31 out of 31 people found this review helpful.
NFS Most Wanted: It?s better than Underground . . . and worse
Date of Review: Dec 17, 2006
The Bottom Line: The scenario is challenging and long enough, the storyline is horrible. It certainly isn't appropriate for kids
The Franchise
There have been more titles in the Need for Speed series than I can remember off the top of my head. But to put this into recent perspective, Most Wanted was the newest release up until a few weeks ago when Carbon was released. Of course you'll need a newer platform than the Xbox if you want Carbon. It's only out for the 360 and other newer consoles.
Need for Speed has undergone some changes through the years, but remained one of the better driving games throughout it all. In a lot of ways Most Wanted was the best installment to date. In a few I was disappointed.
The basics
NFS Most Wanted is a racing game (no really!) You start with a small amount of money and a few rather anemic cars to choose from. Your goal is to ascend the ranks of the top ten street racers to take number one. Oh yeah, your motivation is to get back your tricked out BMW M3 which you lost to the top dog.
Essentially your path to street racing fame takes you through a series of challenges. You have to win a number of races to challenge the ranked racers. You also have to complete certain police chase goals in order to gain enough respect.
The races include several different types. These are sprints in which you complete a destination-to-destination course, circuit races which take you through several laps of a circular course, drag races, speed trap races and tollbooths. Drag races are pretty self-explanatory. Speed traps take you on a race where you have to post the highest speeds through photo radar speed traps. At the end of the race you don't have to come in first, you just have to have the fastest combined speed on the photo radars. Tollbooth races are essentially a time trial race where you have a certain amount of time to get to the next tollbooth before time expires.
The police challenges come a number of varieties as well. You have to reach certain levels based upon the length of a pursuit, amount of damage done and number of infractions. Other challenges include increasing the bounty on your car and posting the high speeds at photo radar installations.
What's to like?
Need for Speed Most Wanted stepped up the graphics from underground. While they are pretty good, they aren't quite on par with some other racing games like Project Gothem. The cars look excellent right down to details like candy apple or chameleon paint jobs and carbon fiber hoods.
Free roaming is a new feature where you can take your car for a spin all over the place with no restrictions. This allows you to take your car to the garage for a little tuning, head over to the dealer to pick up a new ride, or even just raise heck by breaking traffic laws all over the place. When in free roam you can use GPS to take you to races or other events. Or if you prefer, you can simply pick what you'd like to do from the menu system and skip all that senseless driving about.
The cars are excellent. After the rather lackluster selection in Underground, the long list of exotics in Most Wanted is a nice addition. Let's face it there's something a little wrong with the fantasy when it's exciting to unlock a Mitsubishi Eclipse. Underground is far more satisfying with a good half dozen cars that I will never likely have the opportunity to actually drive. These start with the Lotus Elise and work their way up the Porsche Carerra GT and Lamborghini Gallardo.
The hot pursuit portion of the game is pretty challenging. It creates scenarios where you must escape from police pursuit. These pursuits grow in difficulty from a couple of police cruisers to roadblocks, spike strips and dozens of police vehicles along with chopper support.
What's not that great?
While the game looks pretty nice for the most part, there were certainly times where the graphics had me running into a wall and thinking, huh, I thought that's where the road was! I don't know if I would call this an issue with the graphics or a trick of the eye, but it is annoying.
The AI of the police pursuers ranges from impossibly stupid to nearly impossible to elude. This can be a little annoying. For instance if you're attempting a long police chase, sometimes you accidentally lose the police because they do something silly like crash into a non-moving object. On the flip side, the higher level police chases usually are completely unforgiving. One mistake and you find your Aston Martin overtaken by Pontiac GTOs going 190 miles per hour.
The message of the game is a little disturbing. As an old man myself I didn't feel like it was going to change my perception of, or respect for the Police. However, the message is clear. You have to disrespect property and the law in order to advance. The hot pursuit portion of the game is closely linked to the racing portion. It's a major part of the game's plot. Break the law to get to the next race. In the end it is all lamely justified by the fact that you were unwittingly helping the police catch the racers.
Controls and playability
At first blush the controls seem a little twitchy. However, the controls are pretty good. In fact the entire interface and setup of the controls is a huge improvement over Underground. Shifting is via the right thumbstick which certainly feels a little more realistic than pushing buttons to shift.
The modeling on the cars is decent for the most part. Yes, it's pretty unrealistic in a lot of respects. For instance, I find it hard to believe that a tuned Golf would have much of a chance staying with a Carerra GT through some curves let alone on a straight. There is no damage to cars in crashes (although spike strips will flatten tires). But in all the cars with four-wheel, front wheel and rear wheel drive handle the way one would expect them to. The overall drivability of the cars in Most Wanted is a huge leap from the bouncing, twitchy suspension of the original Underground.
Parting Thoughts
Overall, the game is fairly enjoyable. However, I find it a little silly that every game has to flaunt a blatant disregard for authority. Fine, Grand Theft Auto was a successful franchise where people shoot cops and just about anyone else. Yes, there have been pretty popular mobster games. But there really isn't a good reason for this to filter into games of every genre.
Let's hope that the NFS tradition turns its focus to the cars instead of carnage, destruction and preaching disregard for authority. It's still a good franchise if they don't continue in the direction that Hot Pursuit took it.
