The comparison to Paradise is unavoidable. The sprawling highways and city streets, the industrial parks and massive jumps, all those delightfully crushable billboards and security gates to the side of the road: This is Burnout Paradise 2 in everything but name. As first impressions go, though, the one made by Most Wanted is misleading. It does indeed take itself too seriously, but it is a beautiful and deeply fun machine all the same — the opposite side of Paradise’s coin.
Take It Easy
Before talking about the game’s vehicles, it’s important to talk about Most Wanted’s most distinguishing feature: EasyDrive. Criterion has sloughed off the baby fat that made Burnout Paradise’s beautiful bay and surrounding hills difficult to navigate. No more getting lost on your way back to the start of an event you want to retry and no more hunting for the car you need for a specific race right when you need it.
Even the game’s odd geographic rules for the cars don’t muddle it too much. Picking a new car sends you off to where you discovered its Jack Point on the map, potentially on the other side of the world from your current location (Most Wanted’s crime theme is pretty loose, having you boost cars in the wild, but since there are no pedestrians in Fairhaven it feels a little silly). I only found that I needed to change cars so I’d have a better machine for a Most Wanted race I’d already lost, so it’s not a huge annoyance.
Incredible Machine
There are ten Most Wanted races in the game, and those are the heart of the campaign. Most cars are discovered tucked away in Fairhaven’s dark corners, and most of your time is spent searching for them then playing their five events. These break down into circuit races on a looped course, sprints on a single path, sprints where you have to keep a high average speed, and escape the cops events. Provided you win, you’re awarded with upgrades (nitrous boosts, lighter chassis, off road wheels, etc.) and Speed Points. Once you have enough Speed Points on your profile, you get to take on the top ten Most Wanted cars; rich man’s machines from Lexus, Mercedes, Lamborghini, and others. You race these machines in a car of your choice — it really needs to be fully upgraded for you to prevail — while avoiding increasingly aggressive cop cars and blockades. Beat it, then take it down to add the car to your roster.
It’s marvelously addictive and more varied than it seems at first look. Sampling exotic cars like a Porsche 911 and an Audi R8 Spyder before taking on the Most Wanted makes it feel like all the races for each car are the same, but hop into stocky beasts like the Lancia Delta HF Integrale and you’ll find the sprint races transformed into jump-filled rallies across construction sites and train tracks. There’s always something new to do, even if it’s just cruising around, hunting for new cars.
Sexy sterility is Need For Speed Most Wanted’s bag in every regard really. When you’re introduced to a race and one of the Most Wanted cars, it’s through an arty short with weird camera angles and effects like a car being sucked out of what looks like white paint, glimmering as it emerges like a Playboy centerfold for engineers. When you got a new car in Burnout Paradise, it plopped down in your garage like a dirty heap of parts.
Autolog, Multiplayer, and Vita
But wait! There’s more to Most Wanted than the console and PC game’s core! Special mention needs to be made of the PS Vita version of the game. Criterion itself made the portable version of Most Wanted, but “portable version” is something of a misnomer in this case. Most Wanted Vita is the exact same game — same city, same cars, same races — as the one on Xbox 360, PC, and PlayStation 3, plus a smattering of exclusive races to boot. Everything said above holds true, but the Vita version of the game does lay bear how great the racing truly is.
The primary difference between it and the console versions is the look of Fairhaven. The cars are almost just as glossy, but the environment has been stripped of the textures, lighting, and particle effects (sparks, etc.) that make the console versions such spectacles. It doesn’t look bad. Far from it. The Vita city simply looks much simpler. The game doesn’t suffer for it. All the things that make Most Wanted good are preserved and it’s one more precious essential for Sony’s handheld.
You will also have complete access to your ranking and roster of cars in multiplayer. Multiplayer in Most Wanted includes a variety of unique events as well as the race types seen in the campaign. Competing and winning earns points, which raises your level, which in turn unlocks new cars to use when playing with friends. This being Autolog-specific info, multiplayer is ready to go on both platforms provided you use the same accounts.
Conclusion
Need For Speed Most Wanted is Burnout Paradise’s equal. The driving is pristine and primal, the drifts succulent and the crashes shocking, just as it always is in Criterion’s drivers. The crisp efficiency of EasyDrive makes Most Wanted a more direct game than its predecessor, a boon for achievement-oriented players, but there’s no sense of messy freedom and goofiness here. A winking DJ Atomika doesn’t compliment the greasy pop soundtrack. You can’t press in the analog sticks to suddenly cause a massive pile up on the highway, crashing for points. It’s a matter of taste. Do you prefer the fantasy of the beach or the cool logic of the city grid? If you lean toward the latter, Most Wanted is your game.
Score: 8.5 out of 10
(This game was reviewed using PlayStation 3 and PS Vita copies provided by Electronic Arts)