Hello guys, I'd really like to start a discussion with you on what you think of the game.

Here are my thoughts:

• Very good graphics but I have the same problem with the sun that I have with BF3s sun, it's too powerful!
• There is no story, no tuning, no money to earn, no enemies.
• The driving part of the game is really well done but the cars feel like are made of butter, like the Burnout ones (Criterion, couldn't you make the cars indestructible like they once were?)
• The world feels empty.
• Only 5 real races per car.
• No real point for the single player.

In conclusion, for me it's a very big disappointment and would like to hear the opinions of other people.

Edit: To make sure no one misunderstands my thoughts, I'm not saying this is a bad game I'm only saying that for me it's not what I expected from a game with "Most Wanted" in the title.

how can the driving be really well done if the cars feel like they are made out off butter or do you mean they melt when they get warm?

@Bell_End: What I mean is, the handling, acceleration and the cars movement feels good and all, but at the minimum impact with anything you crash, just like the Burnout games. In the old "tuning era" NFS it was much more arcade-like and even if you crashed the game didn't stop every damn time.

@NimbusLaw said:

@Bell_End: What I mean is, the handling, acceleration and the cars movement feels good and all, but at the minimum impact with anything you crash, just like the Burnout games. In the old "tuning era" NFS it was much more arcade-like and even if you crashed the game didn't stop every damn time.

so the butter is more like magerine then

i liked the burnout games so im ok with that

I gotta say I'm not a fan of the handling. I only played 2 hours so maybe the first few cars are just shitty, but they felt way too heavy. Also there's like 50 people living in this city apparently.

But the most disappointing aspect is how lifeless the whole thing felt in that first session. The emptiness of the city has something to do with it I would assume but what I mean is that game has a serious lack of personality. Again, only from what I've seen which is not that much. I don't think a dumb story like the original Most Wanted had would've made this game a hundred times better but at least come up with some names for the top 10 guys, don't make me race "car number 10" and try to make me think it's somehow more significant than the 15 races I've been on just before that.

Kind of a bummer. I hope it gets better.

I don't feel in complete control of the cars when driving. It feels like they gain a certain momentum which takes control away from the player -- and it feels like shit. Not impressed really.

I just want to say that I really like the idea that NFS can be divided into different eras. 
"The Arcade Era" 
"The Tuning Era" 
"The Burnout Era" 

I haven't got to play it yet but I remember one of the biggest complaints about NFS: Hot Pursuit was that the cars felt heavy and inertial. I complained too, but then it clicked one day and now I'm actually happy to hear this game keeps the heavy cars.

After playing this game for a good 6 hours now, I have to say that I did not expect them to take queues from Ridge Racers. The game feels like it controls half way between Hot Pursuit and a Ridge Racer game. I enjoy it in circuits which I think this game actually does better than Hot Pursuit but evading cop missions are just bad. No getting around it, they're just punitively difficult. Not only do the cops rubberband but they will rubberband then stay right behind you, there is no way to allow them to catchup and then perform a takedown. Maybe there is something I'm missing but since they're so punitive, I just don't do those missions.

That said, I'm really enjoying the circuits.

Since this leaked I have heard more negative than positive comments about this game - totally contrary to the buzz that the game had, which was esentially "OMG Burnout Paradise 2!"

I suspect the reviews will be all over the range.

If this plays anything like Hot Pursuit I will be extremely happy. That is all.

I've also been playing for a couple of hours now, and while I like the driving I really don't like the progression system. For instance, I found the Gallardo really early and completed its five events (resulting in a fully-upgraded Gallardo) and really enjoyed completing them and also just cruising around the world. Only after this did I actually realise there were only five events to complete, and that I now had to switch to a much inferior car (and completely non-upgraded, no NOS -- nothing) and essentially grind five more events to get enough points for the next Most Wanted race.

As it turns out, nothing really beats the Gallardo until around I think 5 or 6th most wanted, so you're stuck grinding these "inferior" cars until that point. And even then, you'll only really get one more "good" car per rank, meaning you have to level from scratch at least one other "bad" car --- which really isn't very fun to me.

Also, even these "better" cars are rarely better than the best fully-upgraded one you have, so its still somewhat of downgrade after each rank until you get some of the more essential upgrades.

I loved Hot Pursuit once I got the drift down, it just felt natural and fun to see these cars just carve down the street.

@x86: Exactly what I experienced myself. The fully upgraded 911 I have is far more superior to anything I've found till now. And only 5 event per car is not really fun. The Most wanted chases aren't really funny either.

@Others: I liked Hot Pursuit to and I'm still playing it. I liked it because it was a similar to the old HP games. This isn't at all similar to the old Most Wanted game.

Seems like this game's turning out to be a real bummer. Everything I've heard this far has been either negative or just kinda meh. Even Jeff who was super into the game pre-launch has been kinda chilly on the game in the couple of tweets in which he's implying that people should wait till the Quicklook and review are out before buying the game. 
 
I don't see why this game had to be called NFS Most Wanted. Seems like it has nothing to do with anything that made the first Most wanted what it is. Car customization is nonexistent and the cheesy street race goodness isn't there. I wonder if it's just going to be Criterion's thing to rip-off the old NFS names and rebrand them as their own games that are all kinda similar. I wonder if we'll see NFS Underground in a couple of years. 
 
E: well now that the review is out, maybe Jeff wasn't so disappointed after all. I still don't see the connection to Most Wanted here and to a person who doesn't like online racing games (me for example) it seems kinda like a shitty deal.

Sounds like this would have been a 3 star game for Jeff were it not for the multiplayer. I'll stick with re-playing Hot Pursuit for the time being.

Played for a couple hours. My biggest issue thus far is PC performance. I am on a GTX 670, i5 750 OCed...basically I exceed the Recommended. Performance is all over the place, for no real noticeable reason. The game seems to dislike tunnels and dirt. Regardless of how much I lower the settings, there are still awkward FPS hits throughout. There is a neogaf thread that goes into more detail with all of this. The city feels cold. Empty. Maybe this is because I was too annoyed with the performance. No direction. I understand the mechanics of the game, but there is never really any drive to necessarily do anything, it seems. I miss the typical "You finished these challenges, X amount more are now unlocked." This game has a weird "You found this car, here are 5 challenges!" I don't know. I like some freedom, but this is a bit too much. Cops. Jeff is right. The one aspect I was almost looking forward to the most is kinda annoying. Losing the cops is an exercise in frustration at times. And they detect you at awkward times. One time I'm pretty sure I was just parked and they started flashing at me. I don't know. I'm pretty bummed about the PC performance. Hopefully my attitude will change on a lot of this once I actually enjoy running the game. As a owner of both Horizon and this...I'm shocked to say that so far I prefer Horizon. Edit: Man, this crappy work browser does not like paragraphs. Sorry.

@xMrSunshine said:

Seems like this game's turning out to be a real bummer. Everything I've heard this far has been either negative or just kinda meh. Even Jeff who was super into the game pre-launch has been kinda chilly on the game in the couple of tweets in which he's implying that people should wait till the Quicklook and review are out before buying the game. I don't see why this game had to be called NFS Most Wanted. Seems like it has nothing to do with anything that made the first Most wanted what it is. Car customization is nonexistent and the cheesy street race goodness isn't there. I wonder if it's just going to be Criterion's thing to rip-off the old NFS names and rebrand them as their own games that are all kinda similar. I wonder if we'll see NFS Underground in a couple of years. E: well now that the review is out, maybe Jeff wasn't so disappointed after all. I still don't see the connection to Most Wanted here and to a person who doesn't like online racing games (me for example) it seems kinda like a shitty deal.

I agree I dont see why criterion is stealing all the names from the good Need for Speed games., they were great games no need to remake them open world need for speed has been terrible ever since you couldn't put decals and subwoofers in your boot, thats why NFS Underground 2 was so good.

So it wasn't only me, I fought the bad frame rate was because of my setting (GTX 570 + Unlocked Athlon B50x4 @4Ghz) but it seems people with much more powerful setup have problems as well. Bad port and horrible Single Player, played it a little bit more since the original post and my opinion hasn't changed.

Damn, this doesn't sound all that great, almost regretting my pre-order now.

If you're buying this game for a NFS:MW experience, this game probably isn't for you. If you're buying this game for a Burnout: Paradise experience this game is maybe for you, kind of? It's a weird game. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I haven't tried multiplayer yet so hopefully that will bring my opinion of the game up some. The thing I like the least about it is the cops. The game would straight up be a better game without them. They aren't fun to deal with at all.

They did at least fix my biggest problem with Burnout: Paradise. In that game I would either miss the little road sign that came up telling you where to turn, or not react in time for them. I ended up constantly pausing the game and having to look at the map. It broke the game almost entirely for me. They do a good job at positioning the checkpoints in this game in such a way that it's always obvious when you have to turn. And when there might be some slight confusion, big green arrows. Though for the most part they aren't needed.

@NimbusLaw said:

So it wasn't only me, I fought the bad frame rate was because of my setting (GTX 570 + Unlocked Athlon B50x4 @4Ghz) but it seems people with much more powerful setup have problems as well. Bad port and horrible Single Player, played it a little bit more since the original post and my opinion hasn't changed.

Turn the shadows down. I get 60fps now.

Like Jeff, I absolutely loved Burnout Paradise. It's painfully obvious to a BP fan that this game is not that game. Some of it may have been influenced by the inclusion of real car licenses - less cosmetic damage being the only one that we can be sure about. Super jumps are sorely missed, as are stunt runs. Is this game just races? Note that some of my complaints are in comparison to the updated version of Burnout; I know neon billboards and classical music while driving were added post-release.

You don't realize what you have until it's gone. Much of this was touched upon in Jeff's review and the Quick Look. After doing a few circuit races, I see how boring they are to me. Looking at Paradise, the appeal of their races was improvising your own route. Somehow, the route-giving system in this is worse than Burnout's, and that was one of the only complaints against that game. BP had a tiny map in the corner and the street signs on top of the screen. Both weren't great because Criterion wanted the player to learn the city and come up with their own routes. It led to me just looking at the map at the start and planning out my route, which was cool in its own way. NFS omits the street signs and leaves you with the tiny map. During checkpoint races, you can look at checkpoints in the physical world. Those work okay but not well.

And the races weren't even close to the highlight of Burnout. Stunt runs,

boosting,

DJ Atomika, better music (this one is too heavy on modern music and omits classical music and girlfriend), scenery, and lighting were all better in BP. This game looks horribly grey. Maybe it's because my PC can't handle all the fancy effects. Then again, it looks pretty grey in the trailers and quick looks. The sun, as already mentioned, is blinding, as are the speed cameras.

The lame single player is a major failure. I got 100% completion in Burnout without ever playing multiplayer. I had one XBL friend that had played the game much earlier than I and I competed for Road Rules with him. Though he didn't fight back, I still had a blast playing 95% without human interaction. Unlocking cars was fun in Burnout. Doing Most Wanted races is decidedly not fun. (I should've known the MW races would've included the fucking cops. Cops do not add anything to this game.)

You have to unlock boost on every single car. The one thing that makes Burnout unique needs to be unlocked. You can only play six races as your favorite car before you jump off to some other bullshit. I switched cars in Burnout every few unlocks until I got to the Watson R-Turbo / Burnout Roadster. I stuck with that until the GT Concept / Flame some 40 cars later. I can't imagine being forced to play with a pick-up truck in a game about speed.

Is there anything comparable to the Northwestern corner of Burnout in NFS? I haven't played NFS enough to know. All I know is that the train bridges were awesome. So are jumps. So was the quarry.

I and many others hoped this would be Burnout in everything but name. It seems closer to "Need for Speed in everything but developer and fun."

I for one am really enjoying this game, the driving feels amazing if nothing else, and also something else: the online is good. Single player has issues but im still liking it. Not sure why people are having performance, its buttery smooth at max everything, 2560x1440, on my GTX570 and i7 920. I wish the world were bigger and there were no/fewer cops though.

So far, yeah, i'm really disappointed Eventually you find a car you actually like and go gold with it which then puts you in a position to actively pick a car you're less thrilled about only for the sake of getting new cars from the most wanted list. add to a lot of design choices that get under my skin ( can't select the menu for moments after an event, can't skip boring crash scenes, warp out of your way when changing cars) The design just doesn't feel as snappy as it should for an arcade game.

Cop chases are pointless and as Jeff said in the QL it's easier and faster to just get busted.

But i'm still waiting to get more experience in multiplayer. currently the public game i jumped into seems broken, everybody at the meet up but the event won't trigger and the "relocate players" timer is at "0s" so the multiplayer isn't thrilling me since i'm unable to even play it.

I'm playing the PC version by the way.

@pepperzz said:

If this plays anything like Hot Pursuit I will be extremely happy. That is all.

yes

Ok, so someone tell me if I'm wrong about this and missing something stupid. I hope I am.

I'm playing on PC, and in multiplayer I'm not seeing any indication of who is talking. There's also no "mute all" button or an option to turn down volume for the people talking. There's not even a master volume slider so you can only turn down SFX and music. Mic volume is unaffected by both these options of course. So when someone is being too loud or obnoxious I have to stop driving, and go through their clunky menu person by person until I find the one I want to mute. This is how it works right? I feel like I have to at least be missing the thing that tells me who is talking in game.

Just watched the Gametrailers review. I love that at 4:50 when they're looking at the auto-log the only friend name on there is GiantBombing

Have I understood this correctly: there are only five races per car, plus ten "Most Wanted" races that can be attempted with any car? Because if so, that's terrible. The way I played Burnout Paradise was I found one car I really, really liked and stuck with it regardless of the event type, and I was planning to do the same thing in Most Wanted.

I'll add some of my thoughts

--Lens flares are once again overdone for a ea game, and i would maybe say the dust effect on "harder" races is overdone in couple ive done where We're on the road and the cars are still throwing up trails.

--I like running from cops but the need to do it almost everytime you finish a race is pretty annoying, sometimes i like to run, other times i just wanna move on to the next race,

--Cops random spawning on the road in front of you seems more aggressive. you get away from the group behind you and BAM, more in front of you, the cooldown though each level of heat takes forever.

--The fast travel system by jumping to car locations around the world just annoys me,

cars feel suitably weighty, for instance the ford GT40 feels much more prone to carry its momentum into the corners than the ariel atom but its taking me a while to get used to not playing it just like burnout

@Barrabas: i've searched high and low for the answers, i got nothin...it's shitty design choice but yeah, the only option is to mute EVERYONE in the hopes that you mute the one player who's making all the noise.

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Need-for-Speed-Most-Wanted/how-do-i-mute-my-mic-for-multiplayer-im-using-a-laptop/td-p/153890

This game has gone from my most anticipated of the year to possibly my most hated. Everything is an exercise in patience and frustration. And every crash (AND THERE ARE LOTS OF THEM) are simply annoying, due to the fact that nothing ever looks devastating. It worked great in Burnout. Not so much here. Hoping DLC injects a lot of Single Player offerings into the mix...but at the same time I don't want to pay for it.

Multiplayer is fun when everything clicks. But waiting for fools to get to the Meet Up is awful. And trying to utilize the D-Pad menu (whatever that thing is called) when you are constantly being ran into, thus canceling what you were doing, is frustrating. Happen once...well, a dozen times on one occasion, but it was unpleasant.

I don't know...I don't know...

I love it. Driving around Colorado is the greatest thing.

Oh, wait. Sorry, wrong game.

Fuck. Kinda wishing I bought Forza instead instead of this.

@Sin4profit: Oh well. At least I know it's not just me missing something obvious now.

Man, after reading this thread, I wish they allowed multiplayer free ride (like in career mode) in NFS: Hot Pursuit. That would be rad.

Didn't expect to find so many people with so many problems with this game!

It's not a bad game, multiplayer seems fun and there surely will be someone who likes it very much. Probably I was expecting something else and didn't inform myself well on what this game was about.

And I want to buy a console now just to try out Forza Horizon, it seems so much better and on what I want from a racing game right now.

@murisan I turned them off and the frames improved a lot, but not seeing a single bit of shadow is just ugly! Hope they fix it up soon :S

A few thoughts...

- If you're a casual racing fan who likes to get a game each year with the Need For Speed branding, this game is totally fine. It's only if you've spent a lot of time with either Burnout Paradise or Hot Pursuit (or both) that the nitpicking and heavy sighs wearily emerge. This game is not as good as either of those, but it's certainly an interesting attempt at taking what worked in both and trying to make a whole new thing out of it. Long story short? This is not Burnout Paradise 2, nor does it really need to be. (But if it was!)

- First things first, count me in amongst those that don't care for how you select cars or for the game's progression model. In theory, having to level up each car through a series of races fixes the problem in Burnout Paradise, where most players would find one car that they liked and mainline that while ignoring the rest of their options. Most Wanted forces you to at least get through a few races with every vehicle, but they mostly play and control the same. Sure, heavier cars feel different than lighter ones, but that you need to grind through the same progression with every vehicle just feels redundant, and almost like they're copying race content from one car to the next.

- This brings up my biggest issue so far: Locking boost behind the first race is a hassle, and a huge annoyance. There's nothing like tearing up the streets in a leveled-up ride, only to get to jack a new car and be back at level one. The Burnout games have always been about liberal boosting, but now you have to finish in first 123 times to get access to it. It's annoying and it doesn't feel right.

- Also bothersome are the police chases, which add nothing to the open world experience. Again, it's the sort of decision that probably seemed obvious when designing the game, ("Well, we have to have police!"), but in practice takes you out of the action rather than engaging you in it. Here's the thing: I'm fine with the police presence in races. It adds an extra challenge and it's neat to be racing against them and the other competitors. But it's not fun to drive around the city in circles and eventually wait for your cooldown meter to slowly count down. Watching that blue meter drop is frustrating since I'd rather be doing anything else, like unlocking new cars, finding collectibles or going to start a race. I hate to say it, but the cops feel like padding to extend the activity in the single player progression.

- It's totally bogus that you can't access the menus immediately after finishing a race. Totally bogus!

- All that being said, I am having a lot of fun with the game, even if it doesn't seem to be the thing we thought we were promised. I've had no trouble with the handling, which seems to fall somewhere between Paradise and Hot Pursuit. I've never felt like I was fighting the car to make a turn or weave through traffic. Most of my crashes have been at my own fault. The competition feels fair, and takedowns are satisfying, even if nothing so far approaches the intensity of a Road Rage race from Paradise. Easy drive is fine, but it's a little weird that you can't quit out to a menu. The little bit of public multiplayer I played last night went great, until I was unceremoniously disconnected from the race.

- I like the map music a lot.

I like hunting down the Most Wanted cars, I think that is the most fun aspect of the game for me. I guess that's part of the Easy Drive mode. The cars I've found in that mode feels very identical to drive at least so far. You get the 4 or 5 upgrades possible for a car, and you move on to the next, racking up points to reach the threshold of points needed to face one of the Most Wanted guys. Having to crash into them after the actual race to take over their car is a nice touch.

Ugh, I feel so gutshot and heartbroken.

It's Criterion's Dragon Age 2.

Some people are really just jaded assholes. First RE6 and now this? These games are fun people, I don't know what your expectations were. It won't cure cancer but it will cure boredom. 

Well. it will be interesting to try out tomorrow, I don't think I'll dislike it as much as most people online seem to, or at least indicate, but the fact that there isn't any incentive to play Single Player (every car avaliable from the get-go sounds..... not fun, didn't know that until this week) and the police chases being bothersome (which I feared, since I normally dislike most police chases in games) has me worried, and I'm almost already regretting trading a bunch of games in to pre-order this, instead of something like XCOM; Sleeping Dogs, Dishonored, Far Cry 3, Forza: Horizon or even AC3.

If anything it reminds me of how much I love to interact with great looking cars. :) One of these days I need to get myself a proper wheel. My previous experience with racing cars was SHIFT 2 and I always played in cockpit view, I also loved the sound fx work in that game.

@DarthOrange said:

Some people are really just jaded assholes. First RE6 and now this? These games are fun people, I don't know what your expectations were. It won't cure cancer but it will cure boredom.

I'd say some people are aware that gaming is an expensive luxury and this game has a lot of preconceived notions for what you're about to get into coming from Criterion. This is why reviews and opinions exist...to be informative. People are far better off buying both Hot Pursuit AND Burnout Paradice both for less than this one watered down version of those superior games.

And for the record NFSMW didn't really cure boredom for me, and for others, but rather inflicted both boredom and frustration.

@DarthOrange said:

Some people are really just jaded assholes. First RE6 and now this? These games are fun people, I don't know what your expectations were. It won't cure cancer but it will cure boredom.

I'd say some people are aware that gaming is an expensive luxury and this game has a lot of preconceived notions for what you're about to get into coming from Criterion. This is why reviews and opinions exist...to be informative. People are far better off buying both Hot Pursuit AND Burnout Paradice both for less than this one watered down version of those superior games.

And for the record NFSMW didn't really cure boredom for me, and for others, but rather inflicted both boredom and frustration.

@DarthOrange: who's looking to videogames to change their personality?

A few thoughts on how this compares to Burnout Paradise:

• The multiplayer seems to encourage really dickish, aggresive behaviour in a way Burnout Paradise never did. Stuff like getting points for takedowns outside of races and the ability to be eliminated from score based events is just frankly not very fun.
• I guess it's to be expected in a Need for Speed game, but there's a distinct lack of personality compared to Burnout Paradise. I feel like this is probably due to the inclusion of licensed cars.
• The handling feels way heavier than in Burnout so there's less emphasis on tight manoeuvring through traffic, obstacles, etc. Also everything seems a bit more spaced out: wider streets, less tight windy offroad sections, etc.
• Some of the more ridiculous aspects of Paradise are missing here: the barrel rolls, flat-spins, over the top car damage and so on
• The multiplayer has totally made some improvements though. The whole idea of speedlists is great and results in less long drives around the game world to get to the next challenge. Also the way it warps slow or uncooperative players to the meetup is a godsend. However I miss the inclusion of Road Rules and the leaderboards for most barrel rolls, biggest jumps, etc. that would appear in Paradise.

Overall there is a lot I like about it and I'll probably play the hell out of it anyway, but it's not the Criterion racing game I wanted. I want them to do a new Burnout Paradise, take the stuff they were doing with some of the later DLC like Big Surf Island's sheer density and checkpoint based races and extrapolate on that. Make a Burnout Paradise 2 that fixes all the little flaws in the original whilst adding a new setting, Speedlist style chained challenges, better graphics, and a host of other improvements while still keeping that same personality.