Introduction

As the holiday season fast approaches, more and more people are out in the shops searching for the perfect presents. With major celebrations soon arriving, this year’s end is extremely interesting because there are many good gifts available for the slightly gaming addicted person. Go into any shop that sells video games and you’ll see countless masterpieces for every format, whether it be the PC, console or handheld. Of course, the videogame giant EA anticipated this perfectly and thus, they released on every format imaginable their most famous franchise ever: Need for Speed.

Need for what?

I’m quite sure everyone has heard of this game franchise but if you haven’t, well here is some history. There have been quite a few different Need for Speeds (I’ll say NFS from now on) over the years and the first one was on Playstation, if my memory serves well. As you can guess (knowing EA), after the mild success of the first NFS, a second one came out. But it wasn’t till the third one that I really started taking notice. It was called Hot Pursuit and it contained all the essential things (fast expensive cars and crazy adrenaline-pumping chases) to make it become the perfect car game of it’s time. Even though it wasn’t exactly new for the series, the third NFS was really based around the police chases and the innovative gameplay really made it stand out from the pack. Due to it's success a fourth and fifth one came out, but it wasn’t till Hot Pursuit 2 on PS2, which concentrated mostly on even faster cars and even wilder chases, that I paid attention to the franchise again. It was an instant success with many gamers and I know that I lost many weeks of my life playing it.

To my horror, I found out that the next NFS in the series was going to abandon the super cars and become more like The Fast & The Furious (which was in full swing at the time) with tuner cars. As everyone knows, the new ones were called Underground and while they still sold amazingly well, many felt it strayed too far from the initial NFSs. Yes, it was cool to customize your ride with new rims and such, but where were the Porsches or the Lamborghinis? And most of all, where were the crazy police chases? Only after the 8th installment in the franchise, EA noticed that the fans wanted their super cars and cops back. Thus, they blessed us with Need for Speed Most Wanted!

Speed Required

As I mentioned earlier, this game is available right now on every format you can possibly imagine. The Playstation Portable and Nintendo DS versions are quite different from the PC and console versions (consequently this review doesn’t apply to those).

Since NFSMW is out on so many platforms, which version is the best? The only difference you’ll find between any of the console versions and the PC are the graphics. Unsurprisingly, the Xbox 360 fares the best in this department with more polygons per vehicle, more reflections, etc. And it’s quite easy to imagine that the Playstation 2 is the underdog with low resolution textures and low poly models. The best version to buy obviously is the Xbox360 but otherwise, the PC variant is amazing too, as long as you have a strong system… and a good controller. I think it’s obvious to everyone that NFS is the type of game that is just horrible with a keyboard. So trust me, if you want to get this for PC, do yourself a favor and buy a good gaming controller.

Here are the minimum requirements must you fill to run this game on your computer:
• Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent 1.4 GHz
• Memory 256MB RAM
• Hard Drive 1.0 GB
• CD Drive 8 Speed
• Video Card 32MB - DirectX 9.0c compatible
• Sound Card - DirectX 9.0c compatible
• Windows XP/2000

You can notice that the game doesn’t have a hefty minimum requirement because it was also developed with weak consoles in mind. Unfortunately, if your computer just makes the cut, don’t expect the game to run or look better than the Playstation 2 version.

For this review, I tested the game with this system:
• Intel Pentium 4 3.0C GHz
• ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe
• 4 x 512 PC3200 RAM in Dual Channel
• 200 GB IDE Western Digital
• Antec 480 TrueBlue PSU
• HIS X850 XT PE
• 17” Dell TFT
• 5.1 Altec Lansing Sound System
• Windows XP Professional 2 (SP2)

So as you can see, I easily surpass the minimum requirements but somehow, NFSMW was still able to make my system feel weak. Nothing drastic but it meant that at my screen’s maximum 4:3 resolution of 1280x960, I couldn’t even put any anti-aliasing, which I was quite sure my X850XT PE would be able to handle. The FPS averaged in between 35 and 40 which seems actually pretty low, but in game, feels just as good as 60 frames. The beauty with the game’s engine is that you never really noticed a drop in FPS and the whole game ran very fluidly. Another great facet is that EA really polished this title before shipping it, meaning that there were very few minor bugs apparent in the game. Most of today’s games that are multi-platform have numerous problems on PC (like stutter, horrible frames, etc.) but NFSMW didn’t have a single problem, which is always a good thing.

Presentation

Nothing to say here, the interface is just perfect. I think it’s quite clear that EA pumped a lot of money into this domain since the menus are stylish and fit the genre perfectly. Even better, the cinematics during the career mode are all done using real people (and redone to look like it was the in-game engine at work). The whole game feels grittier, darker and more mature, which is extremely welcome after the stale world of pimping from the Underground series.

In addition, the game is quite customizable too in the audio and graphical departments. In other words, you’ll find the perfect settings to make the game enjoyable for you. For example, you can customize well over 10 different graphical settings and in the sound department, you can choose which song you want (either in-game or in the menus) and which ones you don’t. It’s very easy to navigate through the different menus and best of all, it feels very natural. Nothing to add here, EA did their homework and really unleashed some top notch stuff.

Need for Beauty

By now, you must have noticed via the screenshots that this game is just unbelievably gorgeous (check out the video link at the end of this page for more on that). The moment I started my first race, my jaw just fell onto the floor as I stared at this virtual banquet before me. Seriously, grab a towel to wipe that drool because the more you play NFSMW, the more you’ll be amazed by the graphics. First thing you’ll notice are that the exotic cars look absolutely stunning and you’ll be spending tons of time admiring them. Everything about them is perfect (which isn’t a surprise, knowing the amount of polygons used), and when you start tuning them, you’ll just be amazed at just how much prettier your car becomes. The levels are also amazingly well done and really make you feel as if you’re racing in the real city. The whole experience reminded me of a busy, living world with birds flying, other cars driving, and cops patrolling around. The textures were amazing too and really brought the environment to life with spectrum and bump mapping. All this detail really made this game stand out.

In addition, EA really made sure this game would be unforgettable by adding a sort of High Dynamic Range to make the game very atmospheric. They called it overbright and even though it isn’t real HDR, it works very similarly and mimics what your eyes would do when you change from a dark environment to a light one very quickly. Sure, we’ve seen this in many FPSs (Serious Sam 2, Day of Defeat Source, etc.) but it’s quite different for it to be present in a car game. The transitions in from tunnels to open road is very well done but of course, it diminishes visibility (just like in reality), meaning that some of the races are going to be made harder by this graphical enhancement. Luckily, you have the option to turn it off via the game settings but unfortunately, that can’t be said about all of the game’s graphical features. I’m referring to the motion blur which is very present in the game and even though it looks amazing (the speed impression with it is sensational), it ends up ruining your visibility and worst of all, it ends up hurting your eyes. There is a way to turn it off via a registry hack, but the common player won’t know how to do this and on the consoles, it isn’t even an option to disable it. Sure, it isn’t a major problem but if they give the option to turn off the overbright and visual treatment (changes the color palette), why not also allow the player to remove the motion blur? (for those interested here is the registry entry to remove the motion blur).

But what I really loved the most about the game was that the environment was now destructible. First of all, you have all the usual debris flying everywhere as you race (from flying lampposts to garbage bins) which really add to the gritty and darker atmosphere of the game. Of course, there is a nice physics engine to make sure that everything you hit is flung around realistically (sort of). But best of all is that you can literally destroy some parts of the levels to evade the frantic police chases. It’s very nicely done and even though a cutscene comes if when you destroy one of these specially marked areas, it really makes the game feel rougher. Finally, I can add that most of the game is done in real-time and it really makes it feel that much more alive and real. The sun isn’t always at the same height in the sky (giving you a good variation of different racing conditions) and also changing all the shadows in the game (since they are real-time too). The weather can be cloudless or there can even be rain and this happens on any level, any place in the game. Apart from a few glitches here and there, this all works remarkably well and really makes NFSMW stand proud among the other car games available right now.