Need for Speed: Most Wanted

I’ve played racing games off and on for years since the 1980s on the Atari 2600 and the Apple ][. However I didn’t get hooked until one Christmas when Karen bought me Need for Speed – Porsche Unleashed for the PC. I’ve been hooked on NFS games ever since and no other racing games could even compare until I discovered Burnout for the Xbox this year.

Last month the latest version of this great franchise came out – Need for Speed: Most Wanted. For the first time, I also bought an NFS game that wasn’t for my PC – I bought the Xbox version. It was with great anticipation that I started it up.

I was not disappointed.

EA has such great production standards for it’s racing franchises that even though NFS and Burnout come from different developers, they share a lot of the same great qualities:

1. Kick-butt graphics


2. Ultra smooth frame rates


3. A real feeling and sense of speed

NFS:MW follows a story line of you trying to work your way up through the street racing leagues in a metropolitan area that includes urban, rural, suburban and industrial areas. The races are varied and extremely absorbing and – most of all – lots of FUN!

But racing is only part of the challenge. Borrowing from the NFS: Hot Pursuit titles, you also have to dodge the cops in ever increasingly difficult pursuits. Not only do you have to get into pursuits and escape them without getting busted, but you also have to achieve certain milestones to continue. These include:

1. Escaping in under a certain time


2. Escaping after a certain time


3. Running up a defined damage total


4. Getting charged a certain number of infractions

The longer a pursuit lasts, the higher your “heat” rating will be. As this rating goes up, the cops use more sophisticated methods to stop you such as roadblocks, spike strips, SUVs, and helicopters.

The game allows you customize your car like the previous two NFS: Underground titles did. However the drift and short track race types from Underground 2 are no longer there. Instead of requiring customization to get status points like NFS:U games, you will want to continually customize the look of your cars because it reduces their “heat” rating (since the cops won’t recognize them).

I loved this game and it met all my expectations of a Need for Speed title.

I’ll give it 9.5 out of 10