Need For Speed: Most Wanted - A Review

So with the whole SimCity launch debacle, good ol' EA decided to give everyone a free digitial download game. Being a decently big fan of the Need For Speed franchise, I decided to go with the title Need For Speed: Most Wanted. Let's get a quick background on my expectations.

Now before this, my exposure for Need For Speed games was NFS: Underground (1 and 2) and NFS: Hot Pursuit. I was a *huge* fan of the NFS:U series. Basically, I saw it as a fantastic rendition of the Fast and the Furious movies ported to video game... and let's not talk about how embarrassingly much I love the Fast and Furious franchise. Needless to say, I played the ever-loving heck out of NFS:U 1 and 2. I unlocked everything and then still went back to it every now and again just to customize the look and feel of my favorite cars. Hot Pursuit was a much shorter stint of gaming for me, but I liked how sweet it was to play as a cop. So with that in mind, I was interested to see what to make of Most Wanted... After the jump.

First off, just so that I don't make the wrong impression, I'd like to say that I've only spent one day (around 4-5 hours) on this game thus far. Having spent that much time, I'd say that I like it well enough to keep playing it. I give the game a solid C+. So that out of the way, I'd like to say that the core game is awesome. The graphics are extremely high end and everything is BEAUTIFUL. The environment leaves nothing to be desired, and I would say that the world map is what NFS:U2 was, and then some, and then kicked up a notch to make the graphics even more gorgeous. My main problem with this game was all the "features" that no doubt were included to be "features" that I just consider outright annoying.


Physical Car Damage
So every time I crash into everything, the game is going to zoom out, give me a screen-capped splash screen that says "Crashed" up top? How fricken annoying. Especially when you're first starting out and getting used to all of the controls -- not that the process of "getting used to the controls" ever really ends. I think there's some 30 or so cars you can find in this game and every single one handles and feels extremely differently from one another. So imagine how many times I crashed going from my starting Porsche 911 Turbo and switching over to the sweet Sprint Race class Ariel Atom 500 V8. Most people might not even know what the Ariel Atom is, so take a look below.

Porsche 911 Turbo (left) vs Ariel Atom 500 V8 (right)

They drive approximately as differently as they look, and you feel that. That's a great thing! But imagine going from the Porsche with a top speed of about 145mph to the Atom with a top speed of about 220mph and on semi-crowded city streets and guess how often I

"Crashed!? Oh, THAT'S what a crash looks like.
I had no idea, especially after the first 10 times!"

crashed. Answer: all day long. And every time it happens, the game zooms out, takes me out of the third-person view to something like a side-crash view and shows me the destruction. Outside of the fact that this is annoying to take me out of the driving to see this, but the game makes such a big deal out of this... and then sets me onto the road again, with something like a 3 second time lapse. Hrrm. And my car is then damaged appropriately. I can see all sorts of scrapes and scuffs on the body. Windows are busted up. The paint job is utterly wrecked, lights are cracked, and maybe even a part of the spoiler in the back is missing. But does this change anything? Not one bit. The crash system is meaningless. Crash as much as you'd like and the car will just reset on the road. Well... then why are you showing me at all? Just because there is physical damage to the car afterward -- and by the way, that also effects nothing -- doesn't mean you need to show me some cinematic splash screen every time it happens.

Then there are repair shops. You drive through basically the "front lawn lane" of the repair shop and not only is your car fully "repaired", but it comes with an all new paint job. Literally in the blink of an eye. This takes no time, there is no punishment or penalty in your race time or placement. It just happens. By the way, all of this can also happen while being chased by the police. So what they have here is a complete game feature system that is self-contained. Car crashes --> car damage --> repair shop. However, each of these steps within the system are completely irrelevant; unfortunately, this means that the entire system is irrelevant. It adds absolutely nothing to the game except for some graphics, an annoying-as-heck "CRASHED" screen, and randomly-placed repair shops. If you take out this entire system, I would've enjoyed the game better.

SOLUTION. There's an easy fix to this system. Make it mean something to the game! And it can be a very easy solution. Let's say the game adds a function to this system where damage on your car deteriorates the car's stats by a factor of say 5% every crash, up to a maximum of 50% deterioration. Voila. Now, you care about how clean you're driving. It effects the game and it makes the damage worth fixing at a repair shop even if that means you have to make a decision to go half a block off course to get it done. The repair shop might even charge money at that point (although make the charge a small and rather insignificant amount). To me, this does not sound like a bad or unfeasible solution.

Police Authorities
This game has a police "Heat" meter much like NFS:HP or even GTA games. The meter and the system works fine and it's pretty neat because as your heat goes up, the authorities will up their game. They start bringing in heavier cars to take you down like SUVs and faster muscle-cars than the stock Fords. Eventually, they'll get helicopters involved and even SWAT trucks lined up to road block you. The problem is, just like the damage system, that all of this means nothing when it comes to game play. Unless the police heat is about halfway to maximum and the police cars are actually ramming into you during a race, the police effect nothing.

I've gotten caught a couple of times. What happens? Nothing. A splash screen that says "BUSTED". Your heat meter resets. Your car resets on the road (damaged, battered up, or however badly beaten up the cops left it after their pursuit). The cops drive away and then the narrator's voice comes up and says something like "you probably don't want to get caught by the cops. Avoid that." Nooo waay. Really? But realistically, that's just a slap on the wrist. The game continues. No penalties, no fines or fees, just a waste of however long it took them to catch you while you're actively trying to outrun them and doing all sorts of irrelevant damage to your car along the way.

SOLUTION. Another easy fix. Depending on where on the heat meter you are (risk vs benefit decision-making here), they charge you a fine and you lose some money. And a random roll to see if the cops spot a modification on your car and it will get removed. This makes it so that you always attempt to out-run the cops, knowing full well that the longer the pursuit lasts, the higher your heat meter goes. Still, if you just admit defeat, you pay a much smaller fine but then still have a chance of having a sweet car mod removed that you will have to re-earn. This makes the entire police and heat meter system matter to the core game functionality.

"Most Wanted" Races
Once you earn enough street rep, the game allows you to do a one-on-one race with the next level of "Most Wanted" racers in the city. After you race, you then have the opportunity to take the racer down in order to unlock the car. So... let me break this down again. You race and earn street rep. Then the game unlocks the Most Wanted Race. You race one-on-one with the racer. You have to win. Then, you have to chase down the racer once again and basically take him down - make him crash. After this, you get the unlocked car. How the eff does this make any sense? Why would you race him and then after the race have to essentially race him again and then make him wreck the car you want to drive? Was one race not enough? Are you particularly interested in his busted up car that you drive away with?

On top of this, it is understood that directly after the race, your job is to take this racer down once again. So the icon for this car is now on your mini-map and driving away from the current location. It is now your job to follow in this cat-and-mouse situation and eventually take him out. Well, what if you don't? What if you just refuse to play this game? After a little while (i.e. after the racer gets too far away for you to reasonably follow), the racer will re-spawn right in front of you to start this feature over. As if the game is forcing this upon you. Let me tell you how annoying this was, because making the computer AI crash while you yourself are crashing (and thus the crash screen, and car reset) is not the easiest thing to accomplish. Especially after you've spent the time beating this guy in a previous race. And the idea that you can't ignore this portion is just icing on top of it all.

SOLUTION. The Most Wanted race can just be for pink slips. Again, you want this to add to the game, so the idea that you have at least another dozen (if not more) cars in your garage can mean something. Win or lose, someone loses a car. This means that maybe you don't challenge a Most Wanted hotshot until you really are comfortable with the city layout and how your car handles. Maybe you wait until your car modifications are a bit better and maybe that means you switch up cars until you find your favorite Most Wanted racing car vs your favorite for other street races. The idea that the game allows you to have 30-something cars is mind boggling. Like, WHY? Well, here's a good idea/reason.

Conclusion
So there that is. Again, it looks like I have a lot of gripes about the game, but keep in mind that all of these additions - I'm sure the game company thought of them as features - are additions to the core game. I'm pretty sure they can be ignored altogether. Ok, maybe not the Most Wanted races, but I can see me never going through a repair garage for an entire set of races. Or stopping any time the heat meter goes on and just allowing the cops to catch me. Whaateeever. Frustrating and annoying little additions.

It really makes me wonder where the game testers were on the concepts of these features. My solutions (in my opinion) seem fairly well thought out, and I haven't even owned this game for 24 hours; eight of which hours have been spent at work. Luckily, the driving still feels good. Driving clean vs sloppy is still very much on the radar if nothing else but to avoid the crash screen. Races are still fun and the amount and variety of types of cars you can own is mind boggling. Worth it? Not really. I would NOT spend money on this game. But if you have no other preference for what game to get for free thanks to SimCity's shaky launch, I can middle-of-the-road recommend this as a title for that reason.