Need For Speed Most Wanted Review (Xbox 360) By Mushu1942

7 / 10
11 Oct 2006 at 04:20

Review by: Mushu1942

I’ve never had a good reputation with driving games. In my opinion they are all much of the same. From the days of outrun on my spectrum 48K onwards they have pretty much been a case of; you start, you turn a couple of corners, you finish. (For those whippersnappers that don’t know what a Spectrum 48K is, it’s a bit like a computer but more basic.)
Then the NFS games started coming out and they brought with them the concept of a non-linear racing game. By this I mean that, instead of doing one race after another, you can choose which events to go for whilst driving around a completely free roaming environment. This is where things started to get better. I don’t know why because the concept is still the same, you just get to have a little more control over things, which is always nice.
NFS: most wanted, puts you in the place of an up and coming street racer who gets royally stitched up and loses his car. Once you have decided on which cheap and nasty car to buy, you can start trying to climb your way up the blacklist until you’re number one on the underground racing circuit.
There are fifteen other racers on the blacklist and the idea is, to beat each of them in turn. Before you can progress onto the next racer you will need to reach certain standards. You will need to have completed a set number of race challenges a set number of milestone challenges (I’ll explain later), and have reached a certain bounty with the police.
The race challenges are quite good fun actually and I had to eat my words when I found myself enjoying the variety of challenges. Amongst these challenges are things like the following. Tollbooth, which is like a timed checkpoint race. Circuit, exactly what it says on the tin. Speed camera, where you are clocked at various points around the race and the winner is the one with the highest total score. There is also a drag race event which is pretty good fun once you get the hang of it. These races are located around the map or you can start them straight away from your safe house. One thing I do like about the races is the fact that, on many of the courses, there are shortcuts. The great thing about this is the fact that all of the racers can use them. This means you can never be too complacent when your in the lead because you may well look at the map and see one of your opponents hammering it past you on some off road trail or something. If you know all of the shortcuts though, they may well give you the edge you need in an otherwise tough race.
The milestone challenges are things that aren’t race related. For instance, being clocked on a speed camera over a certain speed will complete one such challenge. A lot of the milestone challenges are police related; such as evade the police within two minutes etc.
Bounty is pretty self-explanatory. Throughout the game, as your tearing up the tarmac to the best of your ability, the police will occasionally spot you. When they do they will chase. The chases are the most fun thing about this game. The police will slowly step up their tactics the less luck they have in stopping you. For instance if you are a good driver and manage to evade them for long enough, they will bring out the Rhino units to smash you off the road. After that it’s the feds. All good fun. One of the most astonishing things about the police chases is the radio commentary you get throughout. In the real world I have worked amongst several police forces and I have to say, NFS have got it spot on.
The graphics to this game are pretty good as well. I won’t say they are amazing because it’s kind of what I would expect from a 360.
A good range of cars and various different modifications and customisations mean that you can swap and change your vehicle to your hearts content. Buy new vehicles or win the pink slips in races, the choice is yours.
The control system is pretty much basic racing game controls. (You know, accelerate, brake, handbrake, nitrous.) and it lacks the realism of games like Gran Turismo but overall, I’d say this game is definitely worth checking out.

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