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The main action is to be found in the career mode, during which you’re asked to tackle a mixture of races and police chases, in pursuit of the somewhat spurious title of ‘most wanted’ street-racer in the imaginary city of Rockport. (Frankly, it never seemed to make much sense to cast you as a bad-boy racer punk without ever having the possibility of getting into any trouble). Most Wanted represents a mish-mash of previous approaches, retaining the street-racing angle of Underground and its sequel (not, at the time of writing, covered on FFG) but adding the outlaw element from earlier entries in the series. While the presence of police chases isn’t exactly a guarantee of quality (see 2002’s mostly-ignored Hot Pursuit 2), nor does their absence result in a duff game (hello, Porsche 2000) it is what the series is known for, and by 2005 their return was long overdue. EA, on the other hand, haven’t always been able to decide whether the police should be in or out, removing and reinstating them to the series almost on a yearly basis. įor me, the fear of getting caught by the cops has always been what Need for Speed – or, indeed, any game involving racing on ‘real-life’ roads – is supposed to be about. But you don’t see that it’s an ambulance.
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On the other carriageway, an ambulance speeds towards an emergency. The next day, you get up and drive to work in your underpowered shitheap of a car. You go to bed and close your eyes, but the lights are still there – flickering in the dark, on and off, red, white and blue. All of a sudden, it might all be over, but you can’t relax until it definitely is – please, God, let there be no more chasing, no more roadblocks, no more sirens, no more lights.
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Finally – finally – you manage to lose them all for long enough to look for a hiding place. Once again, helpful walls of big yellow arrows direct you through each course.įast forward a few days, and you’re in the middle of a police chase during which you’ve been surrounded by extremely aggressive police and federal vehicles, sirens blazing and lights flashing, for the best part of 20 minutes.
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