Need For Speed Most Wanted

[image:350 align=left hspace=10 vspace=10 size=medium]Since the Hollywood hit, Fast and the Furious hit the theaters there has been an explosion of street racing media that teenage kids have been absorbing like a sponge on water. Yet, as the scene starts to age a bit kids are getting tired of the same repetitive tuner games. So the Need For Speed series starts to drift back towards its previous theme and away from the Underground ambiance. In this game EA holds the racing during the daytime and showboats impressive lighting effects, well developed car models, and brings the police back into the mix.

Cars and Parts

[image:349 align=left hspace=10 vspace=10 size=medium]The game has 32 licensed cars featuring tuners, muscles and exotics. So you can cruise down the streets of Rockport in anything from a Volkswagon Golf to a BMW M3. The addition of exotics is a nice touch to the game and adds a lot of interest to the car selection.

As you would expect you can add performance mods to any car to beef up its handling, acceleration, and top speed, something that proves necessary when racing on the streets. Visual upgrades are also in good supply. Items like body kits, rims, spoilers, paint, and vinyls are ready to be added to your car. Since most of the racing occurs during the day, neon accents dropped from the menu, along with trunk accessories.

[image:348 align=left hspace=10 vspace=10 size=medium]Applying the gear to your ride is mostly the same as before, with the exception of body kits. Now the entire kit is purchased and applied to your ride in a single step. No more mismatching body kits or searching through the menu for the right one. Also, the shops are no longer specialized. Each shop provides every item in the three categories--parts, performance, and visual. In Need for Speed Underground 2, I was a fan of the specialized shops. I thought it added to realism and the overall environment, but it would be extremely aggravating to navigate from shop to shop if the police were bearing down on you.

The City and Navigation

The city of Rockport, where the game takes place, is bigger than Need For Speed: Underground 2's environment (which was massive itself). And unlike the open city in Underground 2 there is plenty to see and to do here.

[image:347 align=left hspace=10 vspace=10 size=medium]Given that the open city is gynormous it is only fair that they equip the user with a fully functioning GPS system to navigate the vastly unfamiliar virtual territory. The GPS allows the player to select races, shops, safehouses, etc, on the map and it provides him with an on screen arrow that will guide him to the destination. Unfortunately, the arrow doesn't seem to function as well as it did Need for Speed Underground 2. The arrow can sometimes be vague in directing you, and will "loose connection" if you veer too far from its desired path by making a wrong turn. This time the game is equipped with a "jump to location" button that lets you jump to races, your safehouse, or right in front of a police cruiser (useful for pursuing milestones and bounty challenges, so you won't have to go searching for cops). The game does not allow the player to jump to shops or photo-tickets, but they are plentiful and the GPS will allow you to arrive there without much struggle.

The Police

[image:346 align=left hspace=10 vspace=10 size=medium]The Police, or the "Po-Po" if you will, make a big return in this game. Their presence is fairly realistic, but errs on the side of entertainment. The police will not pursue you if your car is not currently wanted and you are obeying traffic laws. But the second you do speed, or they identify you as a wanted vehicle, their tires squeal and on go the sirens.

Even if your car is wanted, it is possible to cruise the streets of Rockport relatively unchecked. Your car is equipped with a radar detector and a police scanner, so if you're alert and resourceful you can dodge the cops with a little bit of practice. The detector will flash lime green at the presence of a cop car and orange at the presence of a ticket camera, and the police radios chime in from now and again, with very authentic sounding radio chatter. The radio chatter was done with superb excellence and is absolutely one of the most fun and absorbing aspects of the gameplay.

[image:345 align=left hspace=10 vspace=10 size=medium]Often, if you're driving recklessly, bystanders will complain to the police and dispatch will chime in to ask an available unit to check out the call. The unit will usually reply with a request for as much information as possible about you and your vehicle, and the unit will often say they'll check it out and notify dispatch as to their location and direction of travel. Thus if the alert player is listening he'll have enough information to evade the police, or intentionally run into them.

Racing and Career Progression

The goal of this game is to climb your way up the "blacklist," a list of the top 15 racers in Rockport. You can't start off by challenging any racer will nilly. You must raise your bounty, win races, and complete milestones before the blacklist racers will even think of excepting your challenge (cocky I know but they've got to control game flow some how). Raising your bounty is done by entering a police pursuit, gathering infractions, and evading the cruisers before you find yourself with heavy fines due and an impound strike against your car (if you get three, you loose the car). Milestones are goals that the next blacklist racer sets for you, like to evade 6 road blocks and escape the pursuit or take out 4 police cruisers. The goal of the entire game is to become the number one racer in Rockport. The story line is slightly deeper than that, but I don't want to ruin any surprises.

[image:344 align=left hspace=10 vspace=10 size=medium]Making good decision with your purchases is more important than it was in previous games. The reason is not due to a lack of cash; there is plenty of cash to go around. The tricky part is that each car has its own heat meter that measures how much the police want the car. The more the police want a car, the more money they'll spend on catching it --more roadblocks, spike strips, SUVs, and choppers. Heat is raised by breaking the traffic laws and evading the police during pursuits and its lowered by keeping the car off the streets or changing its appearance in a shop. Thus, you must juggle cars to prevent running with a heat meter that's too high for you to handle. You always need to have a backup car that's fast enough to compete in races. This aspect of the gameplay is key. It requires you to have multiple fast cars and control your funds. You won't find yourself with a pointless sixty grand left over in your account like in the previous games. Changing paint jobs and parts will not only suit your styles but also be strategically in your best interest.

Controls

The controls vary slightly in this one than in the previous game. Lookback is usually "Y" and timesplitter is usually "X" (on Xbox) in the control selections. This makes it impossible to find a configuration that is the same as NFSU2 and NFSU. At first I was aggravated that Lookback was moved to such a central button, but then I realized that EA made a good call. In police pursuits, lookback is an invaluable tool that is constantly in use. The manual shifting was moved to the Right Thumbstick (up to up-shift, down to down-shift), which took some getting used to, but it provides a nice overall feel. This lets you have your Nitrious, E-Break, Lookback and Speedbreaker at your thumbtip.

The soundtrack compliments the game well with high energy music during races and great menu music as well. The game's physics engine is more developed than the previous games but is more forgiving than true simulation games.

Most Wanted is an excellent addition to the Need for Speed series that will satisfy the fans of the original games as well as the fans of the Underground games.