Need For Speed: Most Wanted Hands On - Eurogamer 2012
I'll be honest, Burnout Paradise didn't do it for me. I enjoyed the concept but the execution was lacking. Need for Speed Hot Pursuit (the reboot) I loved so I was curious to see what exactly would happen when these two did the Fusion Dance.
Need for Speed Most Wanted is a the latest instalment in the long running Need For Speed franchise, the second of which is being produced by Criterion Games & a "reboot" of the 2005 Need For Speed title of the same name.
The new Most Wanted borrows a lot from Burnout Paradise, massive open map, take-downs jumps etc, ok its basically Burnout Paradise in a shiny new Need For Speed shell, Licensed Cars the works.
My hands on Demo was a 4 way competitive match with 3 events. I spawned in the open world and then got a notification to drive to the meet up. I was immediately relieved to see the mini-map has been massively improved as navigation in Paradise was always one of my personal hates. On the other hand the driving felt heavier, like I was driving through mud and if the Audi I was driving turned like a ship. Now this may just have been the PS3 controller I was using but I got the feeling the driving was meant to feel more "realistic" and is a far cry from the arcady driving of Hot Pursuit.
Once all 4 players arrived at the designated meeting point another message flashed on screen saying fastest time past a nearby speed camera wins. (A mode I remember from the original Most Wanted). There was a quick countdown and we got 60 seconds to score the fastest speed past the camera. I managed 150Km/h and won the even after suffering several head on collisions thanks to this new mud driving mechanic. Remember those slow-mo crash cam's that would trigger if you car even thought about crashing? Well they are back and Pro-Tip: Head on collisions are bad. Several times me and another player played chicken and for some reason every time I got a message saying he had taken me down, I would love to know what piece of maths buried in the code decides which one of the 2 cars speeding towards each other gets to be victor.
Our Second event was a straight forward race which I scraped in to second having gotten moderately use to the new steering, displaying the checkpoints in the field of view rather than just mapping out the route on the mini-map helps alot, except if you think you can take a short cut and end up missing a checkpoint, then you start wishing they would just close off the other routes and funnel you down the laid out course.
The final even was a "long jump" even in which the players got 2 minutes to score the longest jump. This is one I remember from Paradise but this time instead of saying "go jump your car really far" and then letting you look desperately for a nice ramp Most Wanted shows you "there is a jump, no go!"
Considering you are free to drive around between the jumps, if you are the current leader it is in you best interest to "prevent" your competitors from getting enough speed to beat your jump, too bad I figured this out only after getting pummelled by a guy in a red Mustang 3 times. In the end I came 3rd over all and left the Most Wanted stand a little more confused than when I arrived.
My personal feeling is that once you get use to the new "heavier" car handling and exactly how you can hit your competitors so you take them down and not the other way around this game will be a hell of a lot of fun, especially with 2 or 3 friends.
Originally Posted by JP'S
. Thanks to Kalahari I got R100 off my game and since it's due to arrive beginning of next month I'm Psyching myself up for it!!!
