Review by: Jeff Burke
Published: January 9th, 2005

Simply put, history has always been cyclic. What was once popular, but since faded out of the limelight will one day return. I heard a story from my Grandfather about his custom 32 Ford, with the first V-8 or my father, who would be more then happy to tell me about his old “souped up” who-knows-what, with its canary yellow paint job and black racing stripes. Today, I shouldn’t even need to tell you about the craze that is street racing and cashing in on the import racing phenomena, Electronic Arts delivered a pair of best selling titles under the successful Need for Speed Underground moniker. In order to prevent the franchise from becoming too repetitive, EA has decided to change things up a bit by adding the police aspect previously found only in the Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit titles. In a nutshell, Need for Speed: Most Wanted combines the street racing ideals of visual and performance modifications of Underground with the escape and chase features of Pursuit.

The game starts you off with quite a sweet ride, a BMW M3 already fully tricked out to get you the top of the Black List. Only while challenging Razor, you manage to have a little engine trouble and ultimately lose your car to him. After some unusually styled FMV sequences that introduce you to the various characters in the game, you begin Career Mode where you unlock, upgrade, and purchase cars to further advance the ranks and also for possible later use in the Multiplayer aspect of Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

In the Career mode, you must work your way through the Black List of 15 racers who stand between you and Razor, who has not only snagged your tricked out BMW M3, but has used it to take over the first place spot on the list. Making it to Razor is tricky as there are three different types of events that stand between you and challenging the next of the 15 total Black List members; Races, Milestones, and Bounty. Races are your generic sprint and circuit style runs, returning from Need for Speed: Underground. Milestones and bounty go hand-in-hand as part of the new Need for Speed: Pursuit tie-in. You will get a list of things to do like trade paint with five cruisers, total three cruisers, or evade police in less than five minutes. The bounty is a value equivalent to the amount of damage done, the time spent evading, and the cost to the state all compiled together as simply “bounty”.

Upon beating a rival in the Black List, you have the two chances to walk away with their car in the form of your rewards for winning. With three random prizes and a unique visual graphic, a performance upgrade, and new body part you have the choice of spending both of those on the random or snagging the unique upgrades that are only available this once. Going the random route, you can snag an extra $10k, a get out of jail free card, or the pink slip-if you are in need of a new car, then bet it all would be your best bet.