One Of The Best Race Games To Come Out
The graphics and sound effects are truly amazing, surpassing those of the previous Underground titles. The cars and the environment look great and I’d have to say that the visuals compare with those of Gran Turismo 4.
The career and quick race modes have returned, as well as the LAN and online modes of play. What’s new is the “Challenge Series” that allows you to compete in 69 different races, keeping you busy even after the career mode has been completed. There are now two new race modes added to the series. The first is “Speedtrap” which is a lot like sprint but you have a number of checkpoints that you have got to reach with the fastest speed. The second is “Tollbooth” which is also like sprint but you need to reach checkpoints before your time ends (These race modes are very similar but are still enjoyable).
What’s great about this title is the cop pursuit, which hasn’t been in NFS in a couple of years. The more you progress in the game, the more difficult the chase becomes, bringing in faster cars, helicopters and roadblocks. In order to avoid the pursuit, you can run into “Pursuit Breakers” like gas stations, donut shops and water towers that will collapse over the cops; giving you the chance to escape or hide. The coolest thing about the pursuit is that the music changes from the EA soundtrack to this dramatic music that makes you feel as though you are playing a scene out of a movie, and also changes to how tense the chase is (very, very cool).
The newest feature of NFS is the “Speed Breaker”; this is like bullet time for cars. It gives you the chance to slow down time and dodge obstacles in your way. It’s a bit of a cheat but it’s very entertaining and useful during the cop pursuits.
Even though NFSMW is a great game, it does however have a couple flaws. The huge variety of customisations that were offered in NFSU 2 has been removed. They removed minor things like neon lights, mirrors, hydraulics (completely useless but fun none the less) and speakers in the trunk; and the huge noticeable things like body kits (only limiting the player to use 4 or 5 wide body kits), four layer vinyl’s, door types and spinners (they look so cool) have been removed as well. The newest additional is a vinyl, if you can call it that, that has a round circle with a number (that you can change) in the centre of it, what a great addition after removing so much. I was highly disappointed with the limited customisations in this game; hopefully this will change for future NFS titles.
Another down side is the removal of the drift races, which have been in the last two Underground games. I’m not sure how other gamers were affected by this, but it really pissed me off. I always thought of drift as a breather from the tense and tedious racing from the circuit races. The drag racing has become very, very, irritating. With the Underground games, the drag races were completely random; cars would pop out in different areas and it kind of made it realistic, not knowing where a car will come from.
In NFSMW cars will come out in certain spots, everytime, having to drive the track in a specific way and you have to memorize where each and every car would come out. What’s even more annoying is that there are a few of them and there is only one drag race that is … kind of straight, all the others curve. NFSU and NFSU 2 at least tried to balance the drag between straight and curving tracks.
Another disappointment to NFSMW has to be the car list, which are about 34 cars in total (that’s including two unlockable cars). A couple manufacturers were left out in this title; namely Honda, Hyundai and Nissan (yes, yes I know, I’m a Skyline fan so sue me). It’s great to play with Lamborghini, Porsche and the other new cars added to NFSMW, however the car list is still very limited. I’m not trying to say that EA must add 700 cars to the list like GT 4, but having a choice of about 50 or more cars would have been better.
In my opinion, the quality of music is decreasing with every NFS game that is released. NFSU’s soundtrack was the best and NFSU 2’s was decent, NFSMW is by far the worst. You can actually count on one hand the songs that you actually like (The song, “I am Rock”, REALLY irritates the crap out of me). I really, really hope EA would put an MP3 player in NFS’s options.
Overall NFSMW is still a great game; the cop pursuit, fun game play and stunning visuals push it over the top and still make it one of the best racers. Hopefully EA will add the missing Underground features, increase the car list and finally add an MP3 player, to future NFS titles.