Need For Speed Most Wanted

Before I start reviewing Need for Speed: Most Wanted, I feel I need to explain my views on some of Criterion's recent games. Burnout Paradise was the first ever Burnout game I ever played, and as a big fan of open-world driving games that encourage exploration, it very quickly became one of my favourite games of this generation. With a large, varied map, hundreds of collectibles, a large variety of different races and events and dozens of vehicles, it was a long time before I even touched the online aspect of the game, but when I did, I found a treasure trove of hours more gameplay. Combined with frequent, game-changing updates, the game kept me entertained for months.

So when it was announced a couple of years ago that Criterion would be making the next Need for Speed game (Hot Pursuit), I was looking forward to getting my hands on the game. But while the game provided me with some entertainment for several hours, I found that the game quickly got old. While the world could be explored in free-roam, there was very little reason to do so. The map was large, with some interesting areas, but no reason to go out of your way to explore. And as for the different events, they didn't keep me entertained for long.

So I was sceptical when Criterion announced that they would be making another Need for Speed game, especially as I was still awaiting a follow up to Burnout Paradise. What I didn't realise was that the two worlds - Burnout and Need for Speed - would come crashing together into a single, beautiful game.

From the moment you pop the disk into your console and boot the game up, any fan of Burnout Paradise will feel right at home. The introductory cinematic is spookily similar to that of Burnout Paradise, and explains the set up of the new game: The city is Fairhaven, a place where 10 drivers rule the roads, constantly on the run from the police. It is your job to beat them one by one and move up the ranks to become... (wait for it) Fairhaven's 'Most Wanted'. In that sense, the plot is somewhat reminiscent of the original NfS: Most Wanted. But as soon as you start to play, you realise that a lot has changed. This is Criterion's spin on a classic Need for Speed concept, and it shines as a result.

Fairhaven is made up of a series of locations, the main part of which is the city itself. Twisting narrow streets, tall skyscrapers and wide highways make up most of the city, complete with shortcuts, alleyways, parking lots and railway tracks. As you continue to explore, you will find various other locations, including an industrial park, a shipyard, an abandoned airstrip, a large public park, and miles of highways that twist their way through the games moody mountain range.
Throughout this world are things that will be familiar to Burnout Paradise fans: security gates make a comeback (where you have to find and smash all the flashing fences across the world) as well as billboards (all of which - in the first product-placement-based-marketing-scheme that I've ever approved of - all feature the names of different EA development teams) which must be smashed through. In a nice twist, when the billboards respawn, they are complete with a copy of your profile (assuming you achieved the furthest jump as a result) on all your friends' games. There are also speed cameras dotted around the world, which you must find and... well... speed past.

Much like Burnout, there are various drive-through repair centres dotted across the map, where you can repair your vehicle on-the-fly, while also recovering your boost. However, instead of having to find a garage to switch vehicles, you switch by pulling up to a 'jack-spot' for the vehicle you want, and with a press of a button, you're driving that car. Of course, this being a Need for Speed game, all the vehicles are officially licensed, and handle appropriately. All vehicles can be damaged, both visually and physically, and Burnout's 'crash-cinematics' are present and waiting for you every time you fly off a highway and into the path of a lorry.

The events themselves are pretty straight forward. Each vehicle has five events associated with it (1 easy, 2 medium and 2 hard). Successfully coming first or second in a race grants you new customisation for your vehicle, allowing you to upgrade and change the tyres, chassis, gears and boost systems. Vehicle events vary between straight races (checkpoint race from A to B against opponents), circuit races (complete a certain number of laps against opponents), endurance races (drive from A to B while keeping your average speed as high as possible) and pursuits (escape the police as quickly as possible). On top of these events, there are Most Wanted events, unlocked when you have gained enough speed points to be noticed by that driver.

Most Wanted events consist of an unusually long A to B race, usually heavily involving the police. Upon successfully completing the race, the driver of the opposing car continues to drive around Fairhaven, waiting for you to shut him down - another feature lifted almost directly from Burnout Paradise. The police roam Fairhaven, and a pursuit against them can be started at any time by ramming them, driving quickly past them, or... basically anything else.

On a whole, if you're a big fan of Burnout Paradise, and you're waiting for the next part of the series, don't overlook Most Wanted. It's a spiritual successor to Paradise if ever there was one.

Graphics: 9/10
Combining Burnout's lush environments, Hot Pursuit's impressive graphics and Battlefield 3's 'Star Trek' inspired flare-lighting, the game looks absolutely stunning. There are occasionally small drops in framerate when there are a lot of police in pursuit, but apart from that, there's very little to complain about here.

Sound: 8/10
Engine sounds are very good, although there are occasional glitches when the police-sirens won't stop even when you're blocks away from any police cars. The game's soundtrack is good, with songs by Muse, and even some remixes of The Who tracks. Unfortunately, to hear the music, you have to turn the games sound effects way down - not really a problem, though. The game also supports listening to your own music, although this must be done by creating a playlist on your PS3 before booting up the game.

Gameplay and Controls: 9/10
The game plays extremely smoothly, with controls that are very easy to learn. The games also utilises EasyDrive, which was first introduced to Burnout Paradise, and allows you to select events, set satnav locations, go online and customise your vehicle, all without leaving gameplay.

Longevity: 9+/10
So much content here. Each of the games 55 vehicle has 5 races attached to it, and there are also 10 Most Wanted races, 3 sets of collectibles and endless opportunities to take part in pursuits. Plus the games boasts a robust online mode (similar to Burnout Paradise in almost every respect). Unfortunately, the game doesn't yet support local multiplayer. Additionally, if Criterion support this game in the same way they supported Burnout Paradise, then we could be seeing dozens of hours of content added in the coming months. It's not guarantee, but I'm certainly hoping for it.

Overall: 9/10
A great racing game, which will make any Burnout Paradise fan extremely happy. Need for Speed fans may be a little disappointed by the lack of visual customisation, but I truly think this is a fantastic follow up to the series, and is a true reflection of Criterion Games.

I am no need for speed fan, I'm here in the 'burnout paradise spiritual sequel' pile of buyers. Sadly it just doesn't deliver.

While there are good parts to this game, it is let down throughout by the technical side of things. For me these are unforgivable, bad frame rate is just a shame on what could be a blast as it was in burnout paradise. Frame rate, not the worst thing in the world right? well how about it freezing for a good couple of seconds. Or how about the world not loading in, including the road which you will fall though. That and the occasional system crash is just very bitter, the game could have been better than this.

The other problem I found in this game is the concept itself. Find and drive any car. Sounds ok. The problem is I don't want to go back to the lesser cars after finding the best. Each car has 5 events, not unique events mind, so cue repetitive gameplay. Some events are so very hard and frustrating, like the average speed ones, similar to burning laps in the burnout world, you simply can't crash if you want gold.Then (this is a little picky I guess) the most wanted races are easy and weird. You may take the rival down several times within the race, then when you finish 1st your told to shut him down, i.e. take him down again. The city itself feels small, like a mini burnout paradise. You can see some resemblances too.

The much talked about multiplayer is better, however everyone is a jerk and will smash into you all the time.
So overall, I couldn't recommend it. Not terrible, but could have been so much better.

This review is fairly late in terms of the fact that most people who would want this game will have bought it by now, but I feel it's worth commenting on some of the strange aspects of this game that make it good, but somewhat aggravating. Having played this game, I come to the conclusion that good or 'addictive' games generally fall into two categories: 1) simply great, and a pleasure to play so you play through to the end, 2) aggravating and irritating so you keep playing almost to spite the game.

So, having lead with that lets move on to the game. I am a casual gamer who plays infrequently, just for reference!

The good things are this is a great game to just sit down with and play, it's quick and easy to just jump in a car and start some races. A new style of NFS, in that you don't have to work your way up from the 'cheap' cars to the super cars, you can just use anything.

The races are engaging, the physics generally enjoyable and the control system works well. It's easy enough to get drifting and balance you speed and cornering. Furthermore the graphics and sound effects are good, with a good atmosphere almost all the time, and I enjoy the sound twisting from using nitrous and other things. Engine notes are also decently varied.

The list of things I don't like is much longer, but I must stress that the good parts outlined above although small in volume are very important, and just (just!) outweigh these issues:

- The "crashed" system, and related cutscene. When you have a "bad" crash, the car stops for a moment and you watch a scene of your car wrecked, and usually all the other racers shoot by at that point, putting you at the back of the race. The problem here is that what determines a "bad" crash is extremely variable, sometimes you may smack into a non-racing car at over 100mph and nothing happens, other times you may scrape sideways along a barrier at less than 50mph and boom, crash cutscene! The cutscene takes a while and is frustrating to watch when what causes it is so incongruous. After you've had to watch the cutscene many times in a race, you can get extremely fed up.

- When you are in a race, or finish a race there is no quick way to restart the race. This definitely goes under the 'glaring omission' heading. If you have totally messed up a race you have to go through the (just about acceptable) menu system to get back out of the race, and then use the menu system to retry the previous event. This is an unnecessarily long route. Similarly at the end of the race it will load back out of the race before you have the option to retry. I've never played a racing game where you can't just pause and restart a race, nor even restart immediately at the end of a race - frustrating.

- Similarly, and adding to the frustration if you restart a race regularly; every time you start a race the game loads a cutscene video thing. Admittedly some of these look quite cool, but they take a while to load, and then once you've seen them once (or even if you haven't) you skip it. So, you have to wait for a race to end and load back into free roam before you can restart a race, and once you've done that the game then spends a good chunk of time loading a cutscene, starts the cutscene, and then eventually you can skip it, before you actually get to the beginning of the race. I fear 'frustrating' is getting overused here but it is the main accurate description!

The above are my main aggravations from the game, but there are a few niggles as well:

- your progress through the game is unclear, e.g. "how many races have I completed with that car?" is only checkable by going into the car (loading it...) and then flicking through to the race list for that car and guessing from the slither of colour by the race name what position you came.

- the music is limited, and also not that new. Dizzee Rascal - Bonkers again? really? I would appreciate things mostly current, and certainly a few more tracks. Surely there's some spare room on that blu-ray?! [edit: looking at a soundtrack list online, there appear to be some songs I haven't heard, perhaps UK/EU version has less? either way it could use at least a doubling of the soundtrack size]

- Music changes regularly when you do things with the menu system e.g. start a race, and at some points I found myself hearing the first 20-30s of songs repeatedly as I did things in the game which gets tiring.

- The game is a tad buggy, I've had it crash a few times, especially when mixing into multiplayer and single player. In fact one crash was so bad it corrupted my save file and I lost my progress entirely. Thankfully I had already completed the single player story line, and gotten most of the trophies. If you hadn't though that would be extremely frustrating. I recommend backing up your save game if you are trophy hunting.

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So, despite a long list of negatives, I have to say I still overall enjoyed the game. I completed the story line and then got all the trophies in order to get the platinum trophy. It isn't excessively challenging, but it's decent fun. Particularly, the new 'instant accessibility' approach makes it quite quick and easy to have a lot of fun and mess around in all the cars which is nice.

The negatives overall made me frustrated with the game however, and by getting the platinum trophy I didn't feel a sense of accomplishment as much as I felt satisfaction in beating the game for all the mess it puts you through with excessive loading and cutscenes (and if you are unlucky total system crashes).

In summary the good qualities of the game outweigh the negatives, but only just hence my three star rating. I would recommend this game to a casual gamer who likes cars and racing games. If you are proficient with odd menu systems and don't mind waiting for loading times and cutscenes that would help as well!