December 08, 2005 @ 9:46 am

Need for Speed: Most Wanted

by: Quibian Salazar-Moreno

The game begins with you as a target for the other street racers in the area. When racing your top rival, Razor, you find out he sabotaged your car, so you’d lose the race and he’d win your car, which by the way is a slick BMW. He uses your car to get to the top of the Blacklist 15; a sort of racer ranking that is a very respected and recognizes the top racers. To make your way up the list, you start at the bottom, but first you must race and win certain challenges to be able to go up against a Blacklist member. You get help from various characters throughout the game, and from the beginning, the story hooks you in and may even get you a bit excited to take out these fools. But is it a quality experience? left Audio/Visual: When you pop the game in, you notice right away that the cut scenes are... gulp, full motion video! Yeah, you know the games that systems like 3DO and Atari Jaguar hawked back in the early 90’s, a lot of those were full motion video. But once you realize the acting isn’t half bad and you get into the races, the game looks pretty good. The cars look sleek and stylish; the environments well have you trying to figure out which areas look like Atlanta, Santa Monica and New Jersey. When going over jumps and catching some air a CGI cut scene comes in to make the action go in slow motion… it looks excellent. Audio-wise, the music is pretty weak and there’s no option for custom soundtracks. But the sounds of the cops’ sirens chasing you and their communication over the CB while pursuing you helps the adrenaline get pumping. Controls: The controls are as simple as any other racer. Triggers are for gas and brakes while the buttons handle camera views, nitro and speed breaker, which kind of slows everything down to you can make sharp turns easier and quicker. Hotness: You can select some fresh cars ranging from BMWs, Audis and Lamborghinis and customize them any way you want. There are also a lot of races and challenges in the game so you won’t get bored. You have your basic sprint and circuit races plus speedtrap races, tollbooth races, lap knockout races and drag races along with challenges to outrun the cops for a certain amount of time, smash through roadblocks and create as much damage as you can. Wackness: Hardly anything wack with this game except the music and it would have been nice to add more cars to the mix. Test Drive Rating: 4/5

Article tags: Need For Speed: Most Wanted, Video Game Review