Game Review

Game Review

The franchise Need For Speed has declined in reputation over the years from a mental, unrealistic racing game and tried to establish itself with the big players like Forza as a realistic, physics obeying racing experience. With less than expected results, however in 2012 the company strayed from it’s habits brought us a nice surprise in the form of Most Wanted. But not like the name suggests, what was thought to be the remake of personally my favourite game in the Need For Speed series and arguably the most successful this Most Wanted 2012 is a game in it’s own right.

The setting is the car racer friendly city of Fairheaven and begins by showing a clear similarity of the game to it’s 2005 predecessor but I guess when the do call the title of the game the same that I can’t be too optimistic about the content being entirely original.

Instead of a Blacklist of drivers though it was been renamed to the top 10 most wanted. Also within this opening scene EA introduce a new game mechanic slightly reminiscent of games like GTA where the player has the ability to switch from his current vehicle to another at places named ‘jack spots’

 these spots at first glance appear very overpowered, gesting that players can find top of the line super cars ripe for the picking from the get go, thereby voiding the usual mechanic of building your car from scrap yard and losing the emotions of self satisfaction from doing this, a game mechanic that would personally keep me hooked. Instead the game starts you off in a Aston Martin V12 Vantage and you never see yourself go lower in the car social status, it’s like you’re a billionaire with amnesia finding your misplaced cars throughout the city. However, having said this the races scale and differ depending on the make and model you choose enabling the player to choose his own path.

Another and significant difference from the 2005 version is the graphics, Fairheaven is a thing of beauty whether your roaring though the urban streets and back alleys, smashing through barriers at the beach front, or simply flying over the wreckage of planes at a scrapyard most wanted 2012 delivers a brilliant visual display. As well as this the cars are no longer 3D models, but now look very much exact to their real world counterparts and providing even the most OCD petrol head with some solace. The driving has also made a significant improvement as you might expect. The cars handle much more realistically in the corners, giving steering feedback subject to the type of ground your are driving on. The cars also interact with each other much more realistically, the super and hyper cars provide only small nudges to be thrown of course as is to be expected at speeds exceeding 200mph.

Criterion have introduced a few more new game mechanics to the need for speed arsenal, one being the new ‘easy drive’ system. As oppose to removing yourself from the driving the easy drive can be accessed at anytime –apart from save points- to find/start races, customize/upgrade your vehicle, as well as changing your vehicle, accessing the most wanted list and accessing the multiplayer options. With this new feature I found the ease of access to everything I needed very helpful, although used to the fact that I have normally paused the game to do this I would regularly find myself ploughed into a wall upon turning back to driving.

Another new mechanic is the emphasise on changing cars and customisation between races. Normally the idea would be to find a car that you have a certain affinity for and upgrade that mother until it rivals an F1 pit stop, however the races per car are limited to five specific to the car class and prove to be quite a challenge further into the game. Criterion push to keep your interactions with a single car brief, initially anyway so that the player can learn the importance of this, a seemingly impossibly most wanted race could be easily won with a different make. Similarly the upgrades won through placing in a pole position from races can be switched out between events for matching results.

One of the main advertisements for this need for speed was the social aspect, being the leader boards an other various achievements throughout the game. The idea taken from previous games in the series such as hot pursuit and improved on to not only record race times to compare, but also the new ranking system ‘speed points’ accumulated through winning races, evading police pursuits and smashing through breakable elements, as well as speeds through the speed cameras and jump distances. All in all creating a very competitive experience that when you sync up with friends can be very addictive to constantly one up them and will always bring you back for more.

In conclusion Criterion set out to make need for speed 2012 very much an open world racer that the franchise and the fans could be proud of, where the emphasise is on fast paced driving and beating your friends, and I believe they’ve cracked it.
Rating: 8/10

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-Imb_hTVmw
Multilayer:
http://www.videogamer.com/videos/need_for_speed_most_wanted_2012_multiplayer_gameplay.html