The Need for Speed series has been a staple in racing games on consoles and PCs for years. Originally, it was a simple racing series with cars that most of us could never dream of owning. It then developed into a racing game with police chases – it added another dimension to an already fun racing series. As street racing became big, the series took the opportunity to capitalize on the trend. Out came Need for Speed: Underground, an incredibly popular racing game that gave you a lot of control over the components of your car. Choosing among a large variety of cars, changing the colors, adding decals, tweaking performance items and much more became a firm part of many racing games hoping to capitalize on the success of Underground. The game was missing one thing, though – the thing that made earlier games in the series fun – the police chases. Underground 2 came along and added the ability to freely roam about the city, but it was still missing the chases.
Enter Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Most Wanted took successful parts from a variety of games already in the series – the police chases, the free-roaming world and the ability to tune and customize your car in a ton of ways – and improved upon them. This led to creating a game that is currently one of the most enjoyable experiences on the 360, and one that you can continue playing long after you’ve beaten the storyline.
Most Wanted starts out simply enough. You’re a new racer to the street racing circuit and are trying to make a mark for yourself. First, you’ll have a run-in with a local police. See, this cop must have had his entire family run over by street racers or something, because he absolutely despises you, the other street racers and probably your mom who thinks you’re crazy for racing these cars down the street so fast. Well, just as he is about to bring you in, he ends up having to take another call. Of course, he does key your car before you leave, so hey.
After that, you meet up with your rival, a dude named Razor. Now, Razor thinks he rules the streets and can push people around. Well, he cheats in your race by tampering with your car, and manages to beat you and take your car, leaving you to be picked up by your good buddy - the cop that keyed your car earlier. After awhile, you’re back out there and racing again.
The story mode leads you through a group of 15 racers, all part of what is known as “The Blacklist.” The Blacklist is nothing more than a ladder - one you will have to climb up. To face the next racer, you’ll have to win an increasing number of races and complete a certain number of milestone challenges. You’ll also need to rack up a certain amount of Bounty (more on that below). Eventually, after taking down all of the racers ahead of you, you’ll get your shot at Razor.
The race types, while varied, aren’t too different. You have six race types to take part in -- Circuit, Sprint, Knockout, Speed Trap, Toll Booth and Drag. Circuit and Knockout are similar – in a Circuit race, you’re racing around a track for a certain number of laps and the person that is in first place at the end wins, while Knockout kicks the person in last place out of the race at the end of each lap. Sprint, Speed Trap and Toll Booth are all also similar – Sprint has you just going from start to finish instead of in laps, Speed Trap adds certain points on the track where your speed is clocked (highest total at the end of the race win) and Toll Booth is simply a solo sprint race with checkpoints that you have to make it to within a certain amount of time. Drag is somewhat unique – you are forced to manually shift your car while trying to dodge other cars. The controls are simplified in this race type, and moving left or right just switches your lane. Of all these race types, one major one was missing that was in Underground – the Drift race.
Also, you have milestone challenges you need to complete. These challenges will all involve breaking the law in some way. You’ll have some that require you to have a short pursuit, and some will require you to have the police pursue you for a longer period of time. You’ll also be tasked with reaching certain speeds at radar checkpoints, busting through police roadblocks and causing damage to police cars and things on the side of the road. Doing all these things helps you to meet the third requirement to move up in the Blacklist – Bounty.
Longer chases earn you more Bounty, as does destroying property while in a chase – including those cars chasing you. The more you’ve pissed off the police in your current car, the harder it will become to evade the pursuits, too – the higher levels will have a helicopter following you around, huge SUVs ramming you, and even your favorite buddy from the start of the game all out to take you down. When you get taken down, you can either pay your fines or use a get out of jail free card (you’ll earn these by beating members of the Blacklist). Get caught too many times and your car will get impounded. If you have a backup car, you can keep going. If not, game over! Using a backup car is also good if you want to race around without having cops find you when you just try going out for a short drive.
A nice element that I liked about the races this time around was the ability to not have to free-roam to find the races if you wanted. You could free-roam and find the races like in Underground 2, but you are also now able to simply hit a button on the controller to bring up a list of available races to compete in. This was a nice touch, and doesn’t force you to free-roam if you don’t want to.
There’s also a Challenge Series in the game. The Challenge Series is more like the original – you just select from a list of tasks to complete and go for it. The tasks are varied and also fun, and some are horribly difficult. I didn’t spend much time with this mode. The game also boasts online play, which I wasn’t really eager to take part in – there isn’t much out there available. You’d think that you would be able to chase your friends around as police – but you can’t. Maybe Most Wanted 2 will add in a robust police-chase mode, allowing you to strategically set up roadblocks and use other tactics to stop other players. A guy can dream, can’t he?
The ability to customize cars is so fun – I’ve had a Ford GT with so many different colors of paint on it. My favorite paint type is a newish one that has been added – some super-reflective type of paint, almost seems like chrome (but it comes in a ton of colors). Reflective blue is such an awesome color for a car. There’s also that type of paint that, from one angle, seems to be one color but, from another angle, looks different. You can still paint your tires, change the rims, add vinyls and body kits and other fun stuff. The performance upgrades are less of a choice, though, and more of an RPG-style upgrade system – once the store has your upgrade available, you buy it. The visual customizations are where it’s at, anyway. Your cars will take visible damage, too – it doesn’t affect the performance during a race though, thankfully. Some of the races seem to promote a pinball-type mentality when you find yourself bouncing off of walls.
As for graphics, this game manages to show off the abilities of the 360 much like Underground did for the PC and console systems. The game looks absolutely incredible. Driving over a hill and seeing the sun shine brightly in your eyes and then slowly fade was an incredible experience. Driving around the levels at a high speed with beautifully rendered cars and having the game not chop up or slow down at all made me realize that I was playing a next-gen game. This is definitely one of the games to show your friends who are thinking about buying a 360 and want to look at the games coming out on it. Sound was also nice, with the normal EA TRAX music – mostly alternative type rock. The music did fit, though, so it was cool. Cars also sounded different – both when you buy a new one and when you upgrade certain parts.
Overall, Most Wanted is definitely one of the better games available for the 360. The graphics really feel next-gen and are a noticeable leap from the PS2/Xbox ports. The game controls will be familiar to anyone that played one of the previous Underground games. The return of police chases adds a lot to the game as a whole, too – being completely destructive and a lawbreaker is a release after a bad day (trust me, after you bust through an SUV roadblock, you’ll understand) and completely legal in a video game! If you’re a fan of racing games at all, you owe it to yourself to track down a copy of this game and buy it. Immediately. You’ll have a blast.
Hi. My name is Brian. I am a video game addict.
Of course, I actually do things other than game. Currently, I’m a full time college student at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke where I am majoring in Mass Communications with a Journalism focus.
I’ve served as Managing Editor on my school’s paper and also written various editorials. I pride myself on my academics and work hard towards earning good grades – a few years of hard work will be worth it in the long run.
I’ve been gaming ever since my parents bought me an NES in 1985 (I was born in 1981). My favorite game of all time is probably the original Legend of Zelda but my currently played favorite game is a tossup between Madden 2005 and MVP 2005.
While I play a lot of sports games (which happens when you live with two baseball players), I also enjoy RPGs and RTSes. The first I’m actually good at and the second I’m not. I am also known to play the occasional FPS but will rarely make it all the way through one.
I’m also not a competitive gamer. I definitely prefer games that include co-op modes along with the normal competitive modes. Some of my favorite games in that regard are Legend of Zelda: Four Swords for the Game Cube and Fianl Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.
