There will never be another Need for Speed with cop chases like Most Wanted (2005)

[T-65PowerArmorisCool!]

NFS Most Wanted is a testament to racing games everywhere. It had it's issues, but police was certainly not one of them, and I have a feeling that no matter how hard Criterion tries, they will never, NEVER be able to come close to replicating the feeling of being chased by 25 Corvette C6 interceptors who systematically send in a chopper and two tanky SUV's to fucking ram you off the road at 200 mph head on.

 

[5545Trey]

Been a loooonnnnng time since I played it, but I vaguely remember just how chaotic the chases were.

 

[Big No]

I finished Most Wanted not too long ago after I bought a copy from eBay. One of the better racing games out there, if only because the chases are what make the game fun. The actual racing portions of the game are pretty basic and standard.

The only issue I have is how unpredictable the physics engine can be with roadblocks. You basically need to use bullet time for every roadblock you bash through because when I tried crashing through them normally, there'd be a 30% chance my car would lodge itself on the police car or flip itself and I'd get busted which is shit. In bullet time, your car gets stronger so you essentially throw the police cars around like toys.

 

[TorontoReign]

This was the first one I played:

 

[Norzan]

First one i played. I remember me and a bud of mine just messing around in the races, not even attempting to finish it.

 

[TorontoReign]

On an "off day" a friend brought that to class.

 

[Big No]

I played a Need for Speed title in the early 00's though I have no idea which one. I was still new to gaming being a wee lad so I thought the game was broken when I couldn't accelerate. In hindsight, I probably just set the game to manual instead of automatic.

I also played around with Need for Speed World for a bit. I wasn't going to sign up for a subscription though so I was stuck at the base level. I do have fond memories of it though.

The first proper NfS title I played was Undercover and holy, that game almost ruined the series immediately for me. Absolutely awful game, terrible graphics, empty and bland map design and a really weird, hard to follow story.

I didn't touch the series until I played Payback. It was dirt cheap because of the microtransactions so why not buy it. It's not bad, it's pretty good if you can stomach needing to farm vehicle upgrades. Then I played Heat which is awesome, basically everything Payback should've been.

I probably wouldn't have played Most Wanted if I didn't start watching KuruHS. He basically sold me on playing it.

 

[SquidWard]

Weird to even see this forum have more than a post or two in a thread like this about NFS.

I first played this one:

But of the ones I did bother playing Most Wanted from 2005 was my favorite one. It was really well done. Carbon was also really good and a sequel in a very vague way to Most Wanted but it really made the economy strict by only giving you like 500 bucks on a repeat of a race you've already beaten. I used to only use Muscle cars in it and by the end game I learned that while they're fun for drift challenges that Tuner cars were strangely better if done right and I didn't have money to really invest into Tuner cars because it would take ages to get there at 500 a race.

Just replayed the whole game instead which I guess is fine? But really it kinda encourages you to have three profiles if you want to fully see each car typing. I thought exotic was boring. Muscle cars were wild to handle unlike tuners and could not hit top speeds like exotics but I found it the most fun.