Here is my more detailed review of the game. (PART 1)
First of all, I'd like to point out that the following is simply my opinion, based on the fact that I consider each new iteration of the Need For Speed as its own (if you still didn't realize after my very outspoken post). Besides, most of the NFS games were drastically different from another throughout its long history anyway... this shouldn't have come as a surprise that it's so different from its predecessor with the same name.
What's in a name? The only "Most Wanted" thing about this game, is the Most Wanted List. A list of 10 drivers and their cars, you need to beat as you gain more bounty(?) to challenge, and take them down to get their cars. Oh and the police chases. But that's okay, a name can mean many things, and I tend to look into the content rather than the title. Don't judge a book by its cover right? Same principle here.
So, let's begin.
First, the user interface:
You have no more "main menu" like older games, as you're dumped straight into the game after you launch (reminds me a bit of Undercover actually). After pressing "escape" game's paused and you're in a detailed menu with a few options, settings, map, and other profile/multiplayer information on the Autolog. About Autolog, it's EVERYWHERE. Every speed camera (which, there are a lot) every race, every billboard, that records how fast, how far, and how many you've gotten.
In-game and during race, you have access to EasyDrive system. It's where you go to customize your car(s), hop onto another, find races, challenge the MW List, etc. During race, you can change your mods on the fly, as well as a "retry" option available (which I don't understand why, as EasyDrive doesn't pause your game, whereas the same option in the "escape" menu allows you to). It sounds nice and interesting, and very easy to access, but one disadvantage I found is that, since it doesn't pause the game, you really have to spend the time to look out for where you are going, or just park on the side of the road (so the traffic doesn't rear-end you... and initiate the ever so annoying crash animation... more on that later) and if you took too much time, it just closes and have to go through the menus again.
Graphics and Sound:
It's simply gorgeous. Other than the jagged edges (lack of Anti-Aliasing) the game looks absolutely stunning. The lighting and shaders, textures, everything just looks good. Even more so than Hot Pursuit I'd say. I'll be looking into some FX Injectors to see if I can fix the AA issue as well.
However, initially there were a lot of stuttering and general lagginess. However, by doing a bit of tweak, I managed to fix it. Now my game runs quite smoothly.
Sound, as all Need For Speeds have been, is simply AMAZING. Driving through tunnels at high RPM simply is exhilarating.
Controls and Physics:
First impression: heavy. It was extremely hard to control initially, and I was on the XBOX360 gamepad. Upon suggestion to using the classical keyboard method, things have gotten much better. Compared to Hot Pursuit, it's a bit tougher to drift, and control your drifts (HP seemed to have some sort of assist through corners). Keyboard makes this easier simply because it's a lot quicker to change directions, less movement.
Also corner entry speed is a bit more important than HP (where you can race the entire way without using a single bit of brake). Whereas now, if you go into the corner a bit too fast, you will end up in the wall, to initiate the crash animation (again, more on that later). Brakes are quite effective however, but handbrake will kill your speed, and cause your car to go into an uncontrollable slide that, will also get you ended up in a wall. Also, if you don't drift through some wider turns, your car tends to slow down quite a lot. It is quite essential to get the drifting mechanic right early, and of course, each car have their own "slide factor" to get used to.
One thing I absolutely despise, is the previously mentioned "crash animations". Every time you hit something a bit too hard, game stops, and goes to this long animation of your car crumbling, screeching, horror. During which, you cannot access any menus, either to skip, or restart a race. First few times, it was cool, but after that, it's VERY annoying. It also seems the cars are a LOT easier to "crash" than previous games. A slight knock on the back of a traffic, "crash"... a little bit too close to the wall with a tiny part sticking out? "crash"... police roadblock? "crash"... you really have to be SPOT ON when driving through the cracks between the squad cars during road blocks to avoid that "crash" sequence.
Part 2 and more to come later...
Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
My detailed review continued (PART 2)
So I've talked about the UI, graphics and sound, and a bit of controls and physics.
Game Mechanics:
As many have said and reviewed already so far, this game is a LOT more Burnout-like than Most Wanted (by Black Box Studios). First of all, there's the ever so annoying constant "crash". Then comes all the jumps and billboards for you to knock out, and see how far you jump from them. And finally there are quite a lot of open areas where there may be multiple levels with ramps to driver around, drift, and in general reminds me a lot of the open Gymkhana Arena in Dirt 3.
There is no story, no garage, no "currency" to gain, only reputation or bounty (forgot what's the word they specifically use) to unlock tougher challenges in the Most Wanted List (of 10 cars and drivers that you need to win the race against, and then take down, to be able to drive their vehicles) but this has been explained too many times, so I won't go into too much detail about that.
Customization is almost non-existent, except for "mods" which have no visual modification at all. Car colours are random, when you drive through the repair/repaint stations, however I find most of them quite a good choice for your cars (haven't found one that looked ugly so far) so regardless what colour you end up having, it's still quite nice, and it fixes all the visual damages (broken bumpers, hood, glass, scratches, dirt, etc) and gives you a brand new car with a new colour. I will talk about mods in more detail later.
Pursuits:
In the beginning of the game, the chases are somewhat of a joke. You could hardly keep them going for longer than 2 minutes, unless you purposefully slow down to let the police catch up. However, as you progress throughout the game, the harder it becomes (only natural).
There is no police radar under your rear view mirror... in fact there's no mirror at all. You have to rely on your mini-map to know where the police are, but the map is quite detailed in that regard. Like before, police vehicles are shown as a blue arrow when cruising around. When they chase you, they flash a darker blue and red, and the direction arrow is pointing is where they're headed. A roadblock is symbolized by a flashing bar that is set across the road, but it can be any kind of roadblock (normal police roadblock, roadblock with spikes, with SUVs, or SWAT vans <- those are new I believe). You will not see until you get close. As mentioned previously, if you hit the vehicles, most of the time, you're greeted with the "crash". Unless, of course, you're equipped with Reinforced Chassis and/or Impact Protection Body, and driving a big heavy truck. A SWAT van is almost like a brick wall... "crash" almost guaranteed.
Spike strips are quite deadly. From a bit far, you see where they are if you look for the glowing yellow lights that mark their delimitations, but if you know where they are, quite easy to avoid... and unlike the classic Most Wanted, or World, you cannot simply just "ram" the police car to avoid them as that, [CRASH]. Also, the pursuit corvettes that starts chasing you after Heat 3 or 4, tend to get in front of you and drop a rolling spike strip (like in Hot Pursuit). I haven't gotten far enough, but apparently if your "bounty" is higher, beat all 10 drivers, they even drop 2-3 in very quick succession. By that time, Self-Reinflating Tires are a must. (good thing you can change mods on the fly... but you must do it quickly) Of course, they can also be repaired from a repair shop, but most of the time, you won't be able to go far enough to find one when you're freshly spiked. Although your car won't stop to a crawl, and can still keep moving for quite some distances, you lose almost all the traction. (You can also get your tires blown by doing too long of a wheel spin, which ends up having the same effect)
This is also what I hear (as I haven't gotten that far yet) but apparently the chases become NOTORIOUSLY HARD the further you are in the game. Even the little Crown Vics will catch up to you and ram you like SUVs would, more would come flying at you from all directions, and escaping them is a LOT harder because by then your heat is so high it takes a LONG time for cooldowns.
Speaking of that, the cooldown mechanic is changed as well. When you get far enough from your chasers, and get out of their "detection circle" seen on the mini-map, you enter the cooldown mode. Instead of having a separate bar and a specific time to cool down, now it simply drops your heat gradually. So, if you're at heat 4, half bar to 5, and gotten into Cooldown, the bar will drop, until it turns to Heat 3, then 2, then 1, and FINALLY you escape. There is another way, but I have also done this ONCE, and failed a few times: you MAY be able to INSTANTLY escape, if you managed to get to a different vehicle and swap to it (during the cooldown of course). Probably the same is also doable with paint shops. A bit like the "cooldown zones" in the original MW. One thing that really lacks is the pursuit breakers. Which means it's a LOT harder to get rid of the ones fast enough to keep up with you at all times. You can try to throw them off by going off jumps and "off-road areas" but it also makes it all the easier to "crash" yourself and cornered, then busted.
There is, however, no bad consequences in being busted. No reputation/bounty lost, no money (as there is none) lost, and no car (as they aren't yours... technically) lost neither. You just get teleported back to where your car is "picked up". It's a bit of a downer, considering how there's no risk of being busted other than *shrug* "oh well"... I think a bigger punishment would make the pursuits more exciting.
The Cars:
The pure number isn't that great, in the 40s I believe. However, each and every one of them is quite varied. From "cheap" econoboxes like Focus, Evo, and STIs, to classic exotics like the old Carrera, Countach, to Race Day superlight Ariel Atom, to executive GTs, including Mercedes SL, Panamera, then trucks/SUVs like Raptor and Evoque and heading to high class R8, SLS, to super fast hypercars like Veyron and Agera. The full list is available elsewhere so I won't name them all (haven't found/acquired them all neither). 10 of those aren't "findable" except by beating the 10 Most Wanted drivers and taking them down.
Each car have their own distinctive driving physics and behaviour, which is quite interesting. Their model is quite detailed as well, and the engine sound! Each vehicle's been recorded by Criterion to be put into the game apparently.
There is 2-3 "pick up spots" for each car across the map, and each vehicle have their own 5 races that lets you unlock the pre-defined mods.
More on that, AND MORE... later, in Part 3...
So I've talked about the UI, graphics and sound, and a bit of controls and physics.
Game Mechanics:
As many have said and reviewed already so far, this game is a LOT more Burnout-like than Most Wanted (by Black Box Studios). First of all, there's the ever so annoying constant "crash". Then comes all the jumps and billboards for you to knock out, and see how far you jump from them. And finally there are quite a lot of open areas where there may be multiple levels with ramps to driver around, drift, and in general reminds me a lot of the open Gymkhana Arena in Dirt 3.
There is no story, no garage, no "currency" to gain, only reputation or bounty (forgot what's the word they specifically use) to unlock tougher challenges in the Most Wanted List (of 10 cars and drivers that you need to win the race against, and then take down, to be able to drive their vehicles) but this has been explained too many times, so I won't go into too much detail about that.
Customization is almost non-existent, except for "mods" which have no visual modification at all. Car colours are random, when you drive through the repair/repaint stations, however I find most of them quite a good choice for your cars (haven't found one that looked ugly so far) so regardless what colour you end up having, it's still quite nice, and it fixes all the visual damages (broken bumpers, hood, glass, scratches, dirt, etc) and gives you a brand new car with a new colour. I will talk about mods in more detail later.
Pursuits:
In the beginning of the game, the chases are somewhat of a joke. You could hardly keep them going for longer than 2 minutes, unless you purposefully slow down to let the police catch up. However, as you progress throughout the game, the harder it becomes (only natural).
There is no police radar under your rear view mirror... in fact there's no mirror at all. You have to rely on your mini-map to know where the police are, but the map is quite detailed in that regard. Like before, police vehicles are shown as a blue arrow when cruising around. When they chase you, they flash a darker blue and red, and the direction arrow is pointing is where they're headed. A roadblock is symbolized by a flashing bar that is set across the road, but it can be any kind of roadblock (normal police roadblock, roadblock with spikes, with SUVs, or SWAT vans <- those are new I believe). You will not see until you get close. As mentioned previously, if you hit the vehicles, most of the time, you're greeted with the "crash". Unless, of course, you're equipped with Reinforced Chassis and/or Impact Protection Body, and driving a big heavy truck. A SWAT van is almost like a brick wall... "crash" almost guaranteed.
Spike strips are quite deadly. From a bit far, you see where they are if you look for the glowing yellow lights that mark their delimitations, but if you know where they are, quite easy to avoid... and unlike the classic Most Wanted, or World, you cannot simply just "ram" the police car to avoid them as that, [CRASH]. Also, the pursuit corvettes that starts chasing you after Heat 3 or 4, tend to get in front of you and drop a rolling spike strip (like in Hot Pursuit). I haven't gotten far enough, but apparently if your "bounty" is higher, beat all 10 drivers, they even drop 2-3 in very quick succession. By that time, Self-Reinflating Tires are a must. (good thing you can change mods on the fly... but you must do it quickly) Of course, they can also be repaired from a repair shop, but most of the time, you won't be able to go far enough to find one when you're freshly spiked. Although your car won't stop to a crawl, and can still keep moving for quite some distances, you lose almost all the traction. (You can also get your tires blown by doing too long of a wheel spin, which ends up having the same effect)
This is also what I hear (as I haven't gotten that far yet) but apparently the chases become NOTORIOUSLY HARD the further you are in the game. Even the little Crown Vics will catch up to you and ram you like SUVs would, more would come flying at you from all directions, and escaping them is a LOT harder because by then your heat is so high it takes a LONG time for cooldowns.
Speaking of that, the cooldown mechanic is changed as well. When you get far enough from your chasers, and get out of their "detection circle" seen on the mini-map, you enter the cooldown mode. Instead of having a separate bar and a specific time to cool down, now it simply drops your heat gradually. So, if you're at heat 4, half bar to 5, and gotten into Cooldown, the bar will drop, until it turns to Heat 3, then 2, then 1, and FINALLY you escape. There is another way, but I have also done this ONCE, and failed a few times: you MAY be able to INSTANTLY escape, if you managed to get to a different vehicle and swap to it (during the cooldown of course). Probably the same is also doable with paint shops. A bit like the "cooldown zones" in the original MW. One thing that really lacks is the pursuit breakers. Which means it's a LOT harder to get rid of the ones fast enough to keep up with you at all times. You can try to throw them off by going off jumps and "off-road areas" but it also makes it all the easier to "crash" yourself and cornered, then busted.
There is, however, no bad consequences in being busted. No reputation/bounty lost, no money (as there is none) lost, and no car (as they aren't yours... technically) lost neither. You just get teleported back to where your car is "picked up". It's a bit of a downer, considering how there's no risk of being busted other than *shrug* "oh well"... I think a bigger punishment would make the pursuits more exciting.
The Cars:
The pure number isn't that great, in the 40s I believe. However, each and every one of them is quite varied. From "cheap" econoboxes like Focus, Evo, and STIs, to classic exotics like the old Carrera, Countach, to Race Day superlight Ariel Atom, to executive GTs, including Mercedes SL, Panamera, then trucks/SUVs like Raptor and Evoque and heading to high class R8, SLS, to super fast hypercars like Veyron and Agera. The full list is available elsewhere so I won't name them all (haven't found/acquired them all neither). 10 of those aren't "findable" except by beating the 10 Most Wanted drivers and taking them down.
Each car have their own distinctive driving physics and behaviour, which is quite interesting. Their model is quite detailed as well, and the engine sound! Each vehicle's been recorded by Criterion to be put into the game apparently.
There is 2-3 "pick up spots" for each car across the map, and each vehicle have their own 5 races that lets you unlock the pre-defined mods.
More on that, AND MORE... later, in Part 3...
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
Yeah, I'm puzzled with the pursuit system here. It doesn't make sense if you're in heat level 6 for a long time with all the SWAT vehicles and Vettes on your tail, you then enter cool down to lower your heat level, and then re-engage pursuit just to be chased by lowly Crown Vics. You'd think they'd stick to their best units considering the duration of the chase.
I haven't tried switching cars while in cool down, but I have gone through repair shops and I didn't notice anything different.
The lack of risks in free roam pursuits takes all the fun out. I believe you just don't get the SP that you've accumulated in the chase.
Has anyone totaled their car yet or can we even total our car? I was messing around with the cops in a ZR1, riding on all four rims, sliding around, topping out at 90 mph, and they still couldn't get me. Before I repaired, I did notice black smoke coming from my hood.
I haven't tried switching cars while in cool down, but I have gone through repair shops and I didn't notice anything different.
The lack of risks in free roam pursuits takes all the fun out. I believe you just don't get the SP that you've accumulated in the chase.
Has anyone totaled their car yet or can we even total our car? I was messing around with the cops in a ZR1, riding on all four rims, sliding around, topping out at 90 mph, and they still couldn't get me. Before I repaired, I did notice black smoke coming from my hood.
-
Theadamh123
- Stock
- Posts: 2
- Joined: 05 Nov 2012, 19:59
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
After reading all the other reviews i think i might be playing a different game! I hated the physics in hot persuit and the run they felt num and the car felt too stuck to the road. For me the handling for this game is perfect and im addicted! 15 h of game play in 3 days, i usualy do less than that in a month!
(P.S How do you change your signature?)
(P.S How do you change your signature?)
-
Phantom_pain33
- Drift King
- Posts: 531
- Joined: 19 Jul 2012, 19:16
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
You know there's so much hate going around about this game..i get what you guys saying ..but the comments on forums and and everything really has influence my playtime with the game i barely play it..cause i'm honestly disappointed and then when i go online in this forum and the rest of the other nfs sites i don't read nothing good about it its either a complain or a game issue..i don't think that's helping me with the game..i was gonna get it for the vita and transfer my credit to the pre-order of grand theft auto 5,decided not to get it on the vita however the mobile version of this game looks great and it seems like better than their open world console counterpart and it seems to have more cars including the m3 gtr and races are even more fun and varied unlike the console races.Damn i decided to put all my emphasis on this game and i get half of a game once again i got screw, i just want a full game not some recycle version of a game ITS F B.S then you need the promo codes to unlock cars(slim jim)..I learned my lesson it happen with the run now with most wanted...the only thing that could change my mind will be a dlc..and even like that it will be probably aim towards online not the single player..I'm moving on...its sad cause i don't know what to play till gta5 comes out.
I honestly feel dumb
..right now..*sigh* 
I apologize to anyone that i somehow attacked while defending this game...the game its well designed graphically and stuff but that's about it otherwise every area its lacking.
I honestly feel dumb
..right now..*sigh* I apologize to anyone that i somehow attacked while defending this game...the game its well designed graphically and stuff but that's about it otherwise every area its lacking.
-
Zotic+
- Drift King
- Posts: 903
- Joined: 10 Oct 2008, 05:08
- Location: Southern California in the desert where it gets 130 degrees
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
There is A LOT to do in this game. This game is actually going to take longer to complete then i expectedUSAF_SF wrote: Content was pretty disappointing. There's a good number of cars, but I was disappointed to see the lack of things to do. I beat the whole game in just a few hours, and it was rather easy. The amount of other things to do was also minimal, as it seems there is really just unlocking all the upgrades for every car and obtaining the pro versions, finding the billboards and smash gates, then beating your friends' records as well as your own. To give this a comparison, after 45min of playing I was 24% complete, and beat the main story in just a few hours; I'm sure I can 100% the game in about 12 hours. I picked up Forza Horizon on release, and put 11 hours straight into it as soon as I got it, and was only 2% complete. Much more to do in that game. I haven't played multiplayer yet, but I've heard from my friend that there isn't much of a free roam aspect. Not sure on that though.
[
/End rant.
Instagram @SupraHKS
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
I personally don't think it's a bad game. It had a lot of expectations riding on it considering it's name. A lot of us who are critiquing it, as silly as this sounds, are veterans of the series and are hard to please. We've seen it over and over again, and it's getting harder to see the fun in doing the same thing.Phantom_pain33 wrote:You know there's so much hate going around about this game..i get what you guys saying ..but the comments on forums and and everything really has influence my playtime with the game i barely play it..cause i'm honestly disappointed and then when i go online in this forum and the rest of the other nfs sites i don't read nothing good about it its either a complain or a game issue..i don't think that's helping me with the game..i was gonna get it for the vita and transfer my credit to the pre-order of grand theft auto 5,decided not to get it on the vita however the mobile version of this game looks great and it seems like better than their open world console counterpart and it seems to have more cars including the m3 gtr and races are even more fun and varied unlike the console races.Damn i decided to put all my emphasis on this game and i get half of a game once again i got screw, i just want a full game not some recycle version of a game ITS F B.S then you need the promo codes to unlock cars(slim jim)..I learned my lesson it happen with the run now with most wanted...the only thing that could change my mind will be a dlc..and even like that it will be probably aim towards online not the single player..I'm moving on...its sad cause i don't know what to play till gta5 comes out.
I honestly feel dumb
I apologize to anyone that i somehow attacked while defending this game...the game its well designed graphically and stuff but that's about it otherwise every area its lacking.
I can see new players who're discovering the series now getting a kick out of it. And not once did I get the impression that the game is half done, and I haven't gone online yet.
Another thing to note - the modern games aren't catering to the 1st or 2nd gen NFS fans. The last game that genuinely excited me was HP2010, and what I've learned from that experience is that they don't make games for me anymore, no matter how many times I give each a chance. But hey, I'm still collecting them.
I also want to ask, how many of us are actually taking Autolog seriously? Because that's pretty much the theme of the modern games is to center everything around competition, and where the replay value is coming from. If you're not that kind of gamer, then this game will get old fast.
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
well.. i'm an old school gamer... from a time that multiplayer was non-existent or a very rarely used feature... that meant one thing... huge content in every game... a lot of challenges with worthy rewards... something that kept you coming back and play more.
right now few games are following that standard... games are turning into a fancy facebook app each.
i have played more than 10 NFS titles (undergrounds not included) and never i have seen the game play so pointless... i mean i don't want to smash billboards... i don't want to smash security gates... even considering that i do... there is absolutely no reward.... why should i do that then?.. this kills the thrill...
NFS series always had a very good multiplayer side along with it's main gameplay plot. but it seems like the series is now just a giant social app with cars as the profile pictures.
i do feel like this game is incomplete.. not incomplete development... but incomplete planning and plotting.
alright, i'll quit ranting now... don't kill me please.!
right now few games are following that standard... games are turning into a fancy facebook app each.
i have played more than 10 NFS titles (undergrounds not included) and never i have seen the game play so pointless... i mean i don't want to smash billboards... i don't want to smash security gates... even considering that i do... there is absolutely no reward.... why should i do that then?.. this kills the thrill...
NFS series always had a very good multiplayer side along with it's main gameplay plot. but it seems like the series is now just a giant social app with cars as the profile pictures.
i do feel like this game is incomplete.. not incomplete development... but incomplete planning and plotting.
alright, i'll quit ranting now... don't kill me please.!
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
I finished the game now after 7h50min of gameplay. Done about half of the races, 90% of speed cams, 50% of billboards, even less fences. I have no real desire to go back and 100% everything...
One thing is done well in this game though: the sense of speed. Driving fast is pure pleasure... until you hit a traffic car of course.
One thing is done well in this game though: the sense of speed. Driving fast is pure pleasure... until you hit a traffic car of course.
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
Dear NFS team
I've been a fan of Need For Speed up until Pro Street. I've tried finding faith in you guys over the later releases but you have failed miserably.
Most Wanted(2005) was by far the best game in the arcade history, followed by Carbon. The 2012 version of Most Wanted is dubbed a Burnout Paradise sequel and , well, you are Need For Speed. Not Burnout. I enjoyed the idea of customising your car, pursuits by cops, reputation and other ideas noted with street racing. Not like Burnout where you're limited and cars are used for crashing. Cars are used for driving, not bashing. Need For Speed gives you (or should I say, 'gave' you) the pleasure of experiencing STREET RACING. Which is a form of driving at a really fast speed using streets. Just reminding you as it looks like you've forgotten all about Street racing and Need For Speed.
In essence, please burn down Criterion for vandalising Need For Speed(R.I.P) and if you want to make a game resembling Burnout, please don't use the Need For Speed trademark.
Thank You and eff you very much for spoiling a good franchise.
I've been a fan of Need For Speed up until Pro Street. I've tried finding faith in you guys over the later releases but you have failed miserably.
Most Wanted(2005) was by far the best game in the arcade history, followed by Carbon. The 2012 version of Most Wanted is dubbed a Burnout Paradise sequel and , well, you are Need For Speed. Not Burnout. I enjoyed the idea of customising your car, pursuits by cops, reputation and other ideas noted with street racing. Not like Burnout where you're limited and cars are used for crashing. Cars are used for driving, not bashing. Need For Speed gives you (or should I say, 'gave' you) the pleasure of experiencing STREET RACING. Which is a form of driving at a really fast speed using streets. Just reminding you as it looks like you've forgotten all about Street racing and Need For Speed.
In essence, please burn down Criterion for vandalising Need For Speed(R.I.P) and if you want to make a game resembling Burnout, please don't use the Need For Speed trademark.
Thank You and eff you very much for spoiling a good franchise.
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
Erm, you do realise that this site has nothing to do with EA or Criterion, right? If you want to get a message to them, at least post this stuff on their official site, www.needforspeed.com.
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
NFS forums was closed for a reason... now i'm understanding what that reason was.!GT3x24x7 wrote:Erm, you do realise that this site has nothing to do with EA or Criterion, right? If you want to get a message to them, at least post this stuff on their official site, www.needforspeed.com.
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
Hey guys add me to the game my nickname is BulLP670-4, I finished the game the first day lol
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
I take that back. I was in heat level 1, about halfway from depleting the heat bar, drove through a repair shop and instantly evaded them. It might be different on higher heat levels, will have to check next time. I'll experiment with switching cars in level 1 heat, but I suspect it will be the same as driving through repair shops.junior6at wrote:I haven't tried switching cars while in cool down, but I have gone through repair shops and I didn't notice anything different.
This game is slowly growing on me. The motivation to continue playing for several hours straight is not there. It's more of something that I pick up from time to time.
Edit:
Going through repair shops will reduce your heat bar significantly in cool down. The great thing about it is if there's no cops around you can pull a U-turn, drive through them and lower it again. I was heat 3 when I first drove through, lowered myself to heat 1, drove through it again and escaped.
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
I'm feeling the other way around. Yesterday I played for like 3 hours straight. Now I want to do the same. I think I'm getting used to the game and really enjoying it now. I'm even thinking about spending 38€ on the LE!junior6at wrote: This game is slowly growing on me. The motivation to continue playing for several hours straight is not there. It's more of something that I pick up from time to time.
For real, after saying that this isn't worth the price, I'm tempted to buy. Especially because of multiplayer.-
Phantom_pain33
- Drift King
- Posts: 531
- Joined: 19 Jul 2012, 19:16
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
This game its like a record ..that you buy u listen to it and put it away as you listen to it more ,the more you like and you find your favorite tracks ending up playing the record over and over and ultimately falling in love with it, i'm not at the level yet..but after this i'm done with the Need for speed series...time to bring something back like road rash or something.
But will there ever be a game series that capture the fun of an thrills of need for speed title?..the closest was burnout and now they are joined together so i don't think so.
But will there ever be a game series that capture the fun of an thrills of need for speed title?..the closest was burnout and now they are joined together so i don't think so.
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
Actually I want to take that back. The game has grown on me tremendously over the weekend. Once I figured out the pursuit system, my opinion of the game got better. My last session lasted about 2-3 hours, that's about average for me. I guess once you get used the physics, it isn't so bad.Hydro_PT wrote:I'm feeling the other way around. Yesterday I played for like 3 hours straight. Now I want to do the same. I think I'm getting used to the game and really enjoying it now. I'm even thinking about spending 38€ on the LE!junior6at wrote: This game is slowly growing on me. The motivation to continue playing for several hours straight is not there. It's more of something that I pick up from time to time.
I used to hate the Atom, but now that I'm familiar with the city and the handling, I'm not crashing as much and now I can see its uses.
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
Let's hope I don't regret this later.Order Details:
Need for Speed: Most Wanted - Limited Edition (PC) (x1), €35.41 + €2.26 shipping
I should get the game by Friday.
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
Finished this last night, Been doing all the races to the cars I found interest in, mostly to starter cars ( Evo, Impreza, Carrera S), which means I've been playing the same races for a numerous times. But I didn't find it boring.
Towards the end, when you really get the sense of speed, the game is frightening - I remember throwing a quick look on the speedo in the Huayra and it was like 371km.h - then i hit a traffic car :/
I loved GTR and Aventador, from the moment I won the Aventador, I played with it until I got the Huayra.
Fun game tbh, i'd give it 10/10 - it's meant to be arcade - that means fun to me!
Towards the end, when you really get the sense of speed, the game is frightening - I remember throwing a quick look on the speedo in the Huayra and it was like 371km.h - then i hit a traffic car :/
I loved GTR and Aventador, from the moment I won the Aventador, I played with it until I got the Huayra.
Fun game tbh, i'd give it 10/10 - it's meant to be arcade - that means fun to me!
-
Zotic+
- Drift King
- Posts: 903
- Joined: 10 Oct 2008, 05:08
- Location: Southern California in the desert where it gets 130 degrees
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
But then if you listen to it too much, you become bored of it, so to avoid this you take a short break from it. Luckily Black Ops 2 comes out tomorrowPhantom_pain33 wrote:This game its like a record ..that you buy u listen to it and put it away as you listen to it more ,the more you like and you find your favorite tracks ending up playing the record over and over and ultimately falling in love with it, .
Instagram @SupraHKS
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
For me it's actually the other way around, the more I play it, the more I get annoyed by certain aspects.
-The rubberbanding
It's just insane.. today I was smashed by some AI car going at what seemed like light speed and I also lost like 4 races right before the finish..
-The pursuits
Specifically getting out of them, in events. The Ford Raptor event is ridiculous.. how can you escape within 2,5mins in this?!
-The rubberbanding
It's just insane.. today I was smashed by some AI car going at what seemed like light speed and I also lost like 4 races right before the finish..
-The pursuits
Specifically getting out of them, in events. The Ford Raptor event is ridiculous.. how can you escape within 2,5mins in this?!
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
I dont get it either. To me it seems like the only way to evade a pursuit is to go faster and enter cool down. Smashing your way through cop cars (which is what you are encouraged to do with the raptor) doesn't seem to work. They just keep coming.YaelDjiel wrote: -The pursuits
Specifically getting out of them, in events. The Ford Raptor event is ridiculous.. how can you escape within 2,5mins in this?!
The pursuit mechanism is broken/hopeless.
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
I have a feeling (though I haven't beaten this challenge myself), that you need to get the job done early at a low heat level and then find a place to hide real quick.
Re: Most Wanted 2012 - Users reviews
The long delayed Part 3 of my review.
but before I start, I'd like to point out a few changes I noticed (was it REALLY new? or did I just not notice before?)
First, the "CRASH!" that happened every time you hit a roadblock, IS GONE!!! *hurray!*
now you can keep on racing even if you accidentally swipe a cop car while going through, even with Light Chassis and Aero Body on an Atom going at 300km/h! *with the exception of SWAT vans... those are still automatic "CRASH!" but those are also roadblocks during races to stop you from going that way*
The second, I noticed is that (not sure if new) you can jump to certain races you've already done, instead of having to drive there. EasyDrive now has a menu below "Set Destination" to "Start Race" and you jump there right away. However, if it's the first time you do this event, you still have to drive there.
During pursuit cooldowns, the repair shops drop your heat level by 1, so if there's no police around, you CAN go in it in circles to get rid of the heat very fast. Swapping cars is still instant escape, even from Heat 6, and being immobilized at a spot for some time, turns off your engine and heat level drops down MUCH faster as well, kind of like in the original Most Wanted, at a "hide spot". Difference is, you can stop anywhere, as long as a police doesn't pass by you while you're on cooldown... I usually do it on the train tracks next to I92 (I believe) as they never go on it (unless they were hot on your tail before initiating cooldown) or if the pass by the highway next to you, they don't see you. Still, no pursuit breaker make the escaping a bit more challenging imo.
Now, let's continue with the review:
The Races
There are the typical types, like Sprint and Circuit, then there's the Speed challenges, (with and without police chases) and Pursuit Escapes
Other than the Pursuit type, where you're open to go ANYWHERE you like, the races require you to follow certain checkpoints. If you miss it, you will have to turn back and go hit it (also means you're taking the wrong path). Other than the fact that there's no more solid walls blocking you from deviating during a race (other than the glowy neon signs pointing you to the next turn, or a big wall of SWAT vans blocking your way during pursuit races) the modes need no explanation, straightforward as they are.
For the Speed challenges (as I call them) they are a bit like classical "time trial" or "checkpoint race" where you are racing against time on your own. The difference now, is that it's not time based, but average speed based. You CAN now take a longer path around, if it means you can maintain your average speed, meaning, if a shortcut that's "off-road" can make you go faster, but if your car's equipped with Race tires (which slows down greatly off-road) you can go around the longer road way and keep the speed up. This is more tricky as the "gold" requirement can be quite high, and you need to keep your nitrous on at almost all times, and a traffic car at the end of the turn can cause you to CRASH and make you lose a LOT of your speed you've built up. This mode has caused a lot of rage quits or 20+ retries for me personally...
Pursuit Escapes, you can go anywhere you want. The objective is to escape the police that's chasing you as fast as you can. Depending on the heat level, this can be easy, and can be hard, also depending on where you are. If there's one of those "Gymkhana" Arenas around, they are the best place to go if you know your way around, (and not crash) as the police tend to get stuck at one jump or another tunnel, etc. Easiest way to lose them is either speed, or tricky path with a lot of obstacles. There is however a high risk you'll crash as well, but that's the part of the biggest challenge. After entering cooldown, you can do 1 of 2 things: (you can't swap cars, as it's during a race event and none are available to be picked up) go somewhere the police will surely not come, and will not see you when passing by, and stop... until engine shuts off (about 15 seconds I believe?!) or find a repair shop, and go through it back and forth. You can also do it the classic way of driving around until the heat level drops to 0, but that may take some time and there's always more risk of bumping into a police vehicle along the way.
The last type is the Most Wanted Challenges. You go on a 1vs1 hot pursuit sprint, where you need to finish the race before your opponent, and if you win, have the chance to chase him in open world and "take him down" by wrecking him, to win his car. A bit like in Undercover.
The biggest gripes I have with almost all racing modes is the rubber banding... MANY times, I crash 200m from the Finish, and the other racers just zoom by, even though I had a BIG lead since earlier in the race. The other is how your car loses control a lot of times from a simple nudge... then CRASH!!! The nudging and loss of control are something to get used to, but sometimes it's not so easy to avoid traffic because of it. It also seems the faster you go, the less sensitive your steering become... which causes a LOT of headache in that Speed challenge (as you HAVE to go fast! until a traffic just so happens to come into your way, and there's almost no way of avoiding it... RESTART!)
Before every race, there's this artistic and abstract rendering of the city and cars. They are very cool and interesting the first time you watch (if you're into those kind of things), but on more annoying races you have to restart, you'd want to skip them ... a lot. It's a shame because they are kind of neat, compared to other "before race" animations in other racing games...
Oh, and I've noticed, there's not a single race from a standing start... it's all rolling starts.
The Collectibles
I've talked about this briefly in the Game Mechanics section before, but I want to go a bit into more detail.
For a lot of games, this is a thing where you hate it or love it, or cheat it out (with a map, or video guide) simply for completion's sake. (Intels, skulls, trophies, treasures, blow up dolls, money stashes, shrines etc mostly in FPS or TPS adventure and open world sandbox games, almost all of them with shooting involved...) A lot of the times, it's nearly impossible to find ALL of them by yourself, a guide of somesort is almost always required (for completion's sake, or to get that platinum trohpy, or that big achievement)
It is a bit different in Most Wanted's case.
There are mainly 4 types. Only 1 of them is simply "find it", and that is the gates. You find gates to "restricted area" that you can crash through as you find more areas with stunts and jumps and open broken down factory or airplane graveyard or construction site. Autolog keeps a record of how many you crash through, but that's it.
The second are the cars and their pick-up locations. There may not be more than 50 cars, but there are over 100 pick up locations. I think there are some cars I haven't managed to find yet, and some of them are really well hidden, or hard to reach. Those are only recorded as numbers as well, but at least you can "do things" with them... namely, DRIVE, which is the main point of the game.
Then there's the speed cameras, where not only does it track how many you've found, but how fast you've blasted through them. If you're highly competitive, Autolog will cause you to try going back and forth between a same stretch of road a LOT of times, trying to beat that other person that consistently beats you at everything... (not just races) so you MAY consider them as "small races" to compete on.
Finally, there's the Burnout inspired billboard crashing jumps. There are a LOT (obviously) and they record how far you have jumped. For that to happen, you HAVE to hit and break the boards. There is 1 jump where you easily fly over them and jump very far but it won't register. It also only registers if you land successfully and not "crash". You can tell if you have hit the board before or is new, by looking at what's on it. if it has your friend or your "avatar" with a "WANTED" sign then you've already registered that jump. If it has any of the EA's affiliated studio's logo (being EA itself, BioWare, DICE, etc) then it's a new jump, or it's a failed attempt (there are a few that I simply cannot land properly to register... they are quite fun and challenging to be honest) and will also make you retry a LOT of times in order to beat your friend by that 1 meter.
I constantly complain that I'm not THAT social and I don't like to compete too much, so I tend to avoid multiplayer games but sometimes, I find myself really trying hard to beat that 1 guy that ALWAYS seems to be ahead of me... Autolog is successful in this regard, it puts all the competitive stats right there, nagging you to try and beat your friends, and 1-up them. Especially on those that you arrive REALLY close and KNOW you can beat them, if you do slightly better... If you are the type that wants to always be the best, then fear not, you will be spending a LOT of time re-running races, re-trying that 1 jump, only to stay on top of your Autolog list...
About Multiplayer, there's another type of collectibles: License Plates. They are a bit like dogtags in Battlefield 3 or banners in CoD games, where by achieving certain objectives, you get to unlock a License Plate background (and you can customize the wordings) that shows up when a player gets knocked out by you. Nothing much else to say about this...
Multiplayer
I've just said I'm not that competitive, except on a few things, and that I tend to avoid multiplayers... BUT this is one of those exceptions.
Multiplayer in this game is very fun!
Regardless of the reason you refuse to play multiplayer, you REALLY HAVE to TRY it at least once! It's a completely different experience.
Rather than considering it as a "racing" game, it's more a lobby of a bunch of people with cars and have fun doing wacky and random things OTHER than ONLY racing. Events are varied and plentiful and interesting. If you're looking for the classic hardcore racing experience, you will find almost none here (unless you start the lobby and choose which events you want yourself, then you can pick the old boring "race" every time... seriously, go back to playing Shift and GT5 and Forza and GRID if you want it so much, there's no place for "serious" racing here in Most Wanted!)
First of all it doesn't follow the singlplayer progression. All the cars you have found, taken down, and mods unlocked aren't available right off the bat, while some you haven't found are there. They are separated in a few categories, from Raceday, to Supercar, to GT, to SUV/Truck. Each category have 1 car already unlocked but you get more as you play. (some I hear are never available in singleplayer, but not sure which ones yet)
The mods also unlocks differently, as you do more things with each car (knock down racers, draft, airtime, etc) and even the paint for the car is unlock-based, as you start with only 1 colour initially.
As you enter a lobby, you'll eventually be greeted with a SpeedList, a series of 5 events that each differ in type, restriction, and location. Restrictions are "car classes" and there's option for "No Restriction" as well. But you can have some funny combinations with restrictions... such as a speed test with SUVs, or some very "knocky" challenges with Raceday or Exotics or Supercars (in general, squishy cars, that gets destroyed easily) Each event's objective is displayed on the bottom of the screen called "ticker" that scrolls through, explaining what to do.
Before each event, there's the Meet Up, where you have to get to the location specified on the map. SpeedPoints is recorded on everything you do, from the stat. You get points as you knock people out (you can do it at ANY parts of the lobby, during races, events, between events, before meetups, during meetups, etc for the sole sake gaining SpeedPoints... and trolling other players), by being the first to meet ups, and by completing events, or winning them. At the end of all 5 events, the total points are tallied up to see who's the Grand Winner. A new SpeedList is then generated and the whole process starts again. You can be in a lobby for a LOOONG span of time without realizing how much of it has passed.
There are generally 4 types: Challenge, Speed Test, Race and Team Race.
Challenge is a sort of cooperative event where everyone have to complete a set objective. It can range from drift x meters in a certain area to jump a total of x distance from a ramp, to even crazy ones like jump over x cars in total (but this one is hard to coordinate without a good group of friends, as everyone tend to just drive around all the time... and jumping "over" is a totally random thing... whereas a well coordinated group of drivers will line up under a ramp and another go over them all in 1 try, going over 5-6 cars) and "stand on top of (something) for a total of x seconds" Of course, it's also ranked, and people being their competitive self, try to ruin others' attempt at completing them, by ramming people off the jumps, or knocking them out of their path, or just stand in the middle of a ramp to stop them.
Speed Test usually involves a lot of jumping over things. Some are distance based, and some are destination based. One of them was to jump onto the multi storey parking garage accross the street by jumping off a double-circular monument. It's a LOT harder than it sounds. There was also the "fastest" past a speed camera event I was in yesterday. A few of the events, you can be disqualified if you wreck, so some people will try to troll by simply knocking others out. But in the end, it's just fun and giggles, laugh it out, take revenge if you feel like, and simply have some fun times doing these wacky things.
Team Race is just as it sounds, you're separated into 2 teams and race each other to the finish. You can "spot" opponent team's cars and obviously team up to take them down. (try not to take your own team down however) Opponents are marked in orange tags and team mates are silver-blue. Nothing much else to say here, other than that it's the same check point type race you're used to in singleplayer, only with the addition of more aggressive drivers, and NO RUBBER BAND!!! but a Crash will still cost you a LOT so be careful... You can end up dead last even if you were way ahead... and make sure to hit the checkpoints, or else you'd have to go all the way back and lose all the lead.
Race, is simply Team Race, but you're on your own. The fun part about Race events that differs from other racing games, is that not only can you wreck other people's cars during the race, after you finished (one of the firsts) you can go backwards and annoy the hell out of slower players but causing head-on collisions, or simply blocking their way *more trolling*
Trolling and all is fun but I hope one won't get bullied by being ganged up on by everyone else. So far, I've found that it's also fun trying to avoid trolls attempting to knock you out, and seeing them miss and crash head-first into a wall instead.
All in all, the MOST fun I've had with cars in many years!
It's REALLY worth a try. You might not like the concept when you hear about it until you really try it out. Trolling and anti-trolling, wacky events, and random babies crying in the background of a player who never turns off their microphone are all part of the big fun!
I think this is about it for everything I wanted to cover about the game.
In the end, I'm enjoying it a LOT, and I feel like playing it for quite some time simply because of the amazingly entertaining multiplayer.
For the TL;DR crowd:
Pros: Graphics, Sounds, Multiplayer <= GOTTA try it!, extremely fun! and if you're looking for an arcade game with cars just to have lots and lots of fun driving around, doing big impossible jumps and crashes, and can't forget the quite decent pursuit chases, you'll LOVE it. The big variety of car selection is very interesting as well.
Cons: Singleplayer is indeed shallow. I hate to admit it but after you've found most cars, everything else you do is just a repeat of what you've done and gets VERY repetitive. The chases, although getting more challenging and fun later, is very easy and boring at the start... and there's no real penalty for getting busted, so you tend to not try AS hard. The handling of the cars will take a while to get used to and are heavy. You easily lose control with a little nudge from other cars, and the EVER SO ANNOYING CRASH!!! The carlist, although very varied, is still quite small... there are a LOT of cars I hoped were in the game (Aston Martin DBS, BMW M5, new M6, FERRARIS!!! < (probably because of licensing) etc to name a few off the top of my head)
Verdict:
Graphics 9.5/10
Sound 9.5/10
Gameplay 8.5/10
Multiplayer 10/10
Handling 8/10
Replayability 8/10 (singleplayer 6, multiplayer 10)
Overall (not an average) 9/10
but before I start, I'd like to point out a few changes I noticed (was it REALLY new? or did I just not notice before?)
First, the "CRASH!" that happened every time you hit a roadblock, IS GONE!!! *hurray!*
now you can keep on racing even if you accidentally swipe a cop car while going through, even with Light Chassis and Aero Body on an Atom going at 300km/h! *with the exception of SWAT vans... those are still automatic "CRASH!" but those are also roadblocks during races to stop you from going that way*
The second, I noticed is that (not sure if new) you can jump to certain races you've already done, instead of having to drive there. EasyDrive now has a menu below "Set Destination" to "Start Race" and you jump there right away. However, if it's the first time you do this event, you still have to drive there.
During pursuit cooldowns, the repair shops drop your heat level by 1, so if there's no police around, you CAN go in it in circles to get rid of the heat very fast. Swapping cars is still instant escape, even from Heat 6, and being immobilized at a spot for some time, turns off your engine and heat level drops down MUCH faster as well, kind of like in the original Most Wanted, at a "hide spot". Difference is, you can stop anywhere, as long as a police doesn't pass by you while you're on cooldown... I usually do it on the train tracks next to I92 (I believe) as they never go on it (unless they were hot on your tail before initiating cooldown) or if the pass by the highway next to you, they don't see you. Still, no pursuit breaker make the escaping a bit more challenging imo.
Now, let's continue with the review:
The Races
There are the typical types, like Sprint and Circuit, then there's the Speed challenges, (with and without police chases) and Pursuit Escapes
Other than the Pursuit type, where you're open to go ANYWHERE you like, the races require you to follow certain checkpoints. If you miss it, you will have to turn back and go hit it (also means you're taking the wrong path). Other than the fact that there's no more solid walls blocking you from deviating during a race (other than the glowy neon signs pointing you to the next turn, or a big wall of SWAT vans blocking your way during pursuit races) the modes need no explanation, straightforward as they are.
For the Speed challenges (as I call them) they are a bit like classical "time trial" or "checkpoint race" where you are racing against time on your own. The difference now, is that it's not time based, but average speed based. You CAN now take a longer path around, if it means you can maintain your average speed, meaning, if a shortcut that's "off-road" can make you go faster, but if your car's equipped with Race tires (which slows down greatly off-road) you can go around the longer road way and keep the speed up. This is more tricky as the "gold" requirement can be quite high, and you need to keep your nitrous on at almost all times, and a traffic car at the end of the turn can cause you to CRASH and make you lose a LOT of your speed you've built up. This mode has caused a lot of rage quits or 20+ retries for me personally...
Pursuit Escapes, you can go anywhere you want. The objective is to escape the police that's chasing you as fast as you can. Depending on the heat level, this can be easy, and can be hard, also depending on where you are. If there's one of those "Gymkhana" Arenas around, they are the best place to go if you know your way around, (and not crash) as the police tend to get stuck at one jump or another tunnel, etc. Easiest way to lose them is either speed, or tricky path with a lot of obstacles. There is however a high risk you'll crash as well, but that's the part of the biggest challenge. After entering cooldown, you can do 1 of 2 things: (you can't swap cars, as it's during a race event and none are available to be picked up) go somewhere the police will surely not come, and will not see you when passing by, and stop... until engine shuts off (about 15 seconds I believe?!) or find a repair shop, and go through it back and forth. You can also do it the classic way of driving around until the heat level drops to 0, but that may take some time and there's always more risk of bumping into a police vehicle along the way.
The last type is the Most Wanted Challenges. You go on a 1vs1 hot pursuit sprint, where you need to finish the race before your opponent, and if you win, have the chance to chase him in open world and "take him down" by wrecking him, to win his car. A bit like in Undercover.
The biggest gripes I have with almost all racing modes is the rubber banding... MANY times, I crash 200m from the Finish, and the other racers just zoom by, even though I had a BIG lead since earlier in the race. The other is how your car loses control a lot of times from a simple nudge... then CRASH!!! The nudging and loss of control are something to get used to, but sometimes it's not so easy to avoid traffic because of it. It also seems the faster you go, the less sensitive your steering become... which causes a LOT of headache in that Speed challenge (as you HAVE to go fast! until a traffic just so happens to come into your way, and there's almost no way of avoiding it... RESTART!)
Before every race, there's this artistic and abstract rendering of the city and cars. They are very cool and interesting the first time you watch (if you're into those kind of things), but on more annoying races you have to restart, you'd want to skip them ... a lot. It's a shame because they are kind of neat, compared to other "before race" animations in other racing games...
Oh, and I've noticed, there's not a single race from a standing start... it's all rolling starts.
The Collectibles
I've talked about this briefly in the Game Mechanics section before, but I want to go a bit into more detail.
For a lot of games, this is a thing where you hate it or love it, or cheat it out (with a map, or video guide) simply for completion's sake. (Intels, skulls, trophies, treasures, blow up dolls, money stashes, shrines etc mostly in FPS or TPS adventure and open world sandbox games, almost all of them with shooting involved...) A lot of the times, it's nearly impossible to find ALL of them by yourself, a guide of somesort is almost always required (for completion's sake, or to get that platinum trohpy, or that big achievement)
It is a bit different in Most Wanted's case.
There are mainly 4 types. Only 1 of them is simply "find it", and that is the gates. You find gates to "restricted area" that you can crash through as you find more areas with stunts and jumps and open broken down factory or airplane graveyard or construction site. Autolog keeps a record of how many you crash through, but that's it.
The second are the cars and their pick-up locations. There may not be more than 50 cars, but there are over 100 pick up locations. I think there are some cars I haven't managed to find yet, and some of them are really well hidden, or hard to reach. Those are only recorded as numbers as well, but at least you can "do things" with them... namely, DRIVE, which is the main point of the game.
Then there's the speed cameras, where not only does it track how many you've found, but how fast you've blasted through them. If you're highly competitive, Autolog will cause you to try going back and forth between a same stretch of road a LOT of times, trying to beat that other person that consistently beats you at everything... (not just races) so you MAY consider them as "small races" to compete on.
Finally, there's the Burnout inspired billboard crashing jumps. There are a LOT (obviously) and they record how far you have jumped. For that to happen, you HAVE to hit and break the boards. There is 1 jump where you easily fly over them and jump very far but it won't register. It also only registers if you land successfully and not "crash". You can tell if you have hit the board before or is new, by looking at what's on it. if it has your friend or your "avatar" with a "WANTED" sign then you've already registered that jump. If it has any of the EA's affiliated studio's logo (being EA itself, BioWare, DICE, etc) then it's a new jump, or it's a failed attempt (there are a few that I simply cannot land properly to register... they are quite fun and challenging to be honest) and will also make you retry a LOT of times in order to beat your friend by that 1 meter.
I constantly complain that I'm not THAT social and I don't like to compete too much, so I tend to avoid multiplayer games but sometimes, I find myself really trying hard to beat that 1 guy that ALWAYS seems to be ahead of me... Autolog is successful in this regard, it puts all the competitive stats right there, nagging you to try and beat your friends, and 1-up them. Especially on those that you arrive REALLY close and KNOW you can beat them, if you do slightly better... If you are the type that wants to always be the best, then fear not, you will be spending a LOT of time re-running races, re-trying that 1 jump, only to stay on top of your Autolog list...
About Multiplayer, there's another type of collectibles: License Plates. They are a bit like dogtags in Battlefield 3 or banners in CoD games, where by achieving certain objectives, you get to unlock a License Plate background (and you can customize the wordings) that shows up when a player gets knocked out by you. Nothing much else to say about this...
Multiplayer
I've just said I'm not that competitive, except on a few things, and that I tend to avoid multiplayers... BUT this is one of those exceptions.
Multiplayer in this game is very fun!
Regardless of the reason you refuse to play multiplayer, you REALLY HAVE to TRY it at least once! It's a completely different experience.
Rather than considering it as a "racing" game, it's more a lobby of a bunch of people with cars and have fun doing wacky and random things OTHER than ONLY racing. Events are varied and plentiful and interesting. If you're looking for the classic hardcore racing experience, you will find almost none here (unless you start the lobby and choose which events you want yourself, then you can pick the old boring "race" every time... seriously, go back to playing Shift and GT5 and Forza and GRID if you want it so much, there's no place for "serious" racing here in Most Wanted!)
First of all it doesn't follow the singlplayer progression. All the cars you have found, taken down, and mods unlocked aren't available right off the bat, while some you haven't found are there. They are separated in a few categories, from Raceday, to Supercar, to GT, to SUV/Truck. Each category have 1 car already unlocked but you get more as you play. (some I hear are never available in singleplayer, but not sure which ones yet)
The mods also unlocks differently, as you do more things with each car (knock down racers, draft, airtime, etc) and even the paint for the car is unlock-based, as you start with only 1 colour initially.
As you enter a lobby, you'll eventually be greeted with a SpeedList, a series of 5 events that each differ in type, restriction, and location. Restrictions are "car classes" and there's option for "No Restriction" as well. But you can have some funny combinations with restrictions... such as a speed test with SUVs, or some very "knocky" challenges with Raceday or Exotics or Supercars (in general, squishy cars, that gets destroyed easily) Each event's objective is displayed on the bottom of the screen called "ticker" that scrolls through, explaining what to do.
Before each event, there's the Meet Up, where you have to get to the location specified on the map. SpeedPoints is recorded on everything you do, from the stat. You get points as you knock people out (you can do it at ANY parts of the lobby, during races, events, between events, before meetups, during meetups, etc for the sole sake gaining SpeedPoints... and trolling other players), by being the first to meet ups, and by completing events, or winning them. At the end of all 5 events, the total points are tallied up to see who's the Grand Winner. A new SpeedList is then generated and the whole process starts again. You can be in a lobby for a LOOONG span of time without realizing how much of it has passed.
There are generally 4 types: Challenge, Speed Test, Race and Team Race.
Challenge is a sort of cooperative event where everyone have to complete a set objective. It can range from drift x meters in a certain area to jump a total of x distance from a ramp, to even crazy ones like jump over x cars in total (but this one is hard to coordinate without a good group of friends, as everyone tend to just drive around all the time... and jumping "over" is a totally random thing... whereas a well coordinated group of drivers will line up under a ramp and another go over them all in 1 try, going over 5-6 cars) and "stand on top of (something) for a total of x seconds" Of course, it's also ranked, and people being their competitive self, try to ruin others' attempt at completing them, by ramming people off the jumps, or knocking them out of their path, or just stand in the middle of a ramp to stop them.
Speed Test usually involves a lot of jumping over things. Some are distance based, and some are destination based. One of them was to jump onto the multi storey parking garage accross the street by jumping off a double-circular monument. It's a LOT harder than it sounds. There was also the "fastest" past a speed camera event I was in yesterday. A few of the events, you can be disqualified if you wreck, so some people will try to troll by simply knocking others out. But in the end, it's just fun and giggles, laugh it out, take revenge if you feel like, and simply have some fun times doing these wacky things.
Team Race is just as it sounds, you're separated into 2 teams and race each other to the finish. You can "spot" opponent team's cars and obviously team up to take them down. (try not to take your own team down however) Opponents are marked in orange tags and team mates are silver-blue. Nothing much else to say here, other than that it's the same check point type race you're used to in singleplayer, only with the addition of more aggressive drivers, and NO RUBBER BAND!!! but a Crash will still cost you a LOT so be careful... You can end up dead last even if you were way ahead... and make sure to hit the checkpoints, or else you'd have to go all the way back and lose all the lead.
Race, is simply Team Race, but you're on your own. The fun part about Race events that differs from other racing games, is that not only can you wreck other people's cars during the race, after you finished (one of the firsts) you can go backwards and annoy the hell out of slower players but causing head-on collisions, or simply blocking their way *more trolling*
Trolling and all is fun but I hope one won't get bullied by being ganged up on by everyone else. So far, I've found that it's also fun trying to avoid trolls attempting to knock you out, and seeing them miss and crash head-first into a wall instead.
All in all, the MOST fun I've had with cars in many years!
It's REALLY worth a try. You might not like the concept when you hear about it until you really try it out. Trolling and anti-trolling, wacky events, and random babies crying in the background of a player who never turns off their microphone are all part of the big fun!
I think this is about it for everything I wanted to cover about the game.
In the end, I'm enjoying it a LOT, and I feel like playing it for quite some time simply because of the amazingly entertaining multiplayer.
For the TL;DR crowd:
Pros: Graphics, Sounds, Multiplayer <= GOTTA try it!, extremely fun! and if you're looking for an arcade game with cars just to have lots and lots of fun driving around, doing big impossible jumps and crashes, and can't forget the quite decent pursuit chases, you'll LOVE it. The big variety of car selection is very interesting as well.
Cons: Singleplayer is indeed shallow. I hate to admit it but after you've found most cars, everything else you do is just a repeat of what you've done and gets VERY repetitive. The chases, although getting more challenging and fun later, is very easy and boring at the start... and there's no real penalty for getting busted, so you tend to not try AS hard. The handling of the cars will take a while to get used to and are heavy. You easily lose control with a little nudge from other cars, and the EVER SO ANNOYING CRASH!!! The carlist, although very varied, is still quite small... there are a LOT of cars I hoped were in the game (Aston Martin DBS, BMW M5, new M6, FERRARIS!!! < (probably because of licensing) etc to name a few off the top of my head)
Verdict:
Graphics 9.5/10
Sound 9.5/10
Gameplay 8.5/10
Multiplayer 10/10
Handling 8/10
Replayability 8/10 (singleplayer 6, multiplayer 10)
Overall (not an average) 9/10