Need for Speed: Most Wanted

Overview

Need for Speed: Most Wanted was the 2005 release for the long running Need for Speed franchise from EA Games. Unlike previous titles, Most Wanted takes place during the day, and returns the police as a very real problem on the streets of the fictional city of Rockport. Most Wanted was well known for its police chases, though arguably it got more press through its CGI cutscenes, featuring live actors, than it did through anything else.

Most Wanted is frequently compared to more recent games in the series, such as Carbon, ProStreet and SHIFT. Gaming press has previously claimed Most Wanted to be one of the best Need for Speed games of this generation, and it is normally the game most revered by players of the series.

Gameplay

World Map of Rockport City

Gameplay in Most Wanted features a free-roaming city, like that of Underground 2. However, Most Wanted takes place during daylight rather than night. Across the city there are different types of races available to you, such as Drag and Circuit events. For the most part, Circuit races make up the main content of the racing, though there are other types of races that are encountered as well. One of the unique race events featured in Most Wanted is the 'Speed Trap' race. Along the route there are speed traps planted, and you must blitz through them at the highest possible speed. After speeding through all of the traps your total speed will be calculated, and the racer with the highest total speed is the winner. Below are all the race modes that exist in the game:

Circuit
Circuit races have anywhere between 1 and 8 laps, and can range between difficult and easy opponents. There are 28 different Circuit tracks, and they will all eventually be encountered in Career mode. Circuit races are simply a matter of several different laps around the same course, and you must come first. It doesn't matter if you make it into first in the first corner or the final lap, as long as you're across the finish line on the final lap first.

Sprint
Sprint races act as the 'Point-to-Point' events of Most Wanted. There are 44 different tracks available for Sprint mode, and they play similarly to Circuit mode. It is simply a matter of reaching the finish line first. The only real difference between Circuit and Sprint events is that Sprint events can start and end anywhere, but they will never have a second lap to complete.

Drag
Drag races, that originated in Need for Speed: Underground return again. Drag can be the most difficult discipline to succeed in if you are not comfortable with shifting gears manually. Unlike other modes, the car gears must be shifted manually, and revs play a large part in this. Depending on how high the car is revving you will get a prompt to shift. Shifts can either be poor, perfect, or late. Ideally you want Perfect Shifts across the entire race. Drag races can be the most scripted as well, as there will be vehicles scripted to drive out at certain times - trucks and trains are common for these, but with trucks you can drive through the gap under the trailer. There are 11 Drag strips to select from.

Lap Knockout
Lap Knockout, or Elimination mode, as it is known in some games initially appears to be something similar to Circuit mode. And that is because it is a modified version of Circuit mode. At the end of each lap, the racer in last place is eliminated from the competition. Lap Knockout runs until there are two drivers left, and then it becomes a 1v1 event until the finish line is reached. In Lap Knockout, there are 20 different tracks to select from.

Speedtrap
Speedtrap events are all about speed. However, speed in these races needs to be balanced with acceleration and handling or you will find yourself behind everyone else. Speedtrap initially appears to be similar to Sprint as it uses the same tracks, but the way they are played is different. There are different speed traps laid out along the route, and the aim is to go through each trap as quickly as possible. Once the race is complete all your speeds are added up into one total, which is then compared against the other racers. The highest total speed is the winner. There are 31 Speedtrap track layouts in the game, and they are generally either similar, or directly from the Sprint events.

Unlike Underground, which featured no police presence, Most Wanted has a full police force that will do anything to stop street racers. Initially you will start off with basic patrol cars, but as you cause chaos you will move up the Rockport PD's 'wanted level', and more and more dangerous versions of police vehicles will arrive in an attempt to thwart your illegal efforts. In order to challenge other racers on the Blacklist and actually advance through the game, you will need to complete three different tasks set by that racer. Below is an example of the task layout:

Bounty: 10,000/20,000
Races: 3/4
Challenges: 2/5

In order to challenge the other racer you must have completed all of the tasks: Bounty, Races, and Challenges. Bounty is earned from surviving in police chases for long periods of time, and it is extremely easy to rack up a huge bounty against the highest level of police enforcement if you are a good driver. For every five seconds you stay in the pursuit you will receive money added onto your bounty. Getting caught however, will forfeit any bounty you were earning during the pursuit though. In order to ease the difficulty of the police chase, there are some locations marked around the city with red triangles, that will only appear on your mini-map during a pursuit. These markers highlight the presence of 'Pursuit Breakers', which are traps that can be
used to immobilize the police. Examples of a common Pursuit Breaker include water towers - smashing through the centre of a water tower will cause it to collapse, and scaffolding. Using Pursuit Breakers effectively is absolutely vital, as a good driver can potentially be in a chase for up to, and over, an hour. Breakers will not respawn during the same chase, so strategy is needed to use them to their fullest effect.

My Cars

My Cars is a mode that was added with Underground, and has made its presence in all Need for Speed games since. This mode allows the player to select a car, and then customize it with a limitless budget. Cars customized here cannot be used in Career mode, though it is a useful way of adding extra cars for use in Quick Races and Split Screen events. Cars here can be showcased and honed to perfection. In addition, you can install special parts from using the 'Burger King' challenge, which is accessed through inputting a code. These parts are known as 'Junkman' parts, and can provide a major bonus if they are installed after the Race parts for a car. My Cars features thirty slots for storing customized creations in, but they cannot be transported into your Career, so if there is a car you really like using it will have to be made again in Career mode.

Story

The story in Most Wanted follows the player, who has entered the city as a nameless street racer (like all Need for Speed games, excluding ProStreet), who is seeking to make a name for themselves. You enter the city in a silver BMW M3 GTR, and encounter a fellow racer called Mia, who is played by Josie Maran. Mia drives a Mazda RX-8, and she invites you to take part in a race with a friend of hers, called 'Rog'. After winning this race and making something of a name for yourself in the city, you are pulled over by Sgt. Cross. Cross heads the Rockport Police Department's Street Racing Division, and drives a very distinctive Chevrolet Corvette. Cross says that while he does not yet have any evidence as to your guilt as a racer, your BMW will prove it to be the case... providing he can get an arrest on you. He threatens to strip down the BMW, and tear all the parts of it should he catch the car racing. After this, you will take part in a race against #15 on the 'Blacklist' - Rockport City's most wanted street racers. Number 15 is Clarence Callahan, better known by his alias of ' Razor', and he serves as the main antagonist during the game story.

During the race, Mia will call you and let you know that you cannot afford to win this race anymore. Apparently, you left a huge oil slick at the start line, and the car is failing fast. If you are to win the race it will mean the destruction of the M3. In order to conserve the car, the player stops the race and forfeits. Unfortunately, such a movement means that Razor then wins the car automatically. Therefore, you're a racer in Rockport City with no car, no cred, and no cash. Once the car is towed back to the meeting point, the police raid the area in order to seize all the cars present. Unfortunately, one of the racers uses a police radio scanner to intercept the radio transmission, and alerts the rest of the racers to the police incoming. Everyone speeds off, and the BMW M3 is towed away quickly. When the police arrive, the only person present is you. To add to the problem, the man responsible for your arrest is Sgt. Cross, and he's still convinced that you are a street racer. You are taken to the Rosewood police station, and due to a lack of evidence, you are allowed out again. After exiting the station, Mia pulls up in her Mazda and invites you to get in. She then runs you through some news.

Razor is number one on the Blacklist, thanks to you. He has used your BMW M3 in order to further himself, and he no longer uses his own Mustang as he has your GTR. Not only this, but you are now one of the nobodies racing in the city. Any credit you had from racing with Rog and other members of the racing fraternity is gone, and to add salt to the wound, you don't own a car. Mia takes you to a dealership and tells you to pick a car. As this is the start of the game the cars you can select from are limited. The rest of the game charts your progress in chasing down Razor and climbing to the top of the Blacklist.

During the game you will occasionally be sent taunting messages from Razor, challenging you to take him on, and even thanking you for the BMW M3 you so graciously donated to him. However, when you finally meet Razor, he will challenge you to the same track that you lost to him on during the game prologue. Upon completion of the face-off against Razor, he refuses to hand the keys to the BMW back to you, the rightful owner, and assaults Mia. However, she counters his attack and floors him, before producing handcuffs. Mia was working undercover in the street racing scene across Rockport City, and after arresting Razor, the rest of the police storm the location. However, in order to share her gratitude with the player Mia does not call in the backup until you have had time to flee in the car. When Cross arrives he asks if all of the racers have been arrested, and Mia says that the 'Number One escaped'. Cross then orders the Street Racing Division out in full force in order to finish all the racing element in the city.

After around 5 minutes of relentless chasing from the law enforcement, Mia will call you and tell you the only way to escape the officers of the law is through jumping the bridge from Rockport across to Palmont City. As luck would have it, this bridge is still under construction, so you'll need to hit it with considerable speed. After leaping this bridge it shows the police chasing after you, and failing to make it over the jump. The final cutscene of the game shows the Police Database being updated to reflect your status as Most Wanted.

Blacklist

As mentioned above, there are 15 racers present on the Blacklist for Rockport City. Each racer has their own races, challenges, and custom car. In the table below are all the Blacklist racers, their car of choice, challenges needed, and race wins.

Alias	Real Name	Car	Race Wins	Bounty	Challenges
Sonny	Ho Seun	Volkswagen Golf GTI	3	20,000	3
Taz	Vince Kilic	Lexus IS300	4	50,000	3
Vic	Victor Vasquez	Toyota Supra	4	100,000	3
Izzy	Isabel Diaz	Mazda RX-8	4	180,000	3
Big Lou	Lou Park	Mitsubishi Eclipse GT	5	300,000	3
Baron	Karl Smit	Porsche Cayman S	5	500,000	4
Earl	Eugene James	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII	5	790,000	4
Jewels	Jade Barrett	Ford Mustang GT	5	1,180,000	4
Kamikaze	Kira Nakazato	Mercedes CLK500	7	1,680,000	4
Ming	Hector Domingo	Lamborghini Gallardo	7	2,300,000	4
Webster	Wes Allen	Chevrolet Corvette C6	7	3,050,000	4
JV	Joe Vega	Dodge Viper SRT-10	7	4,050,000	5
Ronnie	Ronald McCrea	Aston Martin DB9	8	5,550,000	5
Bull	Toru Sato	McLaren Mercedes SLR	8	7,550,000	5
Razor	Clarence Callahan	BMW M3 GTR	9	10,000,000	5

Challenge Mode

Challenge Mode in Need for Speed: Most Wanted is exactly what you would expect. There are 66 challenges available, and you can select to try them. Examples of Challenges are completing Speedtrap events with a total speed of over 1,000MPH on a certain track, or surviving in a police pursuit for 45 minutes. Challenges are unlocked through completing previous challenges, and they grow progressively harder as you advance. In the special edition of Most Wanted there are two extra challenges, featuring a special level of police hostility that can only be described as impossible.

Xbox 360 Version

Most Wanted was the first Need for Speed game to reach Microsoft's newest gaming platform, the Xbox 360. Most Wanted uses Microsoft's 'TrueSkill' technology to find events that theoretically will not pit a highly skilled player against a new player, should you enter Ranked Matches. The other option are Player Matches, which are unranked and are simply for the experience and fun of a race against other human players. Online, many players use cars from the 'My Cars' section with the Junkman parts installed.

Most Wanted was added to the Xbox LIVE 'Games on Demand' service for 2400 Microsoft Points, and is 6.8GB to download. If you install the disc of the game to your hard drive it will also require 6.8GB of storage space. The 360 version of the game features achievements, and is generally regarded as an easy game to earn the full 1000 Gamerpoints from, as all the achievements are unlocked through completing the story, making Multiplayer and Challenge Mode completely obsolete.

Car List

As expected from a racing game, the cars available to you at the start are less than impressive, but it does not take much progression to begin to earn some higher quality vehicles. Though beating members of the Blacklist, you will unlock new cars in the Dealership and My Cars section to purchase. Oddly though, in the My Cars section some cars are pre-unlocked before having unlocked them in the Career (the Porsche Cayman S and Lamborghini Gallardo being two of these pre-unlocked cars). Below is a table detailing all of the cars in the game, and how to unlock them:

Make and Model	Unlock Criteria
Lexus IS300	Already Unlocked
Fiat Grande Punto	Already Unlocked
Chevrolet Cobalt	Already Unlocked
Volkswagen Golf GTI	Already Unlocked
Audi TT Quattro	Beat Sonny
Audi A3 Quattro	Beat Sonny
Mitsubishi Eclipse	Beat Taz
Audi A4 Quattro FSI	Beat Taz
Toyota Supra	Beat Vic
Renault Clio V6	Beat Vic
Mazda RX-8	Already Unlocked
Cadillac CTS-V	Beat Izzy
Ford Mustang GT	Already Unlocked
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. VIII	Beat Big Lou
Mercedes Benz SL500	Already Unlocked
Pontiac GTO	Beat Baron
Vauxhall Monaro VXR	Beat Baron
Porsche Cayman S	Beat Baron
Subaru Impreza WRX STi	Already Unlocked
Mazda RX-7	Beat Earl
Mercedes Benz CLK500	Beat Jewels
Lotus Elise	Beat Jewels
Aston Martin DB9	Beat Kaze
Porsche 911 Carrera S	Already Unlocked
Dodge Viper SRT-10	Beat Ming
Lamborghini Gallardo	Already Unlocked
Porsche 911 Turbo S	Beat Webster
Chevrolet Corvette C6	Beat Webster
Lamboghini Murcielago	Beat JV
Ford GT	Beat JV
McLaren Mercedes SLR	Beat Ronnie
Porsche Carrera GT	Beat Ronnie

Soundtrack

Most Wanted features a mixed soundtrack, comprising 26 songs. Some of these songs are remixes of other songs, and the songs played during police chases were specially composed for the game. Listed below are all of the songs you will hear in the game. In the options menu however, you can disable the playback of certain songs or change where it is played, should you wish to hear Celldweller when you start the game, and listen to police instrumentals when racing, for example. Regardless, here are all of the songs present in the soundtrack. They are formatted with the artist and then song name:

Avenged Sevenfold - Blinded In Chains
Bullet For My Valentine - Hand Of Blood
Celldweller feat. Styles Of Beyond - Shapeshifter
Celldweller - One Good Reason
Dieselboy Kaos - Barrier Break
Disturbed - Decadence
DJ Spooky And Dave Lombardo - B-Side Wins Again feat. Chuck D
Evol Intent, Mayhem & Thinktank - Broken Sword
Hush - Fired Up
Hyper - We Control
Ils - Feed The Addiction
Jamiroquai - Feels Just Like It Should (Timo Maas Remix)
Juvenile - Sets Go Up
Poster featuring an early vesion of the game logo, as well as an orange BMW.
Lupe Fiasco - Tilted
Mastodon - Blood And Thunder
Rock - I Am Rock
Static-X - Skinnyman
Stratus - You Must Follow (Evol Intent VIP)
Styles Of Beyond - Nine Thou (Superstars Remix)
Suni Clay - In A Hood Near You
T.I. Presents The P$C - Do Ya Thang
The Perceptionists - Let’s Move
The Prodigy - You’ll Be Under My Wheels
The Roots And BT - Tao Of The Machine (Scott Humphrey’s Remix)

Box Art

The box art for Most Wanted is universally the same. It shows the side of the BMW M3 GTR, which is the 'cover car'

Yes, Most Wanted was actually released on the GBA.

for the game, at an angle that suggests it is drifting (odd, considering the fact that there are no drift races in Most Wanted). Reflected off the design of the M3 is a customized Corvette - this is actually Cross' Corvette. Additionally, the manufacturer decals on the rear window of the GTR do not actually appear in-game, and the vinyl is a darker blue. Despite this, Most Wanted has a very distinguishable cover, and is easily identified.

Game Variants

Most Wanted was released in two variants: the Black Edition, and the Standard Edition. The Black Edition of the game has slightly different box art, with the words 'Black Edition' scrawled under Most Wanted in the same typeface. In-game, the Black Edition has two extra cars in the form of the 1960s Chevrolet Camaro and the Nissan 240SX. Despite this, these two cars are of no real use to career players, as they can only be used for Custom Races, Multiplayer. Black Edition games also come with two extra challenges, but nothing else. Most Wanted 5-1-0 is its own game, and although based in Rockport City as well, it does not count as part of Most Wanted.

Trivia

Some of the AI drivers will drive BMW M3s. They have the same stats as your GTR, though you cannot get these street M3s. In actual fact this is extremely inaccurate due to the fact that the M3 GTR was a much more powerful version of the car.
The vinyl on your M3 GTR is unique, so it should never be altered or you cannot get it back in Career mode.
Most Wanted's ending bridges the gap to Carbon's opening.
There are several references to the Need for Speed: Underground series within Most Wanted. The first occurs early in the game, when a racer comments "look what the Underground let loose, let's see how well you do in the daylight", in reference to the player. The second reference comes late in the game, where Rog tells the player that "people as far as Bayview are throwin' cash down on this". Bayview was the city featured in Underground 2.
According to the unlock information for the C6-R Corvette you need 100% completion to access it. However, you actually unlock it after completing the story.

blog	Bloggin' About The Games: Need for Speed	TheSilentTruth
blog	The Test of Time - Update #3	tds418
blog	The Test of Time - Update #2	tds418
blog	First Impressions: Need for Speed World Beta	Dziggy
blog	Interesting...Quests & NFS MW	wgpfly
forum	Where to buy new?	UnlivedPhalanx
blog	Where "Need for Speed" needs to go.	BlazeHedgehog
blog	First blog! Oh, and ACHIEVEMENTS!!!	jas0n

Game Name	Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Platform(s)	Mac Nintendo DS Xbox Live Marketplace PlayStation 2 GameCube Xbox PC Game Boy Advance Xbox 360
Publisher(s)	Pocketeers Electronic Arts
Developer(s)	Ideaworks Game Studio EA Canada EA Black Box
Genres	Add a new genre Driving/Racing Simulation
Themes	Add a new theme Crime Motorsports
Original US Release	Nov. 15, 2005 need a fuzzy date?
Original US Release	know the real date?
Aliases	NFS: Most Wanted, NFSMW

	Anarchy: Rush Hour
	Burnout
	Burnout 3: Takedown
	Burnout Paradise
	Burnout Revenge
	DiRT
	DiRT 2
	Driver: San Francisco
	Ford Bold Moves Street Racing
	Ford Racing: Off Road
See All »

Need for Speed Nitro
Need for Speed: ProStreet
Need for Speed: Undercover
Need for Speed: High Stakes
Need for Speed: SHIFT
Need for Speed World
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2
Need for Speed: Carbon
Need for Speed: V-Rally 2
Need for Speed II
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Need for Speed Underground 2
Need for Speed: Most Wanted 5-1-0
Need for Speed: V-Rally
Need for Speed Underground: Rivals
Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit
Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed
Need for Speed: Carbon - Own the City
Need for Speed Underground
Road & Track presents The Need for Speed