Need. For. Speed. Three simple words that split a community.
Most Wanted is the latest in a long line of NFS games and one that developers Criterion Games hope will bring the glory days back to the series. It’s pretty fair to say that the series as a whole has trod rocky ground since the first ‘Most Wanted’ hit the shelves back in 2005, with only Hot Pursuit (the previous Criterion offering), receiving anything like the type of reviews that developers crave. Over the years gamers have developed a bit of a Marmite feel for NFS. Can Most Wanted turn those haters or will the die-hards be left crying? Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!
You play as an unknown racer joining the scene in Fairhaven City with one sole goal......to take down the 10 top racers, and their vehicles. In your way? The cops.........And of course a number of differing events all designed to test your racing skills to the limit.
You start with one car but the majority of the rest are available to be driven right from the start. This is where Most Wanted is different from most other racing games. If you can find em, you can drive em. Pull up in front of the car you wish to drive, hit a button and you’ll be instantly driving your new toy. No having to worry about earning credits or cash here. That’s not to say that you need to go searching every time you wish to change car. Once you have found it the first time, a quick click of the Easy Drive menu and you can transport right there.
Each car comes with a number of events. These range in style (races, pursuits, speed challenges), and of course difficulty (easy, medium, hard). Beat the challenges set for each event and you’ll find yourself unlocking all manner of vehicle mods from a lighter chassis to track tyres to longer gears amongst others. Eventually you’ll also be able to unlock the ‘pro’ version of these modifications for extra power. Obviously different mods will work better for different car types. Ride in a big old SUV and you won't be wanting to make it as lightweight as you would a little sports car. Mod a car too much though and you’ll find it isn’t suited to a certain event (no-one wants to go crashing everytime you turn a corner, even if the crash sequences are lovely to watch!), and you’ll soon be jumping into the menu to change it back. With over 120 cars spread over 7 different car classes and their numerous events, there is plenty to get stuck into and this isn’t a game you’ll be completing anytime in a hurry.
Everything you do in game earns you Speed Points (SP). Take part in a race? Earn SP! Drive x amounts of miles in on-coming traffic? Earn SP! Take down your friends billboard jumps? Earn SP! Smash some security barriers? Earn SP! These Speed Points help you progress through the game and a certain amount gives you a crack at a top 10 racer. Once the racer is unlocked, you can go meet him. As usual, these races are full of cops but none seem to be overly difficult to overcome. Once the race has been won, you will then need to go and take down your opponent in order to unlock his/her/their car, this is where I found things to get a little trickier.. Mess up too much and the car will escape, only to reappear later in the game as you drive the openworld of Fairhaven. Numerous times I found myself wandering the streets only for one of the Most Wanted to fly past. By the time I had reacted and realised what was going on, he was long gone. This was probably the most frustrating point of the game, especially on the higher levels of Wanted cars which were seemingly indestructible and took an age to take down.
As for the basic racing itself, a few attempts of each event are all you really need to win but only if you can avoid crashing too much. The handling is very much in the ‘arcade’ camp and the AI are more than willing to take you out at a moments notice, so be prepared to take a bit of what you give out and whilst there is a degree of rubber-banding present (to keep the racing close), it isn’t overly aggressive. As such I found myself needing one go to learn the event, another to have a right good crack and then a couple more before taking the events down, with more than a couple for a few of the hard events. Gold, silver and bronze awards are available for each race and obviously you can go back to repeat whatever you need, whenever you wish but on the whole, bronze and silver events are pretty straightforward. As with the cars, once you have driven to a destination the first time to try an event, you can then access it directly via the menus. Just be sure to pull over somewhere quiet before fiddling around with the Easy Drive menu. Whilst it is easily accessible and much nicer than having to jump in and out of clunky menus (it’s controlled fully with the d-pad whilst driving), it is also way too easy to attract the attention of the cops whilst you aren’t fully concentrating on the road ahead. Many a time I was attempting to retry an event whilst the cops were homing in ready to bust me. Not that being busted is much of an issue. There is a tinge of disappointment that getting busted brings no penalties other than losing the SP you would normally earn from escaping the fuzz. Why bother running on a long-winded pursuit if all it gives you is a little SP when more often than not the cops will take you down anyways. Perhaps a loss of some of your previous SP when getting busted would have made things a little more exciting. There is nothing to stop you just giving up on a pursuit within a few seconds of it starting and unfortunately I did this a good few times just so I could get back into the main racing.
The cops themselves use a number of different tactics to take you down. As the pursuit lengthens and your heat level rises, you’ll see them bring out the big guns and what starts off first of all with a few patrol cars on your tail soon escalates into a full blown war. The roadblocks and spike strips come out pretty quickly (you’ll be needing those reinflating tyres unlocked and equipped), but keep on going on and you’ll soon find the big Rhinos and SWAT trucks after you! Like I said previously, the cop pursuits are a bit of a waste of time really but if you do decide to try and escape you’ll be needing to keep out of the line of sight of the old bill before your heat level starts decreasing and you eventually enter a cooldown phase. Once this hits zero, you’ll have successfully escaped, will get a SP reward based on how long the pursuit lasted and can continue on your way to becoming the most wanted.
Graphicly, everything is top drawer but that is to be expected in this day and age. The cars and city are detailed beyond belief even so much so that at times there really is a bit too much going on with dust and debris flying around all over the show. As such, the difficulty increases, especially if you are racing in bonnet view. If you do decide the bonnet view isn’t for you, then I’m afraid there is only one other option, chase cam. Whilst this gives you a better understanding of what’s going on around you, the car control isn’t as hot and the sense of speed is diminished. It has however been my view of choice as things were getting a little too tricky whilst running on the bonnet. A bit of a shame this as usually I like my racers played with a cockpit view but I guess the omission of this is down to the arcade style. Whilst on the subject of graphics, I need to mention the cut scenes shown before every race. I don’t think it would be wrong of me to say these are some of the most thought out video sequences I’ve seen in a racer. All are strange. All are over-the-top. But above all, all have had alot of love and effort put into them and I found myself watching the majority of them a couple of times, even if it was just so I could work out what the hell was going on!
Need For Speed Most Wanted calls itself ‘The most socially connected racing game ever’. They ain’t wrong! Get yourself connected to Live (and let’s be fair, everyone should already be connected), and you’ll constantly be finding yourself compared to your friends. With what is basically an upgraded AutoLog system, first seen in NFS Hot Pursuit, running in the background, as you drive around Fairhaven you’ll be spotting augmented reality signs popping up all over the place. Drive past a speed camera and you’ll be seeing your top speed along with your friends times. The same goes for whenever you ‘jack’ a new car, you’ll be able to see exactly what your friends have been doing and how many milestones they have completed in said car. The greatest competition in game though are the billboard jumps. There is something strangely satisfying about smashing your car through a billboard that has your friends ugly mug plastered all over it. In fact, there’s something strangely satisfying about smashing your car through a billboard that has YOUR OWN ugly mug on it. I just couldn't help myself from wanting to attempt billboard jump after billboard jump just to try and get myself over this obsession. (It doesn’t work by the way, it just makes you want to do more!). Thankfully there are loads of speed cams and billboard jumps scattered all over Fairhaven so even once the racing is over, you’ll find plenty to do before getting bored.
As for the online multiplayer, it’s pretty damn hectic but everything about it is first class. The waiting around in lobbies is gone. Instead you get thrown seamlessly into multiplayer from the single player experience. In another little twist to the usual offerings, a SpeedList is created. This consists of 5 events with the winner being the one who has accumulated the most points overall. The events within the SpeedList can either be a race, team race, challenge or speed test and players earn more SP through winning races, taking down opponents or earning ‘tickets’ by completing certain actions throughout the race like longest drift, highest jump etc.... Any SP earned in multiplayer can be transferred to the single player game but you will need to redeem an online code for this to happen. Thankfully this code is bundled with the retail game so no extra expense unless you are buying second hand!
Achievements wise, anyone planning on hitting the full 46 achievements and 1000 gamerscore in a hurry can think again. For the most part, roughly half are easily achieved in the first few hours of game time, whilst the rest will take time and patience to acquire. ‘Second Is Nothing’ could be the one that stands in most peoples way as to ‘finish first in every race, in every car’ is something that is going to take an absolute age. At least you’ll be having fun doing it though.
So to summarise, if you have XBOX Live Gold and want a racer, a bit of competitive action/hardcore smashing against your friends or just fancy something which you can pick up and play for either 10 hours or 10 minutes, this is for you. If you don’t have XBOX Live Gold, this is the perfect reason to go get a year long sub because you really will be wanting to see everything Most Wanted offers.
Apart from an occasional visual and audio stutter, the lack of camera options and the decision not to penalise getting busted (all pretty minor things really), this is quite possibly THE arcade racer of this generation and Criterion have raised the bar again for any future NFS outings.
Need. For. Speed. Three simple words that no longer split a community.
As usual, thanks must go out to XCN for providing us with the game to review.