I love Need for Speed. I started liking it with NFS: Porsche Unlimited, and the Underground series just did it for me. What I like about it - and I've tried many, many other racers - is that the driving control is damn near flawless. There's no "floating", the response is predictable and the tracks aren't stupid.I like the customization ("pimping rides" if you will) and the vareity of vehicles... although both of those could be beefed up even further, it's okay enough.NFS is just the pinnacle of racing, IMHO.

I'm playing NFS: MW right now - and of all those redeeming features, the one thing that it doesn't have that really makes it fall out of the loop is predictable control. In contrast to the rest of the series, it seems to be made to force you to barely win races. you need to have a darned near perfect trip to win. It isn't easy to have a perfect trip, either - because one little slip and the opponent(s) catch you. Once they pass you - good luck getting a lead back. The WHOLE GAME ATTACKS YOU whenever you are close to the leader or are actually IN the lead yourself. Traffic will suddenly increase. Cars anf Trucks will either turn right into you at the last millisecond, block the way completely giving you no choice but to crash (and stop), or just appear right in front of you suddenly where the road was completely clear just an instant before. The road gets noticeably slippier, and it becomes a controller-wrestling affair to keep your car from slamming into a wall or barrier; those barriers that you slam into suddenly become suoer magnets - causing you to stick to the wall like a fly to flypaper. Cars who you are racing against - who should be trying to get to the finish line - will either be sitting right in you path, or will slow down to bump into you. If you get bumped, btw, they stick to you - and I've never seen their car affected! YOU will spin and hit the wal, and they willl keep going at warp speed, unnaffected. If you touch anything, 9 times out of 10 your car will spin around and point the opposite direction. there are sections where cars will pass you no matter how much of a lead you have. I was racing Blacklist member #3, Ronnie, on the first of three boss races. On the last lap, he had crashed and i had a near perfect trip - untilI hit the tight turn to a freeway tunnel. Sitting in the tunnel was a cement truck - big enough to nearly close off the whole tunnel - yet in a position where you can not see it until it's too late. But i wasn't worried because I had a 21 second lead at that time. Now, I don't know what EA thinks 21 seconds is - but I counted from my hitting the truck to recovery as about 4 seconds... Ronnie passed me before I was halfway through the VERY SHORT tunnel. After that, the whole game attacked and would not allow me to catch up. I lost by 15 seconds! Mind you, I was driving a Viper, with all ultimate parts... Ronnie had a crappy DB9. My Viper never goes faster that about 155mph... although it should be going 240+. I had to conclude that the problem is with the programming... unless I'm just a complete dud-bomb (which I haven't ruled out either). This artificial "challenge" just made the game frustrating, irritating, and near unpleasant to play... but I like NFS, and since I'm so close to the end I figure I'll tough it out... maybe.

I'm hoping that ProStreet won't have the same style of play. Hopefully they will go back to the Underground methodology, or at least fix what they did to MW. The upgrades having an actual effect is very attractive to me - but that's not going to be enuff... if they go with the Most Wanted formula, that's a formula I least want, and I'll be rejecting that bottle...

Lets see what they do.