This is actually the Most Wanted Need For Speed yet!

The racing genre has been revolving in the past years. From boring and not fun racing games that take place in a circle, just circling around and hoping you win to literally crashing your opponents into walls and other objects so you know you can win(Thank you Burnout 3/Revenge). Need For Speed: Most Wanted is no doubt that this is one of the games that have changed the racing genre. Instead of crashing your opponents into walls(via Burnout), you'll have to test your reflexes, stress level and quick thinking-not to mention you must know how to drive because one wrong turn and it might cost you a race.

This is a racing game plain and simple. But instead of racing in circles, this game has a deep storyline. Your favorite ride; your pride and joy; your much hard work put into the beauty of your car has been stolen from the top street racers on the streets. How did this happen? You betted in a race that if you won, you would get his car but if you lost, the other guy would get your car. So, who won? Someone had fooled around with your car's parts and made you lose the race. Now, you must start all the way to the bottom and defeat all 15 top street racers on the black list in order to get your revenge on the #1 contender-the S.O.B. that has your ride. In this career mode, you have 6 types of races and 3 different types of events.. The different types of races: Circuit is when your goal is to finish first. Drag is when you have a certain speed limit and if you exceed it, your engine blows up(I wasn't too thrilled with this). Lap Knockout is where you must finish first in order to beat this. If you are in second, third or fourth, you must hurry to get to the next level up because every driver that is last gets knocked out! Speed Trap is when you must pass a certain speed limit through a speed trap in order to finish. Sprint is where you find out how fast you can get from point A to point B. Other words, it's like you have a time limit to beat. Finally, the Tollbooth is like Sprint where you have a certain time limit to pass through a tollbooth which if you do, more time is put on the clock. The 3 different type of events are: Events is where you do your standard race ranging from the different 6 types. Milestone races is where you must get in trouble and make the cop chase you for a period of time. Try to hang in there for a long to time to earn money and such.

The challenges is when a blacklist racer challenges you for two races for you to beat them OR for them to beat you. If you beat them, you get their card and climb up the blacklist to reach the #1 contender. However, to get to this, you must complete tasks whether it be causing as much as damage your blacklist racer wants you to do OR compete in several races to get their respect for them to finally race you. So your question may be, How am I going to get to these races?. Well, you can travel to their locations which may take a while OR you can go to your cell-phone and select the next event which is extremely fast and saves the time. But what makes this game so great? You earn money at every event of the game.(explained in the next paragraph). Either racing or p*ssing off the cops, you earn money for your ride AND get the chance to pick two "markers." Markers are like tokens. Each racer has three hidden markers, and a few obvious ones like cash or special mod parts. markers range from an extra $10,000, get out of jail free card, or, if you're lucky, the pink slip to the competitors' car. That is your career mode but there are other types of game-play. There is the challenge series where you complete a series of tasks and races in order to beat the best(this does not affect the career mode) and the quick race is where you can just jump into action without all the set-up of the race.

In order to actually get engaged in this game, you have a cell phone where certain people and drag racers call you to give you the heads up on everything. Sometimes, they offer you advice while some really want to take you on. You literally feel like you are in this game; having a goal to get your sweet ride back---speaking of that, there is even another addictive and engaging aspect of the game--customization. Yes, you get to customize your ride! And I ain't talking about just color either. You get to change the rims, roof, hood, engine, transmission, back, side, designs, spoilers, color of your car and so much more! This aspect makes the game a lot more engaging but please be careful, sometimes customizing your ride is the least you should do since you should upgrade your car because the A.I. gets tougher as you progress. Wouldn't that be sh*tty if your car is pimped up with all the bling-bling but turns out your old car is slower than your opponent's ride? So please get better and faster cars and let the customizing be the second you do.

With all this aside, it sounds like a standard racing game, right? WRONG! You not only have traffic and your opponents on the road with you but cops are also on the road! Get caught speeding or doing an illegal thing, you are being chased by cops. But don't stop because if you do, you are busted and charged with a fine. The main objective is to win but you must win without being busted by the cops. Yeah, you can get busted and the game won't be game over literally but it's better if you don't get caught. It's sometimes fun to get caught so don't feel like you are alone. As you get more wanted by the cops, your heat meter rises to 1-5. Each time, the cop chase gets tougher and the cops gets harder to evade. The cops get out road blocks, helicopters, and a heavy SUV to surround you and take you in. But there is a way to literally destroy your chasers; on your map which is left side of the screen, there are markers highlighted in orange or red that tells you that there are is an action to take in a certain location. Don't worry, they are scattered everywhere in the game so don't feel like there is only one out there! These actions range from dropping a huge tire on the opponents/cops to smashing through a gas station. It's quite exiting to do these actions as you feel like you are destroying your opponents like in Burnout. Destroying your opponents and doing illegal things, you have a rap sheet where it lists of all the illegal things you have done. From smashing traffic, resisting arrest and even destroying local buildings, it is listed here along with how much money you have cost the state to fix up all your damage. Also, the rap sheet also includes how many times you have been chased, arrested and so much more. It's a great addition in the game to see what the cops think of you.

Controlling your pimped out ride, it's quite nice to see that it's quite easy to ride. You can set your desired locations of all the buttons to different actions in at least 6 different types of sets of controls. Each button has a function whether the left trigger be to brake and the right trigger to accelerate. There is even a nitro button and a speedbreaker button where you slow down time and make your car easier to get out of all those hair-raising situations like you getting ready to hit a car dead-on. It's really easy to cruise the streets and enjoy the sights. It's even easier when you race with them. However, there is one drawback: this also makes it easy to spin out of control. It's not quite a bad thing since you can easily get back on track but those few seconds are precious in this game since you don't wanted to get busted or lose a race by this. But still, this bad boy is pretty easy to control; each button has a function and you can arrange the buttons to your liking.

Visually, Most Wanted is beautiful, amazing and stunning in every sense. The surroundings are life-like; wind blows(objects blow with the wind), storms come up, it rains, it's sunny and it's cloudy. The surroundings are lush and they look like it's literally breathing! The grass, the black roads etc. look real good with no blocky and no bland textures at all. It may fool you if it's real or not. Speaking of fooling you, the cut-scenes which are in a FMV/3-D sequence has live actors in full color with the surroundings being 3-D as in the game in the background. It makes you blink a couple of times to see if you are seeing real people in the game. Yes, these are real people with no videogame texture to them. The background makes the actors look like they are glowing. The cars themselves are colorful, glossy, sleek and shiny. Every car has their own design so no two cars the same. Even the damages on the cars looks great; if you rub against your opponents constantly, you'll see lines on your car where you have rubbed your opponents. When a cop spots you, you get a quick blurry and bluish gray still of the cop car spotting you before zapping back into the color of the game. Everything in this game is beautiful and there are no flaws towards the graphics. The sound is pitch perfect. Each song ranges from pop, rock and even to rap which makes you feel like a bad boy and most wanted by the cops. The engines revving, metal scraping, tires screeching, sirens, horns honking etc. are smart and sleek. Hey, even the cop chatter on your radio is excellent. It makes you feel like you are on the news and radio. It's entertaining too. Even the actors do a nice job on immersing you into the game with their strong acting roles.

Pros/Cons:
+ Standard racing...
+ ...that revolved with cop chases
+ Customizing your ride with lots of options/choices
+ Lush and sleek graphics
+ Music is excellent/has a bad-boy feel
+ Game-play is engaging/ the cop chases
+ Controls are easy, fast and designed great
- ...you do spin out of control easily though

Need For Speed: Most Wanted Information:
Genre: Racing
Rated: T for Mild Violence
# of players: 1-2
Difficulty: Adjustable
Lasting Appeal: 15+ hours