NFS Will Make You 'Most Wanted'

With a long history associated with its name dating back to Playstation one, EA recently released the latest installment for the dynamic racing series Need for Speed. Need for Speed: Most Wanted continues with its tradition of putting the gamer against tough competition ranging from other exotic cars to even the police.

For those not familiar with the entire series, Need for Speed is basically an arcade style racer that lets you take your car to the limits in wild races aimed at producing one winner. In this latest release of Need for Speed there's more of an emphasis on illegal street racing.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted continues with the tradition of providing a broad range of more than 30 licensed cars including exotics such as Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and even one of my personal favorites the Ford GT is available. There's a big disappointment with the absence of Ferrari, but fear not because their archrival Lamborghini is present in the lineup. A huge chunk of the actual game resides in the career mode, which is the main focus of the game. It starts out with you as the main character with the dialogue entirely directed towards you. You begin racing with a BMW M3 GTR, which you use to race an up and coming racer called Razor.

He's a real jerk and is someone you would love to hate so defeating him would be really sweet. Unfortunately, all doesn't go as planned. Some how you lose the race because you find out that Razor sabotaged your ride --what a swell guy. After losing your ride and getting sent to jail, you come out with nothing and all the motivation to get your ride back. Essentially, you have to work your way to get your ride back. You're assisted by Mia (played by model/actress, Josie Maran) throughout career mode, who provides you with tips and advice on how to beat cops and racers. Razor eventually uses your BMW M3 GTR to get atop the Blacklist. The Blacklist is actually something you want to get on. Basically, it's a list of 15 racers including the number one racer, which happens to be Razor.

In the true aspect of street racing after your defeat a racer on the Blacklist, you acquire their ride. So you can either race with it, sell it for cool cash or upgrade it's performance. To be able to race each Blacklist racer, you have to complete different tasks --in other words you have to prove your worthiness. The deeper into the Blacklist you get the better stocked the cars are, and the race difficulty increases. To advance in the Blacklist you must have a certain amount of wins, milestones completed, and a specific bounty on your head from the cops. If your bounty is too low you have to go out and enrage the cops.

Police chases during the game are very fun, and provide the most fun of the game. Evading the police is one thing that can help you progress in career mode. Cop chases are not just meaningless encounters --these fun chases serve a purpose. That means you have to race in reckless fashion to get the cops alerted so they would chase you. Crashing your ride with a police cruiser and raming a roadblock are effective in raising your bounty. Most Wanted also features a Speedbreaker maneuver that slows down time so that you can take a tighter turn or avoid a collision. I've seen this type of feature implemented better and more fluid in other games such as Midnight Club 3.

Car customization is very similar to Midnight Club 3 in the sense that you can modify different aspects of your car. The shop is divided into 3 categories, parts, performance, and visual. Customization allows you to modify your ride into anything you want ranging from a stock looking high performance sleeper or an outright exotic racecar featuring a spoiler and other visual changes.

Gamers can also change the paint scheme by changing color or adding vinyls to the body of your car. Its really up to you how conservative or outlandish you want your car to look and perform, and helps your car perform against any class or car. However you must work your way through the career mode to be able to unlock different items. This is a negative aspect because in quick race mode or the other non-career modes you are limited to what car you can choose and you can't change the cars color. On the bright side, your custom car from career can mode can be used in the other modes.

Graphically the PS2 version holds it's own in some areas. Scenery looks great but can be dull, uninteresting, and repetitive at times. The frame rate is good, and the graphics slightly more detailed than previous versions in some ways. One very unattractive aspect of Most Wanted are the race tracks. They have minimal turns, and even curvy or twisty tracks don't provide much of a challenge, as breaking is hardly needed.

Another aspect of the tracks is that the city is locked off during circuit races. This also has been done better in Midnight Club 3 where the cities are truly open. The controls for this title are fairly easy and don't require much learning to play Quick Race Mode.

Sound is good, from cars passing by to your car whooshing past you engine noise is prominent. Also police chatter on the radio is great and fun to hear the report on your activities and whereabouts. Conversations between the dispatcher and certain cops sound so realistic you would think you had a police scanner in the car. For Example, if you run into a water tower or crash into a fellow officer, you'll hear the call over the radio.

Some or most racing fans will find this title more than enjoyable and fun. I still feel that this is not the best Need for Speed title thus far, but it's not the worst. Sure, this game has its flaws but it's still a decent game. Basically, you have to meet certain requirements in career mode to enjoy the games wide selection of cars. Also, missing from this title was the ability to race as a cop. This would have created a diverse, and different experience that is not the same game play available on other racing titles. I personally wasn't too happy with the title, but I say it's at least worth a rental. You can always go head to head with your buddies in two-player split-screen mode with your modified rides but there are many steps to take to be able to have that perfect ride you envision.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted is rated "T" for Teen (Content suitable for ages 13 or older) and is available for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, PSP, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, and GameCube game consoles.