"Shouldn't be one of the "most wanted""

I was really looking forward to this game and when I got it, I was severely disappointed. Most of this was contributed to the game play, but some of it was the music and time-of-driving. I'll split this review up into a few sections, starting with a cool intro.

INTRO

In this game, you start out racing with a funky BMW that looks like poo. After a few races your funk-mobile breaks down and you have to start out fresh. You get a couple thousand bucks to buy a car and then the game is explained to you. You have to get the cops to chase you so you'll "earn" enough bounty to race a blacklist member. After you race him/her, you get to pick a "marker", which is pretty much a gift from the blacklist member that ranges from his/her car, to special upgrades for your ride. You do this until you beat all the blacklist members, and then you win.

GAME-PLAY

This is where electronic arts really screwed up, really bad. The only thing they did right was the fact that they added cops. The blacklist idea was pretty creative too, but I personally liked underground races in NFSU 2 much better. The thing that I really hated was the fact that you could do barely nothing to supe up your ride. You can't paint anything except the car, you can't buy new mufflers, you can't choose any side skirts, front or back bumpers, pick what your head or tail lights look like, use nitrous purge, and the clincher, THERE'S NO NEON! You pretty much have to go with whatever parts that electronic arts wants to give you. In conclusion, you can't customize your ride the way you want to. One more thing that Electronic Arts did wrong was that they just let your naus refill itself. I personally like driving cool and getting the naus myself, but that's just my personal preference. As for races, there were some changes made that I didn't approve of. For one, you can't race in drifts because there aren't any. They wiped them out, there are none, zip, nada. You also can't drive around the city, challenging other underground cars to outrun you; neither can you find hidden races. In addition, drag races only give like half of what you get from the other races and are some of the hardest challenges in the game. Another kind of event that they took from the game that was on NFSU 2 to trick out your ride so one can photograph their car and make it the cover of a magazine or DVD. Something I did like that is new to the Need for Speed Series is another race challenge: tollbooth. You pass the specific tollbooths in the time alloted and you earn money along with some bounty. It's a different style where you don't have to worry about other racers, which is pretty fun.

GRAPHICS

Electronic Arts did pretty good here and in my opinion only made one, major mistake: making driving conditions during daylight. Driving at night was a lot more fun and made you feel like you were really breaking the law (something EA could have used to their advantage, considering that cops were added). Anyway, besides the time, everything else was superb. The speed-to-time ratio was excellent and the cars looked great.

MUSIC/SOUND

The sound effects were awesome, but not so much the music. The play-list for NFSU 2 had better songs. But whenever you upgrade your engine or buy a new car, the sound of the engine changes, which is pretty cool. When you change gears, it sounds a bit like you're using your nitrous, which, I don't know, just isn't realistic. But an overall good job by Electronic Arts(for the sound)

CONCLUSION

I believe that the only good thing about this game is the fact that cops were added. Graphics should never be much of a problem when it comes to rating a game; some of the best games have graphics that look like chalk drawings, so I'm not basing this review on graphics, or music for that matter. The reason why I gave this game a 6 is because one cannot customize your ride, the races just aren't that exhilarating, and the experience is dumbed down to the max because of daytime driving. These may just be my opinions, but I think they will be yours too.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/18/06