Need For Speed Most Wanted

GameCube, Need For Speed Most Wanted (2005), game

The trouble with any long-running series is keeping each update fresh, yet in the same mould - people want to play what they played before, but better and bigger, so when an experience is no longer new, any instalment that comes after has to be a lot better just to be equal, and requires a new gimmick to expand the original experience. The 'Need For Speed' series had a long pedigree (growing longer as we speak, I suspect), but I first came to it on the 'Cube with 'Need For Speed Underground,' (actually the second 'NFS' game on the system, after 'Hot Pursuit'), and enjoyed its mix of racing styles. The sequel, 'Underground 2,' fixed the biggest problem with the first game: that it all took place at night with dazzling neon lights making seeing your way as much a part of the challenge as racing your opponents. Now races took place at dawn and dusk, plus, rather than choosing the next race from a menu screen, you were thrust into the heart of a sprawling city ripe for exploration, experimentation and a more realistic approach. There was the impression of a living city, many cars on the road, some of which you could challenge to an impromptu race, and new modes like the Downhill Drift. Where could the series go from there, and what new addition would make it worth buying?

With 'NFS Most Wanted' they furthered the idea of a living city by including the police authorities and setting it entirely in the daytime. The previous city, full of impersonal skyscrapers and concrete bypasses gave way to more varied locations with countryside, trees, a golf course, as well as the motorways and facilities of a realistic metropolis. The exploration side of things was cut down with nothing to collect, as in 'NFSU2' you could find money, for example, but it was a bit boring just driving around looking for stuff. Instead, learning the layout as if you were a real resident of this virtual world garnered its own rewards, an essential knowledge in evading the police pursuits that would come down on you if you caused too much chaos and damage in your exploits. A loose story (with Judi Durand as one of the voices - she was the computer voice in 'DS9'!), provided a larger scope as you took on the reputations of other street racers to rise up the ranks of the Blacklist and prove yourself against these other malcontents. And the few new game modes continued the tradition of new ways to play. These included Speed Trap races where it wasn't about coming first, but about getting the highest cumulative clocked speed when driving through speed cameras, and the Tollbooth challenge, basically an old-fashioned time trial where you had to get to each checkpoint before the timer ran down. My biggest disappointment was the abandonment of my favourite mode in the previous games, the Drift courses, and that your car could barely even drift at all in-race.

I can see why they did this, because the main focus of the game was to evade capture from the police and if you had the ability to drift as much as in the previous games it would probably have made the game too easy and would have affected the physics of the world. That's what I assume, anyway. The pursuits are what really made up for that lack, as you go from a single panda car chasing to a pack of them, to larger vehicles coming right at you to ram you off the road, to high performance racers, and even a helicopter! The escalation of the experience was very well done, and it became a real challenge to succeed at the various objectives, such as getting through a certain number of roadblocks, dodging speed strips, tagging a number of cars, or just surviving longer than a set period. These objectives, getting harder as you progressed up the Blacklist, made it more than just a simple runaround, which would have become boring once you got the hang of it, and something else added an extra frisson of danger: you were actually penalised for getting caught, whether in money or in the eventual impounding of your vehicle, so there was a serious incentive not to be captured, whereas if you had complete freedom and it didn't matter there'd be little impression of danger.

This pursuit mode added hugely to the gaming experience, making the game pull equal with the previous games in the series where it would otherwise have been merely more of the same racing, just in a new city layout. It was also a whole new experience, with some excellent AI in the police that meant they weren't stupid, although you could fool them - sometimes you could see how they cheated, such as zipping over speed strips without any damage to their tyres, but they did make contact with other vehicles and get smashed up, so it was well balanced. There are few gaming experiences more satisfying than tapping the rear side of a police car and seeing it swerve into a wall, or dodging the incoming heavy vehicles as they plough millimetres past you to pile into the pursuing cars behind and causing a satisfying smash. The longevity of the game, through both this sandbox feel and an added Challenge mode with almost seventy individual races or pursuits to conquer meant that the game was going to be jumping in the optical drive for a long time, and while, like all racing games, it could get boring sometimes after a few hours of play, you soon want to jump right back in and win a few more races. The pursuit could be made easier by heading for the main motorway at the top left of the map, a speedy circuit ideal for dodging or outrunning the authorities, then heading into the golf course to lose them or into the stadium, then pulling into a handy little cool-down spot. But if you were brave, you could see how far you'd get in the city streets, tighter and winding, with less space to manoeuvre around obstacles.

The busy roads were another draw, and there was fun to be had careering into great log-carrying lorries, spreading their load across the highway, or car transporters which would deposit their cargo behind them. I did have the sense of wishing there could be more variety in vehicles, even though there were a lot, but it was only a minor gripe as the city became overfamiliar. I could also find fault with the usual gaming situation of some fences being smash-able, while others stop you dead, and it would be wonderful to play a game where you had the freedom to really explore off over the fields and far away, but then where would that get you, you'd be lost? One road I really wanted to explore was the only one blocked off with permanent roadworks, yet on the map could be seen to snake off into the distance, so I was pleased when that turned out to be the exit point for winning the game!

At first I didn't realise there was an option to select races from a menu as in the first game, instead of driving around the streets to reach races - even with the aid of GPS it could be tiresome, but it was useful to become familiar with the streets. Once I realised the choice was there I understood it was a positive to have the option of both freeform driving or immediate selection. The morality of picking sides against the good guys, and the revealing way the female characters were shot (though these things were somewhat turned around by the end of the game), shows the direction games were headed in, but I didn't really have a problem with smashing up digital police cars, after all it's supposed to be giving you fun gaming experiences that you wouldn't do in real life. Things can be taken too far, but here it was just right, and there aren't really people in the game - you do see police in the cars and the silhouettes of people in other vehicles, but bodies aren't thrown from damaged vehicles to be splayed on the road, there are no emergency services (though there are fire engines in one area), giving a sense of cleaning up after mortal destruction, and there's no indication that your objective or option is to take the lives of innocent people, or of anyone, unlike some games that would become notorious, so it's all good, clean fun, though the story could have been a little more involving in retrospect, perhaps adding in more regular cutscenes (which were done in a strong visual style that wasn't quite real world, but a stylised version of it).

It's such a huge game, taking me around six months to get through, that there was more to it than I even cared to explore, the main aspect being the customisation of your vehicles, or the ability to collect cars. All I wanted was to get the fastest parts and didn't spend time fiddling about in shops customising the look, although to the game's credit, even this aspect could be an integral part of the experience since you could throw the police off your trail and cool your ride's cop-drawing rep by changing the decals, colour and parts. It was good that a performance customisation was available to tweak how your car raced in different environments or styles of races, but even better that I didn't find it essential to do that either, I could just get down to racing with automatic gears and enjoy the arcade nature of it all. Police chases in games weren't new even at that time, with Amiga games like 'APB: All Points Bulletin' or 'Chase HQ' where you were the coppers, or 'Crazy Cars' where you were running bootlegged liquor across the country. Perhaps the legacy of those games was part of the inspiration for this, and I suspect 'Burnout 2' played its part in that regard, too, where it had a police chase mode, though again you were the police taking out the criminals.

All in all, I'd recommend this, even if the earlier games had been played and completed. It's not quite as great a game as 'Burnout 2,' partly because I never had the chance to try out the multiplayer option - it would be amazing if one player could work with the police, while another evaded, or both evaded, any number of cooperative or competitive scenarios could have been devised, though the implementation might have been further than the technology of the time could perform. But having played it to pretty much completion I would say it is the best contender for being strongest of the three 'NFS' games I've played: the first I thought well of for the new experience of underground street racing, the second for its huge city and open racing, and now this for its unique gameplay. I can only hope 'NFS Carbon' is as good. I say 'pretty much completion' because although I got to the top of the Blacklist, beat Razor and evaded Cross, as well as succeeding at all sixty-eight Challenge scenarios (which were challenging enough to make some of the latter races in the main game seem relatively easy!), there is still a life beyond for the game: the Rap Sheet gives you more tasks to achieve in the pursuit mode, and only when you're at the number one spot on all of these categories will the game be finally complete. Even though I've been playing it so long I still have the appetite to try for those, making this a really good game, the best new one I've played in a while.

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