Need For Speed Most Wanted (Xbox 360)

Level Design

Tracks are taken from various routes found through the city so there’s not really a level design to speak of. What you do have is a completely free-roaming environment within the limits of where the story wants you to go at the time, as you earn the right to race around more of the city then eventually the whole city opens up to you. The city design is good; it has a bunch of nice short-cuts and some devious tracks to test your skill on.

Graphics

Most Wanted is a nice looking game with highly detailed car models, backgrounds and very fluid lighting. The 360 pours out these visuals without breaking a sweat and provides some nice new graphical touches such as the sky brightens to the player’s character’s eye as they come out from a dark tunnel into the light. It can disorientate for a few moments and mimics the human eyes response to sudden changes in brightness.

It has some very gorgeous shadowing and the textures/models on the various cars are superbly done. There are some external views, one internal view with the hood and no dashboard view – which is a total mystery since PGR 3 pulls this off without a hitch and looks jaw-dropping-ly better in comparison.

AI

I detest rubber-band AI with the best of them, and Most Wanted has the worst case of rubber-band catch-up AI that I have seen in years. It makes the learning curve of the game very steep indeed as it goes from being relatively fun and a challenge to insanely hard. Having nitrous or any kind of new car is pretty much voided by the horrendous catch-up. The AI is often prone to driving near perfectly and their mistakes are few and far between. When the opponent cars catch up with you and rocket past at near 200Mph you’ll find that the catch-up on your side isn’t nearly as good or aggressive.

Sound

The sound is great however and has a real punch to it, the squeal of the tyres and the roar of the engine are all different, based upon the car you’re driving and the view you’re driving from. There’s a good range of sounds to the game and it doesn’t stint in the audio department.

Music

A mix of tracks from various bands, a lot of it was decent but I found myself either turning off the music or using the Guide button to select my own soundtrack.

Voice Acting

The acting in general is over the top and kind of fits in this game, it’s akin to the Fast and the Furious and isn’t dreadful – cringe-worthy yes, dreadful no. The real stars of the show are the Police conversations, they are spot on and when you’re in a chase with over ten of the city’s finest all communicating through your Police band radio/scanner it brings the chase to life perfectly.

Final thoughts

I know I always say that I review a game for what it is, not what I want it to be. But for some games they need to step outside of the acceptable normal and comfortable safe public sales zone, or they’ll just stagnate. NFS MW feels like a combination of UG II with cops in it, that’s the be all and end all. There really isn’t anything groundbreaking or that new about the game, coupled with the really bad rubber-band AI it drops the game’s score quite a few points as you’ll see.

What use is there in having all these gorgeous graphics and locations, the fantastic cop chases and nail-biting edge of the seat races – when they’re gone in an instant. The 360 is a powerful piece of kit and PGR 3 proves what you can do in that respect. NFS MW has no replay feature and there’s no way to enjoy your escape from the law or the rise on the Blacklist after the race.

The NFS series needs to get back to its routes, the first game was phenomenal for its time. It introduced a cocky opponent for some one on one races, replays and various cameras. High performance sports cars that felt like you had some power under the hood and there wasn’t a custom shop in sight. The graphics were great and there were real dashboards for all the vehicles – there’s no excuse on the 360 that those features were not put in, the only excuse is lazy development.

If they can marry that game philosophy with the current-gen or next-gen graphics and power, then perhaps the next NFS game might be more worthy of the name. Don’t get me wrong it’s still a cracking good game, but it’s just not quite what the Doctor ordered, maybe next time.