Game Review: Need for Speed: Most Wanted

PC / PS3 / XBOX 360 / WiiU / Android / iOS / PS Vita

Need for Speed:  Most Wanted was initially released in 2012, and is not to be confused with the 2005 release of the same name.

At the time of writing, this game is free to download on EA's download service, Origin.  Pick it up before the offer ends if you get the chance!

Premise:

Race through the streets, evade cop pursuits, and modify new cars to climb the ranks of 'Most wanted' street racers in Fairhaven City.

Drive some of your favorite real world cars to beat the competition.  BMWs, Porsches, and Lamborghinis are only the tip of the iceberg!

Visuals:

Reflections on the ground

A nice landscape

Gorgeous visuals.  Player vehicles have high quality models.  Reflections on the cars and certain wet areas of ground look great and perform realistically.  Lighting effects and bloom effects look gorgeous as well.  Very realistic and well executed.

Blur effects also add a certain dynamic to visuals.

A small complaint though.  Non-player cars do seem to be a little low in quality compared to player cars.  They stick out like a sore thumb in certain cases.  But I suppose if you are racing by really quickly or crashing them really hard, you won't have time to notice these tiny details.

Realistic car damage adds a bit of flair as well. 

Menus/Interface:

Menus are generally well laid out, but navigating them with the keyboard can be a slight pain.  One thing I found that is a bit different is that the game has an in-game menu to choose your missions.  It takes a little getting used to as it requires you to use the number pad to navigate it instead of the arrow keys, but other menus require you to use the arrow keys.  Not necessarily the most well thought out menu design.  And yes, you need "Number lock" to be ON to use the number pad.

The in-game HUD is nicely laid out as well.  The map is informative and responsive in real-time, although I would like it to be zoomed out the slightest bit more to show more relevant information.

Controls:

Here is where developers made an odd choice, but a very good one I think.  Usually racing games will use the arrow keys or W, A, S, D to control the vehicle's acceleration and steering.  In NFSMW, they decided to use the A button for accelerate, Z for reverse, and the left and right arrow keys to steer.  At first I found it odd, but after a little while, I saw that it allowed me to reach a large amount of buttons from those hand positions.

Overall the vehicles handle very nicely.  Drifting (Use spacebar to drift) is a lot of fun. 

One issue though.  I find that if your computer doesn't run the game absolutely perfectly, the game will drop below 60 FPS and you will experience a reasonably large amount of lag from the time of your input to the vehicle responding to your input.  Try running the game at lower resolutions and lowering your graphics settings to fix this.  While it still has slight lag for me, it was far more responsive.

Gameplay:

My issue with most racing games is that there isn't much variation in game-play.  Accelerate, turn, accelerate, turn.  It is very difficult to break up this monotonous motion, and very few games can do this effectively.

While at certain times you will feel like the game is getting a little repetitive, it generally has enough variation to keep you entertained, including new cars and a few different game-modes.

The game-mode I find that provides the most entertainment and variation is the cop chases.

Cop chases have been featured in several Need for Speed games, but what makes this game somewhat unique is that these chases aren't initiated as events, but by actually finding cops and giving them reason to chase you, such as by speeding by them, or crashing into them.  Chases can get very intense, with cops flying at you from every direction.  These are probably some of my favorite parts about the Need for Speed franchise.

On one very frustrating note, every time you crash something really hard, the game goes into a short cut-scene showing the crash in all its glory.  While this may sound good in theory, in practice it is horrendous.  It breaks up game-play way too much.  Once second you're racing around at top speed, then you crash, and then you need to watch this 5+ second cut-scene of your crash.  Repeat that once every 10 - 30 seconds, and you will find yourself getting extremely frustrated.  This is extremely aggrivating during cop chases, as collisions happen quite frequently during these events.

Imagine this annoyance occurring every time you crash.
This is in real-time.

Summary:

A strong racing game.  Probably one of the better ones I have played.  

Gorgeous visuals will keep you entertained.

Strange menu design will keep you a little confused.

Overall very good controls, but slower computers might experience input lag.

Cop chases provide a good amount of variation to game-play, but cut-scenes every few seconds because of a crash will get on your nerves.

Overall a strong game.  Would recommend.

Don't forget to pick it up while its still free on EA's Origin service!

SCORE:  8.5 / 10

Do you agree with my observations?  Let me know your opinions in the comments below!