It took me nearly three days at E3 to finally see Need for Speed Most Wanted on the show floor. When I finally did, I got a chance to both play and sit in on a pretty cool behind the scenes demo for Most Wanted. To sum it up quickly, this game feels and looks like Burnout Paradise but with Most Wanted type events mixed in.
There were no details given in terms of where the game takes place; however, Most Wanted’s world is completely open much like it was in Burnout Paradise. It appears you can pretty much drive anywhere. While a mini-map in the corner of the screen shows the game world near you, I noticed it appears to show only the main roads. Despite this, there appears to be plenty of other roads and areas you can navigate. Keeping with the Burnout Paradise theme there are takedowns, crazy crashes and damage. There are tons of billboards to smash through, service stations to repair and repaint your car, and a deliberate middle finger to any semblance of sim controls. While the controls feel less Burnout than Hot Pursuit did you still won’t need to use the brakes very much at all. You can use them to initiate a drift and that’s about it.
The graphics are very crisp and very smooth. Most Wanted isn’t as fast as Burnout Paradise but Most Wanted has an excellent sense of speed. The cars have been dramatically improved in appearance. The Porsche being shown in the demo looked almost of Forza quality. Note the term “almost” as I don’t need to be getting in to any flame wars. Criterion doesn’t seem worried about wrecking them up with cosmetic damage either.
Despite my exposure to the game, I’m still not sure exactly how the cops will factor in to things. There are definitely situations where you have to evade the cops like you do in previous NFS games but nothing I saw indicated there was any sort of narrative like we saw in the first Most Wanted. Instead, Criterion seems very focused on the multiplayer and community aspect. Online play does not appear to have any lobbies. You simply meet up with your friends in the game world and eventually meet up in an area where everyone has to drive to and the game type is chosen. Scoring is persistent whether you are in this “lobby” section or in a race. Being able to earn points anywhere leads to plenty of shenanigans between players at all times. Events start once everyone in the game is in the meet up area. There is no countdown or any grid. The event just starts. This might sound odd but it is actually kind of neat. I saw several events myself including races, team races, jump contests and speed traps. Team races, especially, made for some fun moments. Just because a player has won the race that doesn’t stop them from turning back and wreaking havoc on players still contending to finish.
For me, the best Need For Speed games have come with some sort of narrative. I’m not sure if they should call this game Need For Speed or just Burnout: Most Wanted. Either way, it quickly became one of my top games of the show. It looks sharp, controls well and has what looks to be quite a unique approach to multiplayer that I think can be a real hit.
