Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Rent it first"

If you love Most Wanted back in 2005, you may not receive the same reception from Most Wanted 2012. Both Most Wanted games are much different from each other. Most Wanted 2005 is more oriented towards NFS Underground atmosphere while Most Wanted 2012 is more oriented towards Hot Pursuit atmosphere. Although Most Wanted 2012 fails to be a core installment in NFS series. It is Burnout Paradise with cops and licensed vehicles and I will make some reference to Burnout Paradise in the following review

This time Most Wanted takes place in Fairhaven. A large world which consists of a city, industrial zone, harbor and a mountainous pass. There are lots of things you can do in this world. Instead of earning cash and getting new cars, this time you will have to cruise around the city to discover hidden cars located in different parts of the city. Some may be near a gas station or in the back alleys. There are more than 100 cars to discover. Each car model is located in 3 different places. When you find the car, get close and hit Y button to 'Jack'. You will instantly take control of the new car.

The cars to get damaged but it does not affect the performance of the car all, just visual. If you want to get rid of the damages, drive through a gas station and your car gets an instant repair (Burnout Paradise style) and your cars color will change. I would like to note that you can't change the cars color the way you want. It will randomize whenever you fix it. Apart from scavenging cars, you can drive past by speed cameras, hit billboards and destroy security fences. These are all just for achievements and earning some Speed Points to increase your most wanted rank.

If you want to upgrade cars, you have to race certain events to unlock upgrades known as mods. You should know that each car (there are 41 car models) has its own 5 events and each event rewards you with 2 or 3 mods (ranking in 1st or 2nd or 3rd unlocks mods). Once you get it, you can equip the mods through quick menu (this menu is a real-time menu, it does not pause the game). Although mods gives you some buffs but on the other hand it also hinders some of your car's attribute. For example, if you want Long Gears mod, your Top Speed will increase but your acceleration will decrease a little. However every mode has its own Pro Tune which is unlocked after performing certain challenges. For example, if you drive certain distance on the opposite lane with Long Gears mod equip, you will get Long Gears Pro. Your top speed remains the same (your mod still increases your top speed attribute but it has no difference between normal and long gears mod) but your acceleration does not decrease, it increases by a little fraction. So when you get your favorite car, aim for the Pro Tune to get the best out of your car.

The race events are fun. It varies from circuit races to sprint races to cop chase and to speed challenge. Still you will not get any drift or drag races. The races are short but it is packed with action. With Autolog V2.0, you will compete to get the best track time record among your friends and other Most Wanted racers.

Still there are some annoying issues with it. Most cars sensible to crashes. Whenever you hit a car from behind, or from side or even hitting a wall sideways puts you into crash cutscene like in Burnout Paradise. Your car gets damaged and rolls in slo-mo but your car will not get damaged in details like in Burnout Paradise. Just some broken glass, dislocated bumper and paint scrape. But after certain point, crashing will drive you mad since it slows down the pace of the game.

The cops are still fun to chase you and running around the roadblocks is rewarding but the lack of police chopper, pursuit breakers and hiding spots makes the cop chases kinda simplistic and unpolished. You will not get the same fun as you did back in 2005.

As we all loved Most Wanted 2005's blacklist of 15 top street racers with a story plot, this time it is all gone. Instead you will watch a short surrealistic cutscene which features the boss' car. Even other race events gets a funny or absurd cutscene before the race starts. You have 10 top racers each unlocked after earning certain SP. The boss races are not that tough after finding the perfect car with perfect pro mods. When you beat the boss, you have the chance to shut them down and earn their cars. Again it is Burnout Paradise style. Since I played the game on iOS, all the SP points that I have earned were stored in my Origin account and was transferred to the main game. When I started the game, 6 boss races were already unlocked. After finding certain cars and earning mods, all of them were unlocked. It took me only 4 hours to beat the game. Now I have played 8 hours and the completion rate is 80%. I unlocked 35 achievements in one day, so get the picture of short the game is.

On the other hand, the visuals are OK. The game runs on 720p yet the game stutters from frame rate. The game also has no anti-aliasing so the edges of 3D objects will looked jagged very badly and your eyes will sore. The soundtracks are great and they can be changed instantly by pressing the RB. The menu looks clean and bright but there are so many texts that scroll across the screen which makes the menus look like a mess. It will get inaccessible after certain time.

My conclusion is, it is a NFS game but not a Most Wanted game. It fails to be a Most Wanted game but you have some fun in playing the game, discovering hidden assets and competing with friends. Since the game is short I advice you to rent the game. You will not come back to play more unless you want to dominate your friends and the leaderboards. Too bad NFS didn't made an awesome racing game this year. My advice, get Forza Horizon.