Need for Speed Most Wanted: review
The history of the Need for Speed series has had its ups and downs. On the one hand – Underground 2, Hot Pursuit (1998), Hot Pursuit 2… on the other – Porsche Unleashed, Carbon, ProStreet, not to mention Undercover… Sometimes it seemed that the series was close to complete collapse. But then Criterion Games came and staged a real restart of the series. It’s even difficult for me to describe the range of emotions that came over me when I first launched Hot Pursuit 2010. But today is not about that.
It would probably be stupid to expect the new Most Wanted to be worse than Hot Pursuit. Yes, the concepts are somewhat different, but the differences are not so great that you can ruin everything. And indeed, the first thought: “Ten out of ten, no doubt!", but after a while the score began to slowly fall.
This is one of the few https://bingovillagecasino.co.uk/games/ games, the overall impression of which is very difficult to describe, so I would divide the review into two parts: chase mode and… everything else.
Let’s start with everything else, because there really isn’t much to say here. Everything is worthy of the highest awards. The graphics are amazing, the special effects are great – the dust flying from under the wheels of the competitors in front and completely obscuring the view looks especially cool, cool, but slightly unpleasant; the soundtrack is also worthy of all praise, the compositions are chosen perfectly, however, the NFS series has never failed in this regard. And, needless to say, when it comes to ordinary racing, everything is in perfect order. I can’t help but note the finally correctly implemented skid, which now allows you not only not to lose speed when turning, but also makes it possible to overtake your opponents very beautifully.
And now the time has come to escape from the police – perhaps the most exciting activity in the “police” games of the series. And here we are faced with despondency, bewilderment and disappointment. Honestly, I’m even finding it difficult to describe now what exactly caused these feelings in me. The principle has not changed: first we disappear from the sight of the cops, and then we wait until they get tired of looking for us. But already at the first stage serious problems arise. The fact is that the collision system was carried over directly from Hot Pursuit, so each time you can only guess how the game will treat the next collision. In addition, these scenes, when from a beautiful angle they show how a car is crushed, look even more or less appropriate in racing, but in moments of chases they look completely out of place and spoil the whole dynamics of what is happening. But this is rather my subjective opinion. So we’re trying to get away from the chase. As before, the police don’t just lag behind, and they need to be detained somehow. But wait a minute… where are the huge donuts, scaffolding, or at least anything that could help us in this matter?? There is none of this, how can it be? No way, unless you turn unexpectedly at intersections, drive along shortcuts, and the like. You can get used to it over time, but it’s not enough. It is also necessary to remain unnoticed for some time. On the one hand, everything was done correctly – the higher the wanted level, the longer they will try to find you. But this time, for some reason, all levels of pursuit are open from the very beginning, in this case it is not entirely clear what the difference is between the first and tenth place of the most wanted racers (analogous to the “black list” from the previous part). On the other hand, even at the first level you have to wait quite a long time. At the same time, the following situation arises everywhere: you are driving along a narrow path from which there are no branches, the police are catching up from behind, you think: “Well, now I’ll turn on the nitro and have a blast.”!“But suddenly on the radar in front of you you see another police car moving towards. Of course, not even two seconds pass before the chase resumes. Are you serious??
Yes, I forgot to mention the spikes! They deserve a separate paragraph. As you remember, in the 2003 game, running into spikes does not end well. What’s happening here… but nothing is happening. The tires are punctured, sparks begin to fly from under the wheels, in general, the spectacle is quite beautiful, you can see it in the only screenshot today. At the same time, driving a car becomes much more difficult, but not so much that you start collecting all the pillars in your way; you can even quite competently fit into sharp turns. That’s all, no more obstacles to continuing the race.
And one more point that cannot be ignored. To get caught by the cops, you need to come to a complete stop and stand there for about five seconds. I’m serious. Even when I crashed into a barrier and was pinned behind me, and the “Arrest” scale was filled to the end, I still managed to avoid arrest. In the last race the chase lasted 14 minutes, then I just stood up – I was tired. It seems you can’t tear yourself away, but you can’t get caught, even with a strong desire.
As usual, I’ll sum it up. It would be logical if the new Most Wanted turned out to be like the old Most Wanted, but enhanced with the help of various features from Hot Pursuit. In fact, it turned out to be Hot Pursuit, supplemented with chips from Most Wanted. And the chips there are just a black list and the principle of the origin of the chase. Free ride mode doesn’t count. I would like to close my eyes to all the shortcomings and forgive everything, but all the problems described in this review take up the lion’s share of the gameplay, they cannot be avoided and cannot be circumvented. Therefore, the final score was quite low.