Game Review: Need for speed: Most Wanted

Rating: PG

Developer: Criterion

Publisher: EA

It has been a long time since I last picked up a ‘Need for Speed’ game. By a long time, I mean 8 years. I was just an awkward pimple-faced teenager when I fell in love with the high-stakes street racing of ‘Need for Speed: Underground’ so it seems oddly fitting that I should review the latest offering in the franchise, ‘Most Wanted’, as a socially awkward pimple-faced adult. I am happy to say that this latest instalment is as addictive, fast paced and downright fun as I remember the past games being. ‘Most Wanted’ really captures the overall spirit of the franchise putting emphasis on a feeling of constant motion, over the top-street racing and epic police chases.

‘Most Wanted’ is an open world racer set in the fictitious city of Fairhaven. A visually diverse city, Fairhaven is plagued with a highly organised street-racing scene dominated by ten infamous drivers each in possession of one of the game’s fastest cars. As a new driver on the scene your mission is to defeat all ten, take their cars and become Fairhaven’s most wanted driver. That is literally as deep as the story gets. It’s delightfully minimalistic and is more about providing the player with an objective then an actual story. I personally found it refreshing to play a racing game that was not trying to force some sort of half-baked narrative down my throat.

The game play is more or less your standard arcade racer fare with the addition of open world elements. Think drag races, time trails and circuit races all punctuated by intense police chases. You get to drive to all your race locations and when you finish racing you just keep on driving. This means that if the cops intercepted your race they will continue to chase you until you lose them in Fairhaven’s labyrinth of streets.

This is a game encourages you to be a reckless rev-head. A mere five minutes into it and I was going 100 in a 60 zone, flying past speed cameras, and crashing through billboards. Indeed this sort of driving is actually rewarded by the game through ‘speed points’ which are used to unlock upgrades for your vehicles as well as races against Fairhaven’s most wanted. With the exception of the 10 cars belonging to the most wanted, new cars are unlocked by simply finding them in the city. This not only serves as a great incentive to explore, it also means that even at the early stages of the game you have access to an impressive selection of cars.

Racing in ‘Most Wanted’ is exactly what I expected: fast paced, cinematic and surprisingly forgiving. This game is strongly rooted in the arcade racer genre and fans of hardcore car racing sims like ‘Gran Turismo’ will probably scoff at the unrealistic physics and vehicle handling. The racing is reasonably simplistic putting an emphasis on drifting around corners and flooring it on the straight. You will find yourself crashing often but with no penalty for totalling your car, it all feels inconsequential. The same can be said for the police chases. With no penalty for being ‘busted’ there is little incentive to participate in the pursuits which can take upward of 5 minutes. In this way the game’s accessibility is also its Achilles heel. That said this accessibility is what I loved about the game. You really can dive right in as a complete novice and have a great time.

 

Need for Speed most wanted is nothing short of an excellent and cinematic arcade racer with stunning visuals. What it lacks in racing depth it makes up for in graphics, presentation and an overall smoothness of game play. Criterion have thoroughly succeeded in making a racing game for people who don’t like racing games that delivers an instant pay-off of speed and adrenaline.

8/10