Disappointing
To be clear this review comes from the PC side, the console experience maybe different as the autolog feature can add a lot so if you're like me and you have only a few people on Origin then autolog leaves a lonely void on you.
With that said, the single player is boring. It seems like it should be pointed out that if you're looking for a single player arcade style game avoid this one at all costs and just buy Hot Pursuit.
It's hard to even know where to start with what i feel is wrong with this game.
Fuck da Police
So lets talk about the value of the Police in the game. The police only have one real event forcing you to ditch the cops and recording your time to do so, outside of that they'll show up in yet another race to act as a nuisance but really they just feel like an after thought, an obligation to throw into a game called "Most Wanted" and when you're free roaming it's a far better solution to just let youself get busted so you can move on to the next event The lack of a Cops Vs Racers in multiplayer is a sleazy obvious omission so they can add it later as DLC.
On The Track
...And that's exactly what it is, "a track" which is fine for the most part but ared by poor design decisions throughout this game. The level design; you know that dirt road that in every other racing game is a shortcut, well here it maybe a road that leads you astray from you next checkpoint forcing you to U-turn and tag the checkpoint before you can continue to the next forcing you to wonder why they made this an open world game if they're just going to force you onto this path.
Despite that, it isn't a horrible idea to have a check to check race but it's made horrible by poor communication in the game's UI, i've seen check markers that were vaguely between a split road and have been unfortunate enough to take the wrong road in the split. Normally in these games you have a big green wall of arrows pointing you to the right path and REJOICE, it has that wall of arrows...it's just not sure when it should use it which makes having the wall even worse as you plow head long onto the wrong road assuming since you saw no wall that you, at the very least, could connect back to the track on a different path. Think again, you have to go back to that last check point.
The Cars
The handling in the cars from the beginning have that heavy arcade feeling. Not light and responsive as in Burnout and i remember enjoying the handling in Hot Pursuit much more, you then discover you much win races to mod your car to be less shitty which is easy enough to do. You also crash, a lot, which is a mechanic that seems devised solely to justify the "make your car sturdier" mods which will lower your overall speed in most cases.
Unfortunately when you find a car that you like to play with you can max out it's usefulness into the overall "become the most wanted" conceit that drives the single player experience.
This Most Wanted event is the only part of the game that lets you freely choose a car you want to drive. It's a one on one race with police thrown and when you finish the race you have to take down your opponent in an effort to make take-downs relevant to the single player. Problem is, it's either easy to the point of being pointless as the AI plows into police blocks and traffic, or you end up losing your target, usually from crashing to much, and you just wait for him to spawn next to you so you can try again...yeah, he literally spawns next to you at full speed eventually...once he telefragged me as i was parked.
Interface
I don't feel it's as slick as everyone seems to make it out to be, maybe that's because i constantly hit the back button on my 360 controller when i want to bring up the "press right on your direction pad" menu...why just "right"? why doesn't touching the directional pad in ANY direction bring up the menu?
Besides that, the worse offender is in trying to compare vehicles. when searching for a new car to use it's a process of hitting "right-down-down-right-down-down-left-down-right..." like you're punching in the Konami code.
This problem became far more obvious when in multiplayer as i tried to mute random players who either don't realise their mic is on or think there's an audience for the white noise of their air conditioners with layers of vague voices in the background. They don't give you any indication of who's talking, which i remember being a problem in Hot Pursuit's multiplayer, so you have the tedious task of going through the "Player" list punching in the mute code of "right-right-left-down" on every name down the list until you no longer hear that dudes air conditioner...and realise someone ELSE has their air conditioner running, "right-right-left-down-right-right-left-down-right..."
The interface is far from "snappy". The game chooses what it wants to show you and you can't cancel out of anything, you want to change cars right now? well wait a second while the interface shows you want your current car is equipped with, now wait a little bit longer, when you can see the menu, THEN you can use it. Maybe i'm just impatient, it happens when i'm not enjoying myself.
Multiplayer
So here is where the redeeming qualities are suppose to come to play, but i feel like i'm at the dismay of PC gaming in the console age. So early on my experience seems to be marred but what i can only ASSUME are technical problems with the server. I jump into a game, i meet up at the "meet up", everybody on the list has checks by their names, the "relocating players" countdown is at 0s, and...nothing happens...and nothing continues to happen for a very long time. I eventually get impatient and log off this mystery server only to match make onto what seems to be the exact same server still waiting for something to happen. So i leave multiplayer to come back to it later as i'm trying to find reason to like this game at all.
I don't know if the match making is THAT amazing but so far in my frantic effort to mute every player in the room i have yet to hear one speak english, you would think that location would be a priority in match making. So you know there was some lag going on. cars warping in here and there. Once i was chasing a flickering car and suddenly he teleported right behind me, AMAZING! But the cars you can see lagging aren't the problem, it's the cars that spawn directly in front of you, collision detection and all, that are a problem.
Eventually i did get into a semi functional multiplayer session and a lot of the interface problems spring up again, even worse this time as it cancels your menu every time someone takes you down while you're just parked trying to look through your list of cars. Also that long drag of waiting for the map to show up can be an annoyance as you have no idea which direction to go to get to the "meet up" until the interface decides to show you the map.
Regardless, one of the nicest parts about the multiplayer is that your points carry over to your single player game so you can earn points to unlock the Most Wanted list without the chore of playing the single player game...but then you can't carry over the cars from single player to multiplayer, as far as i can tell...so there's really NO reason at all to play the single player.
Multiplayer is amusing but i wouldn't call it amazing, there's a learning curve to the challenges. It's not always clear why you're getting points. In one challenge i was parked on top of a building gaining points as an accumulation timer ticked up for the group...i guess it was a king of the hill type situation where you had to sit on the roof without getting tapped by the other players which resets your score, i still have no idea what that was all about but i came in first place so apparently i'm amazing at it.
The challenges ask you to read a ticker for information on what you're suppose to be doing while you're trying to keep your eyes on the road and get to your next objective, this is the perfect time to feature the nice lady voice over to, at least once, explain the basis of each challenge. It's a learning process, if you're patient enough to play it over again i'm sure you'll eventually figure everything out but it is not noob friendly and i'm not that patient.
Ultimately to enjoy the multiplayer you have to give up certain needs, such as the one for speed as an example. The multiplayer is a score fest that's better served if you don't take it too seriously, but i guess Want For Score didn't look right on the box. Racing is an occasional means with which you can get score but really it's a slap happy score game.
As far as the future, i just feel that shiver of EA creeping around the corner with that Cops VS Racers DLC as if to say, "Oh shit! Guess what we JUST thought up guys". I kind of hope it never happens, then i don't have to worry about what EA is doing with Criterion and i won't have to be cautious of Burnout games in the future.
So in Conclusion
Fuuuck this game....at least on the PC anyway.
