Need for Speed: Most Wanted

Very underrated.

Serously, if this wasn't called "Most Wanted", everyone would view it as the open-world arcade racing masterpiece it actually is. The game nails in one try what Forza Horizon couldn't do in five - it's the ultimate "the world is yours, do whatver you want" car game out there, one that completely does away with any sort of grinding and just skips directly to the fun parts.

The game has no "real" customization, and I know this was the result of a tight deadline - but man, I feel like customization would not benefit this game at all. It would only incentivize players to stay with once single car, but in MW2012, you're supposed to drive all of them. I count it as yet another instance of necessity leading to create breakthroughs.

The soundtrack is simply fantastic, and I couldn't name a single song I would skip. It's better than any modern NFS, and - dare I say - it aged much better than the soundtrack of the original Most Wanted.

MW2012 has great gameplay, too. It's arcadey, but it still feels like it has a high skill ceiling - the term "simple, not easy" very much applies here. I had a lot of fun just playing it.

0.5 points get deducted for the weak cop chases, but otherwise, this is the perfect modern arcade racer.

Well, it is NEWS to me that people hate this game. I have had some of the best times of my life messing around driving through the open world in this game at a good friend's house. I know the cops in this game can be dumb, but really that adds to the fun. If you were expecting a serious racing game, then yeah, this isn't it. But if you just wanna mess around and have some fun, this game is great.

Car game people are a tough crowd I guess...

When 'Most Wanted 2012' was released I had some interest but I never got the game, I was too busy playing Forza Horizon and some of the early NFS games to even care. So I yo-ho-ho'ed the Wii U version because it was supposedly the best port and besides, I love me the Wii U.

First off this is not a Need for Speed game, this is more of a Burnout game, but whereas titles like Burnout Paradise is basically the same game, MW12 holds-your-hand throughout the whole ordeal. It's perhaps even worse (or better) on the Wii U because most of, or all of the DLC is unlocked on-disc.

The cornfest that was the 2005 game now looks fine. This is rancid.

If you liked the 2005 version of Need for Speed: Most Wanted and were curious about this remake, just don't bother, please. I would say buy the original one, but since there is no way to get it legally, just get it second hand or yo-ho-ho it.

There is no reason given to you why you should race, you are just thrown in just do some boring races to get points for the most wanted list. When you get enough points, you unlock racers to race so you can climb the top 10 (yes, in this version just 10)…wait, no, scratch that, you just get some generic cars to race against.

There is no money in game, cars are just laying around the map and you just click to add them to you collection. So the car collecting part of the game is not rewarding, it would be cool if you could at least customize you car, but since you just get generic stat upgrades after you win a race, that part of the game is also not there. You also get your car repainted randomly when you drive through a repair shop. Absolutely no personalization whatsoever.

While the driving mechanics are decent and I quite like them, there game feel just isn't there, just not feeling the speed. It also doesn't help that all the races are unimaginative and boring. You get 6 races per car and I just couldn't care less. Also, I doesn't matter how good you are, every mistake that the AI makes, the game just resets them and put them full speed back on the road, so losing a lot just feels plain unfair.

Cops are... fine I guess. I don't find them as exciting as in the 2005 version, a few times I got some decent chases, but most of the time I just get myself busted cause it's easier and faster than to deal with them.

Soundtrack is average, with some out of place songs, UI is generic and bland, the reworked city is generic and bland. And for some reason the menus are really slow, you cannot restart the race right after losing it, you need to wait a while for the UI to load back and then you can get into the menu so you can restart last race. Whole menu navigating is also infuriating, one menu doesn't pause the game, while the other does. When switching a car you get teleported to it's spawn location, but you don't need to go to a garage or anything like that, you can just upgrade your car on the fly. Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention somewhere that you only have 2 camera options, pathetic.

And now for the three top complaints that just killed the game for me (well, I wouldn't ever complete this game as a whole anyway, but I would still at least beat no. 1 on the blacklist):

1. Constant reminding to buy DLCs. You just found a new shiny awesome car. Would you like to enter the store? Yes, of course, I would love to see what kind of new cool cars I could get in the future... oh, you are just taking me to the Origin/Steam store to buy them. Well my fault for being this naive I guess. The same can be said for the two extra races that you need to buy, and a few extra cars on the blacklist, and also the whole game areas, that are blocked with red Xs with a reminder to buy the DLC if you want to enter them. Extra 77€ is way to much, even if the base game is cheap.

2. That horrible bright supernova of a sun, that partially blinds you anytime that you turn to it, or just completely fills your screen with white if you leave a tunnel. And bundled together with atrocious lens flare effect and some shitty particle effects, just gets me to loath this game a little bit more.

3. Just constantly looking at that boring crash screen. You hit a wall. Crash screen. Scrape a wall. Crash screen. Hit a random car. Crash screen. Hit a police car. Crash screen. Ram through the barricade. Crash screen. Cop crashes into you. Crash screen. Try to leave are race. Get stuck in a crash screen loop. This just kills all the flow and excitement, if there is even any, cause I guess the developers just hate the thought of you having fun.

I guess this game tries to be more like Burnout, but in the end it doesn't reach the best parts of the Burnout to its knees and at the same time, it fails to deliver as a decent Need for Speed product. I wanted to beat it at first, but when I reached no. 7 on blacklist, I figured out that game already showed me what it is, a disgrace to the Most Wanted namesake.

In Most Wanted, your aim is to climb the leader-board to be ranked in the top 10 "Most Wanted" drivers, although that's all there is to the story. There's no over-arching narrative like you find in The Crew. You climb the ranks by completing race events, and by accomplishing other tasks like smashing billboards, breaking the speed limit as you pass speed cameras, and successfully escaping the cops during chases.

You will be escaping the cops an awful lot. Passing them while you are driving in the city will most likely trigger a chase since you will most likely be speeding or driving dangerously. It's the usual thing of escaping a circle radius for a set amount of time which depends on your wanted level. This is often easier said than done due to the amount of police cars on the road, and the fact that they are usually faster than whatever you are driving. At first I thought it was because I was driving a basic car, but even my fancy Lamborghini Diablo didn't stand a chance. Sometimes these chases lasted for around 10 mins before I gave up. When police are constantly ramming you, Swat teams have blocked off many roads, and there is police everywhere you look; it's time to call it a day.

The police chases are obviously the game's selling point; after all - it's called 'Most Wanted'. They will often chase you during races and there's a dedicated event called 'Ambush' which is exclusively a police chase. They even continue to pursue you after you have completed the event; which is infuriating.

In a racing game, I just want to race. There's loads of aspects about this game that drove me insane. Like I said, the racing often includes police so they are a nuisance. Once an event is complete, I just want to start the next one, but I have to drive there. But first I have to escape the cops! Then drive carefully so they don't chase me again. After all, once you reach the event marker, you can't start it if the cops are chasing you! Then how motivated was I if I had escaped the cops just to play an event where I have to escape the cops? Then the event finishes and I have to escape the cops?

If you have played an event before, you can replay the event by selecting it in the menu. If it's a new event, then you have to drive there. There is no other form of quick travel, so it doesn't matter if you have driven down those roads before; you are gonna have to take the long drive there.

Cars are unlocked by finding them as you drive around. They are added to your collection when you drive close to them, and you can hop in with a press of a button.

You can press Right on the D-pad to bring up a menu where you can upgrade your car, switch cars, or see the list of events you can attempt with your current car. Event difficulties are displayed but I often found it hard to win a Medium difficulty race; at least when I first started playing. When you start off with 1 car and have 1 Easy event to play; it's definitely a slow and stressful start to the game.

Events can be attempted with many cars, although it's not clear which other ones are eligible. If you switch cars, you are transported to where you found the car. Why can't you stay where you are? Why can't you switch at the event's starting location?

When you start an event, you are treated to an introduction sequence which doesn't tell you anything about the event. Maybe you will see your car being constructed out of particles, maybe the scenery will be coloured red, maybe the camera will pan upside-down and be extremely disorienting. Why did the developers waste their time with this? I'm not penalising the game for these sequences, but it's worth mentioning them because it's such a strange inclusion.

During races, sometimes you can use nitrous which you accumulate by driving recklessly like drifting, taking down cops and rivals, and driving in oncoming traffic. This is available when you are outside the races too.

The game also contains all the other aspects that can annoy me such as having to wait for the game to load the world then having to go into a menu to select Retry (why isn't that an option when you finish the race?), or graphical annoyances such as an overly bright sun shining in your face, lens flare and dirt on the camera.

Speaking of cameras, there's only two angles. Not having a behind-the-wheel view in these modern times usually infuriates many racing fanatics. Personally, I'm always happy with the behind the car view, but it's a nice bonus to have many angles; but you won't find it here.

There's DLC in this game, and the game won't let you forget it. You will find cars which take you to the store to purchase them, and races appear in your event list which will take you to the store. Notifications will be displayed on the loading screens too.

Since it's an open world racing game, I was probably never gonna like this game. I do feel that the game has thrown all it's eggs in one basket by emphasising the police chases. If you don't like the police chases in the game, then you can't possibly enjoy this game – which is what happened to me. I also think that other racing games have featured more variety in event types, but in this game, most events seem to play out the same way.