Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Best in series"

When I first played this game on the GameCube, I got bored pretty fast. But as I took time to see a little bit more of this game, I got immediately hooked with it. After the GC broke down, I got a PS2 and brought yet again the game and you know what? None of the magic is lost in this version.

The story is simple, bad guy takes your best car, you get arrested by the police, they let you go due to lack of evidence, an angry cop is always following you and you need to beat 15 people in the blacklist in order to catch with the dirty-playing villain, win back your car and become the most wanted. You might get a little twist throughout the story so don't skip anything!

The video cutscenes are just mind-blowing! It's like if you were watching a short clip from an action movie or something. It's bright, clean and undeniably smooth. The bad thing of it is, you won't get enough of these scenes, instead, they will give you more phone calls and messages throughout the game. But still, it won't ruin the game for you.

The gameplay is very tight, controls are easy to handle, you will get a great amount of speed, there are plenty of modes for you to enjoy while beating the 15 people on the blacklist, like: Free Roam, Lap Knockout, Drag, Tollbooth, Circuit Races, Speedtrap and much, much more. You will get a great variety of cars such as the Murcielago, Mustang, but in order to make your car faster or pimpier, you will need to play most or all the races in order to get more money. I know it's obvious, but you know what I mean right?

The pursuit is highly enjoyable, you can either run away from the cops or just simply "play with them" like making their cars crash into one another, earn points by evading traps, tricks, police crashes and so on. But beware! If you're on the chase for too long, they will be more aggressive and will start demanding for backups like helicopters and more police patrols.

There are times in where glitches are shown while racing, pursuing and free roaming but fortunately, these are small ones and they are at times, unnoticeable, so it's not much to worry about.

Overall, this is by far, the best in the NFS franchise, it does has its minor flaws but it won't stop you from playing this highly addictive, enjoyable and exciting street racing game. It is a must-play, must-buy for every racing fan and PlayStation 2 owners. Highly recommend. :D