Verdict:
FOREWORD
The need for speed Most Wanted is the 9th game in the NFS racing game series. That’s quite a legacy, don’t you think? After the release of the movie The Fast and the Furious, the NFS family had turned into a new direction to capitalize on the hype. The high-performance Italian cars disappeared and, in their place, came the buffed up Japanese neon lighters. This latest instalment brings back some of the traditional NFS aspects while still keeping up the “next gen” vibes.
GAMEPLAY
You play as a new kid in town. You were just starting a successful illegal racing career, when one of the drivers messes with your ride during a race and makes you lose. He gets your car and you get busted. You’re released but have to work your way up the racing ladder to get your revenge and your car.
The said racing ladder consisting of a 15-name “black list” of drivers, where to challenge each driver, you have to prove yourself first. How? Well, by taking part in races and getting a bigger bounty on your head, of course. You start on your path with a little money, with which you have to buy a new car, and the more races you win, the more money you earn, unlocking parts of the map, new cars and different parts for those cars.
There are 32 cars in the normal edition of Most Wanted and about 50 in the Black Edition. They range from Lamborghinis to Volkswagen, so you get a mixture of European racing pedigree and street tuner vehicles. Sadly, you can’t just pick one car and keep upgrading it the entire game. If you want to stay competitive, you’ll eventually be forced to buy a more powerful car.
Tweaking your vehicle is done in three segments: visual, performance and parts. Although there are many things you can do to your car, customization has taken steps back compared to the previous NFS game. Instead of choosing each bumper and side mirror individually there are several full body kits for each car. Smaller parts like headlights can no longer be changed at all, and there are no neon underglow kits. Some parts, like the spoilers or rims, can still be chosen separately though.
You race on a single city map, some parts of which are unlocked as you progress through your campaign, though during races most of the roads are closed off and there are but a few short-cuts available. The city features dynamic traffic and plenty of things that you can destroy with your car. During the races your car is a tank that cuts through light posts and containers with no problem. The damage your car is taking is superficial, limited to some paint scratches and glass cracking.
There are all kinds of races, from drag racing, where you have to manually switch gears as you fly between the traffic, to time trials set between toll booths. During drag races, the traffic can be predicted after going through it a couple of times. The whole thing becomes a trial-and-error challenge. Outside of the main campaign, there’s also a set of increasingly difficult challenges and a quick-race mode.
The NFS Most Wanted features the return of the police force, and it’s one of the game’s central features at that. The longer you evade the police and the more damage you make, the more cops there will be pursuing you and the stronger their measures will be. At the highest wanted level, there will be police blocks, road spikes, helicopters, etc. Some challenges are completed, and bounty points are gained, by speeding, destroying property and other ways of being an *sshole.
You can hear the cops on the radio coordinating their actions. It’s cool that they even recognize the car you drive. It’s a nice change to the generic police talk track that is used in many movies and games.
To try and evade the police, you can ram through structures, which may destroy or slow down your pursuers. Once you have evaded the police, you must go through a cool-down period before the cops will give up their search. Your car has a police head meter and, if the heat of cops gets too high on one of your vehicles, you can switch to another for a while. After getting busted three times in the same vehicle, your car gets impounded for a while, so you better have a substitute.
Most Wanted really emphasizes illegal activity. There’s even a rap sheet that tracks all your violations. You’re a gun away from this becoming GTA.
The problem with the cops in Most Wanted is that in order to have some fun with them you’ll need to get to the highest level and then slow your car down a little. The AI, as interesting as it is, is too easy. However, the combination of exciting dynamic music, police chatter and high speed makes the chases fun nonetheless.
After getting bored with the single player, you can play multiplayer. The campaign won’t offer much after you’re done with it. Unlike the previous two NFS games, there are no one-on-one races where you can just challenge a rival car on the road. If you want to race, you have to complete the already completed challenges again or go to the quick-race mode. The online mode has normal races, team races and other modes. The racing events come in groups of 5, which take a while to complete. There are no cops, which is unacceptable, to be honest, because the cops make this franchise what it is.
SOUND
We often don’t notice how good or bad the sound is in games, but this game sets itself apart. The engine sounds of each car are noticeably different and really sell that the fact that you’re in a super car.
Music is dominated by heavy rock with rap and techno mixed in. You’ll hear bands like Disturbed and Celldweller. The devs made good music choices to fit the mood of the game. The music during cop chases is also quite dynamic, which makes the chases more exciting.
VISUALS
Most Wanted looks the way you might expect from a next-gen game. The reflections are doing a lot of work, especially on the cars. The asphalt reflects the sun. The rain in Most Wanted is probably the best looking ever in the history of gaming. However, some things could be improved like the foliage of the trees, where a couple of flat layers of foliage are stuck to the trunk. Other cars in the game look unnaturally dull compared to your bling-bling-mobile. Of course, this might be for the best, or else the low-end machines would never be able to run the game.
The cut-scenes feature real actors in a computer-generated environment. That actually works well. The acting is pretty bad though and reminds me of that horrible movie Torque. Maybe it’s just that their macho attitude sounds so distasteful.
NFS relies on many effects like the motion blur during high speeds. The camera is used creatively, like when a police car is spotted, the action freezes and the camera closes in on the police car. When you win a race, the camera rotates and takes a picture of your car. Whether you crash during drag racing or jump in the air, the camera is there to slow down and capture the moment. Also, work has been put in the smaller things like menus and loading screens. Most Wanted is a visual rollercoaster.
One massive drawback: there is no nighttime! It’s a real odd choice to set an illegal racing game in daytime only.
PERFORMANCE
I was rather surprised that the minimum requirements for this game were so…minimum. Taking into account its looks, I was amazed to find out that I could run the game with the settings maxed out on my old 2 GHz system. It was slow, but doable.
Most Wanted shipped with several bugs, however. The newest patches haven’t fixed them all. There’s a particularly annoying issue with the game suddenly slowing down to a slide-show speed even on the most powerful PCs. It happens now and then, and whether it recovers to normal speed depends on the game’s mood that day.
THE VERDICT
NFS Most Wanted is a cross between all of its previous games, wrapped in a new graphics and sound package. The police chases bring a new life into the game and are interesting even though the cops are easy to escape from if you do it right. The game has performance issues and some NFS Undergound fans might be disappointed with the lack of customization. However, the general NFS fans should be pleased.
SIDE NOTE:
The game features some adverts. People seem to have a problem with that. But I think that it makes the game…more realistic. I’m also a proponent of promoting music artists during the game. I found several awesome bands (that I listen to now) through NFS Underground and NFS Most Wanted.