Need For Speed Most Wanted

Need for Speed: Carbon preview

2006-08-03T14:57:00.000-07:00

Need for Speed: Carbon hands-on

Need for Speed is still rolling. We took a test drive in San Francisco.

What is Need for Speed Carbon? Is it Underground? Is it Most Wanted with the lights out? It’s a bit hard to tell. The focus is clearly on battling for territory, which makes for a good deal of the races to be placed in urban settings. But when the stakes are really high, you are faced with narrow mountain roads with devious hairpin turns where you have to concentrate just as much on not falling off the mountainside as beating your opponents.

An important aspect of Need for Speed is the option of tweaking the appearance of your car. This feature is of course present in Carbon but in a new version which EA calls Auto Sculpt. It’s a very organic feature – you just pull some sliders and the car changes in front of your eyes. Cool stuff.

EA had two versions on display for the Studio Showcase. The Xbox 360 version looked almost complete but the very early PS3 version seemed rough and... well very early. According to the developer it still has plenty of time and feel it had gotten far in getting to know the hardware, so prospects are good.

While the development of these two versions is progressing well there seems to be a problem as to how to make the most use of the Wii controller. Initially it seems pretty straightforward: the pedal goes to the metal and you need to be able to turn. But the developer has tried a lot of things and still don’t feel it has quite nailed it yet. It’ll be exciting to see what EA ends up with.

I had the opportunity to race a few laps with the Xbox 360 version and the racing experience is satisfying, if you are a fan of Need for Speed that is. I still think it’s too close to Underground which is a shame seeing how much I like Most Wanted.

On the question whether it was possible to switch between night and day I was told that it would take twice the amount of work that had already been done so that’ll have to wait till next time.

Carbon will ber released on PC, DS, GBA, GC, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360 and Xbox in the autumn.

Source: Boomtown DK

Success of FIFA and Need for Speed pushes internal studio to the top spot again.

2006-05-02T14:44:00.000-07:00

Deciding which game maker is the best at any given time is not for the timid so trade magazine Develop stopped listening to its heart and started listening to the numbers to come up with the top 100 game developers.

Instead of bowing to personal preferences, as most games publications do, Develop looked at the UK sales performance of games from each studio and how they improved over last year.

Considering this, it's perhaps no surprise to find EA Canada at the top of the pile. The team has been making high quality games with wide appeal for some time now, with recent top-sellers including FIFA 06 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

Soccer was a big reason for Konami's No. 3 placing too, with the Pro Evolution Soccer series going from strength to strength - not only in Europe but also in its home country of Japan. The soccer giants were separated by Pandemic Studios, which has been making commercial waves, with Destroy All Humans!, Mercenaries and Star Wars: Battlefront II all making good on their promise.

Below are the Top 10 game developers, including popular titles and last year's ranking, according to Develop:

1. EA Canada - FIFA, Need for Speed (1 last year)
2. Pandemic Studios - Destroy All Humans!, Mercenaries (19)
3. Konami Corporation - Pro Evolution Soccer (new)
4. Maxis - The Sims (3)
5. Nintendo - Nintendogs, Mario Kart (28)
6. Ubisoft Montreal - Splinter Cell, Far Cry Instincts (5)
7. Polyphony Digital - Gran Turismo (new)
8. EA Redwood Shores - The Godfather (4)
9. Traveller's Tales - Lego Star Wars (34)
10. Sony London Studios - Singstar, EyeToy (6)

Still our Most Wanted game?

2006-04-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

Still our Most Wanted game?

EA took an unusual step last year when they released Need for Speed: Most Wanted. It would have been extremely easy for the company to release Need for Speed: Underground 3 considering how well the previous two Underground titles sold, but they went back to the roots of the series and this paid off; Need for Speed: Most Wanted was one of the best titles in the franchise for years. Six months later the Xbox 360 incarnation has arrived. Unfortunately, due to the timing of the launch there are a lot of other arcade racing games competing for first place, so does Need for Speed: Most Wanted still hold up?

There have been a lot of changes to Most Wanted from the last time we saw a Need for Speed title. The Xbox 360 version doesn't feature many upgrades in comparison to the Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions, and is basically a port. EA have put a larger emphasis on the storyline in Most Wanted. In the main mode of the game, the career mode, the player assumes the role of a guy out for revenge against the top ranked racer in the world of illegal street racing. The top ranked racer is Razor, who sabotaged your ride during a race and then used it to get to the top of the blacklist - a list of the fifteen top racers. To challenge him you need to work your way to the top of the blacklist. The career mode has brilliant presentation and the story is relatively compelling. The story line starts basic but actually becomes quite interesting as you progress, with even a few plot twists to uncover.

Maybe you will own the car?

Before you can challenge the blacklist rivals you need to fulfil certain challenges, including gaining a certain level of notierity, winning races and engaging in police pursuits. The challenges are varied but they do become repetitive once you get your way up the top of the blacklist because you've had to race so many times. When you defeat a blacklist racer your move your way up the list and it's possible to then choose from two rewards which include performance upgrades, visual upgrades and other bonuses. The best bonus by far is the pink slip to your opponent's car, but you won't always get the car. Players also recieve money for defeating the blacklist racers which can then be used to purchase extra vehicles. Initially it may seem like the career mode is different to anything we saw in Underground, but it's quite similar.

There are other thirty licensed vehicles in the game. The highlights include the Supra and the Corvette, but there are some useless vehicles that you won't spend much time with, such as the VW Golf. Whilst thirty vehicles is sufficient, it would have been good if there were a little more because there isn't a lot of variety in the vehicles.

Aside from the career mode, there is also a challenge mode which assigns you a vehicle and a goal. The goals are basic and include race goals or pursuit goals such as outrunning the police. As well as this there is also a quick race option as well as full Xbox Live support. Surprisingly the online mode doesn't put as much of an emphasis on pursuit which may disappoint a few people but there are still plenty of racing options. The online options include spring, circuit and drag races so there is enough to keep you entertained. An online version of the blacklist is also available so you can prove your notieirity online.

Or this one...

Gameplay wise the game plays very similarly to Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2. EA have added speedbreakers to the equation, which are activated by pressing a button. It will slow time down during the middle of the race which allows you to navigate around corners will a little more precision. The speedbreakers are handy but they aren't utilised that much, and by the time you remember the option is there it's likely you've already crashed into a wall.

Bringing the police back to the Need for Speed series was a good move. The game feels a lot more exciting with the police and even if you're thirty seconds ahead the game can still be interesting with the police chasing after you. Pursuit breakers are located through the game as well. If you smash into a pursuit breaker then this will trigger an action (such as dropping a wood roof on a police car) so you can try to out run the police.

The game also includes car damage but it isn't very detailed, being very similar to the damage found in Project Gotham Racing 3. Windscreens will crack but that is about it. We would love for the series to put a little more emphasis on damage, even if it just remains visual. The real disappointment of the game comes with the AI, which still isn't that smart. The game features rubberband AI and the police often don't make realistic decisions. In the heat of the pursuit you're unlikely to realise these issues, but in the race modes (which aren't as enthralling) you will curse the screen when you're on your third perfect lap and you clip something near the end of the race and end up coming last. We also encountered a minor bug that we didn't have when we played through the Xbox version - half of the cut-scene cut off during one of the FMV's, but this only happened once.

I guess this car would be okay though...

Graphically the game isn't a big upgrade from it's Xbox counterpart. The best upgrade comes in the lighting which looks remarkably realistic now. However, the Xbox version looked incredible and the large city environment and highly detailed FMV is very impressive. The large city streams off the disk so there is barely any loading either, which is a great technical achievement. The frame-rate runs at 30 fames per-second which is okay, but it would have been better if it was 60FPS and given the extra power of the X360, we're not sure why this wasn't possible.

The sound in the game is actually surprisingly realistic. The voice actors appear to actually be interested in the game which definitely helps. All of the engine noises are different and rather realistic. The sountrack takes a bit of a backseat though and mainly consists of rock. The most impressive part of the sound is that during the game the police will use radio codes to communicate with each other - if you play long enough you will actually become scarily able to identify what each radio code means, which is a good warning for what is about to come.

The career mode is incredibly lengthy and will last about fifteen hours, although there is no real reason to return to it after this. The multiplayer can become incredibly addictive and there were still a lot of people online trying to improve their blacklist rank. EA seem to have really taken the quick route out with the achievements. Every time you defeat a blacklist rival you unlock an achievement - it would have been good if it wasn't so easy to unlock all of the achievements.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted is an incredibly addictive game and a step in the right direction for the franchise. However, since the game first appeared on the original Xbox and PlayStation 2 six months ago there have been a lot of new racers released. If you enjoyed Need for Speed: Most Wanted on the original Xbox then you will enjoy it again, it just hasn't changed that much since six months ago.

Need for Speed on Track for Chart Record

2006-02-15T13:31:00.000-08:00

EA's racer breaks into double figures, leaving newcomers and other incumbents to scurry for scraps.

Microsoft and other companies making games for the Xbox 360 will have to be satisfied with disappointing chart performance for their games until the hardware problems can be resolved. The latest victim is Sega's Full Auto, which despite healthy buzz barely managed to squeeze into the Top 20 in its debut weekend.

It was another racer, Need for Speed: Most Wanted by EA, that took the top spot on the charts, for the tenth time. This equals the time spent at the top by its predecessor, Need for Speed Underground 2 and also means that the game is verging on equalling the previous record for most top finishes set by Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

There weren't too many other changes in the Top 10, though you will notice that there are two rugby games in the upper ranks of the chart, both getting a boost from the ongoing Six Nations competition.

Nintendo popped into the Top 10 too with its latest DS game, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time. The humour might not hit as well as its predecessor on the Game Boy Advance, but at least the game did fairly well. The same can't be said of the company's other game, Mario Party 7, which didn't even make it into the Top 40.

Below are the top 10 games in the UK for the week ending 11 February, as determined by Chart Track:

Need for Speed: Most Wanted (EA)
The Sims 2 (EA)
Pro Evolution Soccer 5 (Konami)
FIFA 06 (EA)
Rugby 06 (EA)
King Kong (Ubisoft)
Rugby Challenge 2006 (Ubisoft)
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (Rockstar)
Star Wars: Battlefront II (LucasArts)
Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (Nintendo)

Need for Speed Dominates!

2005-12-19T12:44:00.000-08:00

EA's dominant racing series looks set to pull in another Christmas No. 1 next week.

Logistics have dealt a cruel blow to Xbox 360 software. While many of the launch titles have been received well critically, a lack of hardware to play them on means that few standalone Xbox 360 titles managed to make it into the Top 40 for the week.

It probably wouldn't have mattered too much though, as Need for Speed Most Wanted seems to have settled in for a stay at the top of the charts until the end of the year. The bookies are still backing EA's racer as the one to beat for the Christmas No. 1 spot, which will be revealed next week.

Need for Speed tops UK games chart!

2005-11-29T13:41:00.000-08:00

Electronic Arts' Need for Speed: Most Wanted has entered the UK videogame chart at number one.

Available for PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Xbox, GameCube, DS, Game Boy Advance, PSP and PC, the game was released in the UK on November 25.

Most Wanted challenges players to become the most notorious street racer by going up against the top racers on the Blacklist as well as numerous police that patrol the city of Rockport.

Pro Evolution Soccer 5, developed by In-house, rose two to finish at number two.

Last week's chart topper Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire dropped two places to three, while Fifa 06 moved up one spot to fourth.

50 Cent: Bulletproof got off to a promising start, entering the charts at number five.

Other games in the top ten included World Tour Soccer, WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2006 and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories.

Need for Speed Most Wanted Review of Need for Speed Most Wanted (Xbox 360)

2005-11-18T10:59:00.000-08:00

Every good hardware launch needs a great-looking driving game. With the increased graphical power that new hardware tends to provide, we've got yet another test bed for just how realistic computer-rendered cars can actually look. For the release of the Xbox 360, Electronic Arts is serving up the latest installment in its long-running racing series, Need for Speed Most Wanted. Its high-speed races and police chases make for an extremely exciting game, which is further enhanced by the game's terrific graphics. This is one of those games that makes the previous generation of hardware look older than it actually is.

This racing game is broken up into multiple parts, but the largest part of the puzzle is the game's story-driven career mode. You'll start out as the new guy in town, attempting to work your way up in the city's illegal street racing scene. That scene lives and dies by the Blacklist, a top-15 ranking list that lets you know who the most notorious racer in Rockport is. The beginning of the game serves as a prologue. You attempt to run up against the number-15 racer, Razor Callahan, but this jerk isn't about to give up his spot. When you attempt to take him on, his boys tamper with your BMW and you lose the race, your car, and your freedom, as the cops quickly haul you in. Before long, though, you're back on the streets and starting fresh, thanks to the help of a mysterious woman named Mia.

After you're back out and starting over again, the game's story is conveyed mostly via voicemail and text messages from the various racers. But the entire prologue is delivered to you as a series of easy races broken up by full-motion video cutscenes. These scenes mix CG cars and environments with live actors. It's a neat-looking effect, but the best part of the whole game has to be the characters and performances, because the acting--especially from Razor and his homeboy Ronnie--is completely over the top and ridiculous. They're amazingly hilarious, and really make you wonder if the comedy is intentional or not. Either way, they look neat and they're fully insane, and it's a real shame that there isn't more of it.

Your career mode goal is to work your way to the top of the blacklist and take out Razor, who has used your old car to get to the top spot. You'll have to take on each member of the list, one at a time, but you'll also have to prove yourself by completing a series of races and other milestones before you can face off against a Blacklister. The races are standard and come in a few different varieties. Circuit races and sprints are as basic as they come. Knockout races eliminate the last-place racer at the end of each lap until only one remains. Tollbooth races are checkpoint races against the clock. Drag racing is similar to how it's been in the last couple of Need for Speed games, focusing more on proper shifting and dodging traffic. Speed-trap races put a series of speed cameras on the track. Your speed is clocked at each point and added to your overall score, and the highest score at the end of the track wins. Each of the race types is slightly different, but the speed trap and drag races are the only ones to make you rethink your racing strategy.

The racing is fun, but the game's artificial intelligence sort of gets in the way at times. The three computer-controlled racers are definitely programmed to keep it close. If you fall behind, they'll usually slow up or make a mistake that lets you regain the lead. If you're in the lead, the AI rarely fouls up, ensuring that there's usually someone on your tail. It makes most of the races really easy--we set the controller down for 20 seconds and were still easily able to catch up and win the race. However, the game suddenly gets harder when you hit the top five on the Blacklist. The cars still stay on your tail, but they know every shortcut and don't stay too close after they get ahead of you. It's a sudden and dramatic shift, and a more gradual difficulty slope would have probably worked better here.

In addition to your race victories, you also have an overall bounty on your head and milestones to achieve on the open streets of the city. The police are a major presence in Most Wanted. They'll occasionally appear in the middle of a race, which makes the races more hectic and exciting. But the real excitement comes from engaging in police chases outside of races. Once you've been spotted, it takes some fancy driving to lose the cops. Chases usually start with just one car on your tail. But as you resist, you might find 20 cars giving chase, in addition to a chopper flying overhead. Losing the cops gets tougher as your heat level rises. Level-one heat results in the appearance of just your standard squad cars. But by the time you get up to level five, you'll be dealing with roadblocks, spike strips, helicopters, and federal-driven Corvettes. A meter at the bottom of the screen indicates how close you are to losing the cops or getting busted. Stopping your car--or having it stopped for you by spike strips or getting completely boxed in by cops--is how you'll get busted.

To actually get away, you'll need to get out of visual range...and stay there. The initial evasion changes the meter over to a cooldown meter. You'll have to lay low and wait for that meter to fill up to end the chase. This is probably the tensest part of the entire chase, because you never know when two cops might blow around the corner and spot you, starting the whole process over again. It all sort of works like some sort of strange, wonderful cross between Grand Theft Auto's open city and Metal Gear Solid's stealth mechanic. All the while, you'll be acquiring heat on your car. This means that you'll have to keep a couple of cars around, because acquiring heat on one car lowers the heat on the others. Also, getting busted too many times can result in your car getting impounded, though you can avoid that by resetting the system whenever you get caught (if that's more your speed).

The game has more than 30 licensed cars that you'll be able to purchase or win from other racers. We started out with a pretty weak Chevy Cobalt, but eventually we picked up a much faster Supra, a new Covette C6, and so on. You can also find the Ford GT, a Ford Mustang GT, and other cars from BMW, Mitsubishi, Porsche, Lamborghini, Lotus, and more. You'll buy your first car, but as you move through the Blacklist, you'll get a shot at the pink slip of the other racer, letting you ease right in to the driver's seat of a new, tuned vehicle. Buying them from scratch means you'll have to apply enhancements yourself. You can buy a lot of different performance gear and a ton of visual stuff, like body kits, spoilers, vinyls, and so on. Applying visual upgrades lowers your heat level, making them pretty useful when the cops take notice of your faster cars.

Aside from the career mode, there's also a challenge series that gives you a car and a specific goal. Race goals are fairly easy to understand (just win, baby), but the pursuit challenges ask you to achieve specific milestones like blasting through five roadblocks or racking up a specific amount of property damage. You can also just dive into quick races, or go online. The online game is focused strictly on racing, which is a little disappointing. Teaming up to avoid the cops or letting some players drive police cars probably would have been more interesting. Still, the game offers sprint, circuit, and drag races for up to four players, and it keeps an online version of the Blacklist going so you can see who the most dangerous online opponent is. On the game-creation side, you can play in ranked or unranked games, and you can specify a disconnection or "did not finish" percentage, letting you manually weed out jerks. You can also turn off collision detection between players if you want to prevent people from just crashing into one another throughout the entire race, but that's only possible in unranked games. All in all, the online is functional, but without any sort of pursuit mode or other police-tinged races, it's awfully standard.

Most Wanted's graphics are one of the best things about it. The visuals certainly aren't perfect, but when you play it on the Xbox 360, there's no doubt that this is a next-generation game, especially if you're playing it on a nice HDTV. The car models look extremely sharp, and are rendered so that you can see the interiors of the cars through the windows--unless you've tinted them. The environments reflect off of the vehicles in a realistic fashion, and a lot of objects, like trees, cast realistic-looking shadows. The flashing lights of police cars also reflect quite nicely, and even the streets will reflect when the roads are wet. The city of Rockport is large, and there's a good deal of variety to be found on its city streets, its freeways, and its back roads. The customizable car parts give the game a real sense of style, and stuff like triple-colored paint looks really nice. The game makes heavy use of blurring effects when you're moving quickly, and this helps give the game a believable sense of speed. However, some of that sense is dampened by some skipping and stuttering that seems to show up in the horizon whenever you take a turn. We also noticed a few spots where textures would pop into view a little late. That visual weirdness holds the game back a bit--it's pretty noticeable--but it doesn't get in the way of the gameplay or anything like that. Even with those problems, this is still a great-looking game.

On the sound side, the game has outstanding engine noises that change depending on which car you're in and which upgrades you have. The rest of the sound effects are also of excellent quality. The game uses quite a bit of voice acting in the story, which is good. But the best voices come from the police. When you're being chased, you'll pick up the police band and hear them communicating and cooperating as they try to take you down. The cop talk sounds awfully authentic, and you'll eventually decipher the police's 10 codes and figure out when they're going to lay out spike strips, set up roadblocks, and so on. While the 10 codes used don't seem to be the actual ones the real police use (at least, that's what a little basic research told us), they sound good enough to be realistic. The music included is the standard mix of rock and hip-hop you've come to expect from EA's games, including a few songs from Styles of Beyond.

There's a lot to see in Need for Speed Most Wanted, but really, the best moments in the game come from the police chases, which are easy to get in to, hard to get out of, and addictive enough to keep you coming back, even if the racing itself doesn't stand out. It's also a shame that there aren't more insane cutscenes to drive the story along, but what's there is still most definitely worth seeing for yourself. All things considered, if you're in the market for an Xbox 360 and you require a driving game, Need for Speed Most Wanted is a great choice.

Via Gamespot

Need for Speed Most Wanted Shipping for all platforms!

2005-11-15T14:28:00.000-08:00

Electronic Arts announced today that Need for Speed Most Wanted, the latest entry in the long-running racing series, is now shipping to nearly any platform you care to name, including the Xbox 360.

Combining illicit street racing and tuner customization with over-the-top strategic police pursuits, Most Wanted lets you customize your rides that include a wide range of vehicles from the BMW M3, Porsche Cayman S and Lamborghini Gallardo to Mazda RX-8, Ford Mustang GT and Mitsubishi Eclipse. All told, the game offers more than 36 cars. Players also will have to master the art of strategic cop evasion to make it to the top of the Blacklist.

Need for Speed Most Wanted is now shipping for PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, PC, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance. The PSP edition, known as Need for Speed Most Wanted 5-1-0 and offering exclusive content like Tuner Takedown mode, is also headed to stores.

Official Need For Speed Most Wanted Car Roster

2005-11-15T14:24:00.000-08:00

Electronic Arts today bestowed upon us the first, official Need for Speed Most Wanted vehicle list, replete with Vipers, Laborghinis, Porsches, Lotuses, Corvettes, Audis, BMWs, and more.

Need for Speed Most Wanted is a return to roots in a sense, shifting away from the heavily mod-influence of the NFS Underground series, and returning cops and high-speed chases to the forefront. Players win races to earn money, and use money to unlock new cars and kits, but the focus is on steet racing and cop evasion.

The new car set should look pretty familiar to many Need For Speed fans, though there are more street cars here, and several highly stylized ones to boot.

With this 36-car set, players can test EA's physics system, get a feel for a variety of vehicles, and then tell the cops to come and get it. Using new features including SpeedBreaker (like Bullet Time) and Gamebreaker (environmental hazards) as well as nitro to evade cops, your arsenal of tricks is loaded. You'll vie in a hefty series of different styles races including Toll Booth races, Beat the Time races, Drag Races, and Escape races among others.

Check out the full, official list.

Aston Martin DB9
Audi A4 3.2 FSI quattro
Audi TT 3.2 quattro
Audi A3 3.2 quattro
BMW M3 GTR
Mercedes-Benz SL 500
SL65 AMG
Mercedes-Benz CLK 500
Dodge Viper SRT10
Fiat Punto
Ford GT
Ford Mustang GT
Corvette C6
Corvette C6.R
Cadillac CTS
Pontiac GTO
Vauxhall Monaro VXR
Cobalt SS
Lamborghini Murciélago
Lamborghini Gallardo
Lotus Elise
Mazda RX-8
Mazda RX-7
Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren
Mitsubishi Lancer EVOLUTION VIII
Mitsubishi Eclipse
Porsche Carrera GT
Porsche 911 Turbo S
Porsche 911 GT2
Porsche 911 Carrera S
Porsche Cayman S
Renault Clio V6
Subaru Impreza WRX STi
Lexus IS300
Toyota Supra
VW Golf GTI

If you happen to want the classic "Black Edition," you'll get a few extra cars in there as a special bonus. We'll have more on NFSMW soon.

Need For Speed Most Wanted - Preview (Xbox 360)

2005-11-15T14:18:00.000-08:00

Know your roots. That seems to be the mantra for EA’s upcoming next-gen racer, Need for Speed Most Wanted as it feels much more like older titles in the series, such as Hot Pursuit; a slightly different animal than the Underground games of the past two years. That’s not a bad thing, especially because the number of import tuner racing games on the market has reached almost sickening levels, so it’s time for a change. After all, change is good.

The Xbox 360 demo of Need for Speed Most Wanted was available for press and consumers to play through on the TGS show floor which showcased a few new modes and gave a better overall understanding of how things will feel in the launch title.

Aside from the career mode and the other race types that you’d expect (drag, sprint, etc.), the TGS demo focused on the Circuit mode and a few different races that are found in the new Challenge Series. Think of the Challenge Series as cop pursuit chases, but each with varying objectives. For example, one challenge may specify that you need to avoid the fuzz for 1 minute, while another sill designate that you need to take a certain number of cop cars during the pursuit. Being that the environments are fully destructible, there is even a challenge that in which you’ll need to wreak as much havoc as possible, tallying up the “Cost to State” of busting through gas stations, wrecking into other cars, and so on. Circuit mode is exactly that; a series of traditional lap-style races against a number of competitors. Finish first or go home.

The controls of Most Wanted are very similar to that of the Underground series, with the left stick obviously used to steer, and the right and left triggers used for gas and brake/reverse respectively. The E-brake is mapped to the A button, while nitrous is on the B button. New to Most Wanted is the use of a Speedbreaker mode, which works very much like any other “breaker” in an EA game; it provides a limited advantage over the competition. In the case of the Speedbreaker, pressing the X button will put you into slow motion, allowing you to maneuver around obstacles, cops, or opponents with ease. The Speedbreaker meter drains while it is in use, but you can quickly exit out by pressing the X button once again. Performing fancy moves and completing objectives will help to refill the Speedbreaker meter. Rather than having to fumble around with the soon to be defunct White and Black buttons, the new Right and Left Bumper buttons are used to change views.

Even though Need for Speed Most Wanted plays like Hot Pursuit, the Underground tuner aspects are still very much a part of the game. EA has taken feedback regarding the modification system in Underground 2 and has streamlined things to make it easy-to-use and just as effective. There are still a host of mods available; everything from body kits to engine upgrades. The paint and vinyl selections have been expanded as well, something that was already pretty solid in the Underground series. The kits will be tailor-made for each car, so each gamer’s experience should be a bit different depending on the ride they choose to hit the streets with. At this point, we aren’t sure what the final total will be on the car roster, but we’ve been told to expect at least 30 or more.

I did find Need for Speed Most Wanted more to my liking than last year’s Underground 2, right off the bat. The action is what I want from a racing game: fast-paced and no holds barred. The AI is already a bitch on wheels, as the cops will go to great lengths to ram you off the road. There is a heat meter which shows the cop’s current awareness of your exploits, but I didn’t do too well in evading the fuzz. The chases seem like they can go on forever, and in what appears to be a massive world, that means there’s a lot of fun to be had.

The destructible environments add a little panache to the standard racing genre, making the game feel almost like a never-ending scene from Smokey and the Bandit.. For example, smashing through a donut shop will cause the giant donut sign to roll into oncoming traffic. Guess I’ll have to rip Jerry Reed’s East Bound and Down to my Xbox 360 hard drive to get the real experience.

On the graphic front, the game does have several next-gen specific goodies that will impress, such as real-time reflections and lighting, shadow casting, and totally pimped out rides - inside and out. The intricacies of the road (cracks, etc.) not only look realistic, but also affect handling performance which is something that isn’t possible with current-gen tech. Unlike Underground the setting in Most Wanted is all daytime, from sunrise to sunset, which changes in real-time on the Xbox 360 version of the game. Currently running in 720p at 30fps, Most Wanted holds its own with the other next-gen racers.

The Outlook

If you are just as tired of the night time, check your cell phone, tuner racing style of the Underground series as I am, then Need for Speed Most Wanted is right up your alley. We still have let to see much on the Career mode or the online play (yes, it is promised), so be on the lookout for updates real soon.

The controls have the arcade-like feel of previous NFS installments, but the Xbox 360 version will be superior to the current-gen version, not only with visuals, but with many more cops entering the fray. This means your on-road strategy will be altered big time, which equals more intensity. Need for Speed Most Wanted is slated as a day one launch title, so fans of the racing genre looking to get their fix early on will want to spec out EA’s latest.

Need For Speed Most Wanted - Features (Xbox 360)

2005-11-15T14:15:00.000-08:00

Wake up to the smell of burnt asphalt as the thrill of illicit street racing permeates the air. From the makers of the hit Need for Speed™ Undergroundseries that has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, Need for Speed™ Most Wanted challenges you to become the most notorious and elusive street racer.

Combining illicit street racing and tuner customization with the intensity of strategic police pursuit that surpasses any Hollywood-style chase scene, Need for Speed Most Wanted should be on your "must-have" list. Out-race rivals, evade cops, and exploit hundreds of miles of open road as you make your way up the Blacklist.

To become the most wanted racer, build up your street cred and Rap Sheet with gripping, white-knuckle, head-to-head races against the top drivers on the streets. Pull daring, evasive moves to out-run and out-fox the cops that patrol the open road. Manage your heat or use strategic tactics to keep the cops off your tail as you leave your rivals behind to suck your exhaust fumes.

Need for Speed Most Wanted also features a variety of the hottest cars, from tuners and super cars to muscles and sports cars. You can tune your ride to race against any class of vehicles. The streets are your playground!

Open road, open world: Rule the streets as the most notorious street racer in distinct regions that include edgy industrial and upscale urban environments. The street can be a friend for a foe. Master short-cuts and use the traffic and destructible environments to your advantage.
All-new gameplay: New and exciting gameplay combines strategic cop pursuit and skill-based evasion techniques with illicit street racing.
Visual customization: Whether you're trying to lose the cops or you just want to pimp your ride, Need for Speed Most Wanted offers extensive visual customizations.
Blacklist: As you enter the world of street racing, go up against the best drivers on the scene to earn respect and rise to the top of the Blacklist.
Rap Sheet: Build up your Rap Sheet with record-breaking times, epic races, and wild headline-making stunts. Out-fox police vehicles, tactics, and technology.
Performance tuning: Can't compete against a sports car? Head to the safehouse and tune up your ride to race against any class of vehicles.
Next-gen features: Need for Speed Most Wanted for the next-generation console delivers a new level of graphical excellence in video games. Utilizing graphical techniques including normal mapping, digital scanning, and real-time lighting, the game's visual experience outpaces other racing games on the market.
Online racing: Challenge your friends or rivals in online play for Xbox Live™ and the PC.

Need For Speed Most Wanted (Xbox 360)

2005-11-15T14:14:00.000-08:00

Need For Speed Most Wanted!