple to understand and presented well. In order to advance and challenge the next person on the ‘blacklist’, the player must get a certain amount of bounty and win a particular number of challenges. These challenges include races such as drag, circuit, tollbooth (get from one to the next in a certain amount of time), patrol cameras (race past them going a certain MPH), and sprint races. Challenges are particularly easy, as there is no limit on the number of times the player can complete a certain race. Bounty is a whole different story…
Raising the value of your head is the most fun part of the entire game. Basically, there are a whole bunch of cops alerted to your presence, and you are thrown right into the middle of it. From there, the goal of the mission is to outrun the cops while causing as many traffic infractions as possible, and then find a place to hide until they lose sight of the car.
This sounds much easier than it actually is. Cops are constantly calling for back-up and establishing road blocks that must be crashed through at rather high speeds. After several minutes of high speed chase, the ‘po po’ will change from the traditional Crown Vicky Fords to Pontiac GTOs, which are much MUCH harder to outrun. Cops can be thwarted by hitting big orange signs along the road called “police breakers”. These tend to be rotted buildings that will fall on the cop cars, slowing them down or perhaps completely smashing their cars.
Lastly, racking up bounty in this mode also includes piling up the number of traffic infractions that the cops were unable to serve. Infractions include hit and runs, pile-driving police cars, speeding, reckless driving, driving off or heading the wrong direction on a road, or destroying state property.
Besides running from the cops to raise your bounty, your car must also demolish as much public and state property as possible in “Cost to State” mode. This includes anything and everything from police cars to telephone poles and toll booths. The longer the pursuit and the most stuff your car hits are combined together to raise your bounty.
Don’t think your Lambo is invincible though; if the cops catch it by surrounding the car due to a crash or failure to break through a roadblock, there is a hefty fine and the car gets impounded. Not fun.
Unfortunately, the opposing AI drivers (including those on the blacklist) are complete toolsheds. Not only are their biographies and threats completely trite and idiotic, but any gamer over the age of 5 could out-race them. If the car crashes and the AI takes the lead, oftentimes the player can catch up to see the AI spinning out of control on a wide open road for no reason.
OR……perhaps they may just be braking, just for the hell of it. It is really, really disappointing that these guys don’t present more of a challenge. When racing a blacklister, you’re racing for pinks.
However, just because the race has been won doesn’t mean that the car is automatically in your garage. There are 5 options to choose from, with the prize hidden from sight. Two of these are car upgrades, and the other three include “get out of jail free” and “more strikes against your car for impound” cars, as well as the pink slip. However, players only get to choose two out of five. This option is annoying, as I kicked myself when I didn’t win the Porsche…
Car customization in this game is really cool. After beating opponents on the blacklist, more options are unlocked to upgrade more cars. Also, neat decals and paint colors are a nice addition. (Yay for the German flag on my VW!) Exhaust, vents, spoilers, and other visual add-ons are also included.
Even the crappiest cars can be turned into formidable opponents if the right amount of upgrades are added on. Some of the upgrades include turbo, brakes, tires, engine, transmission, and most other parts as well. These options are a nice addition to the game, as cars can become quite unique.
The graphics on the Xbox 360 are simply amazing! There are lots of subtle scenery elements, and you usually whiz by them too quickly to really appreciate them. The shadows from trees realistically react to the cars, which are shiny and photo-realistic. The lighting and weather effects (rain droplets on the virtual camera) are very realistic.
Unlike NFS: Underground, this game takes place completely in the daytime, although the lighting changes from rain, to afternoon, and even dusk. The light blooming and chromatic abberation through leaves and tree branches are very realistic. The lighting even oversaturates when emerging from a tunnel to daylight, similar to the effect of your eyes’ pupils re-adjusting. Add wide-screen high-definition into the mix and you have the best-looking game in the Need for Speed franchise.
Besides car customization, the variety of cars in the game is immense. Although many must be purchased and then upgraded, there is everything from Lamborghini Gallardos to Lotus Elises and the standard Acura Integra. Maintaining a large garage is easy with this many cars to choose from.
The graphics for the cars are quite nice; however the environment besides the road could be better. When driving by at 130 mph, the graphics look pretty nice. However, at slower speeds the environment has a lot of jaggies and pop-ups.
NFS:MW’s soundtrack is really dull as well. As much as I like the sound of car exhaust, some more tracks could be added for during gameplay. The same old rap tunes over and over again get old. However, the game is a “talkie”, which is a big relief.
Need for Speed is more of an arcade game than a racing simulator. The only realistic part of the driving experience between cars is front, rear, and all wheel drive. Road holding is notably different depending on which the car has. Also, swerving and hitting the breaks are not exactly realistic, as counter-steering rarely works in this game to pull the car out of a spin and power slides are non-existent.
The world in which this NFS:MW takes place is huge. Although many areas are restricted until a certain standing on the blacklist is achieved, the game still gives the player an immense amount of room to play around in. There is even enough room for a couple of trailer parks complete with their own drying clothes outside and banjos! (Okay, so I made up the part about the banjos…)
There is a place in each household for a good old fashioned arcade racing game. Although the career path is pretty boring, there is still enough content in NFS:MW to cause a lot of trouble. Who knew running from the cops and smashing into things in a customized rice-burner could be so much fun?
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4 minutes 16 seconds 720×480 2MBit Windows Media 74 MB |
Download EA’s intro video 55 seconds 720×480 DVD-quality MPEG-2 (widescreen) 17 MB |