Why Was Need For Speed: Most Wanted So Great?

Recently, I’ve watched a lot of videos discussing Most Wanted which many consider to be the best Need for Speed game ever made. Thing is, it’s got a lot of cringy dialogue, it looks like piss (though it looked amazing at the time) and it’s drawn out. Still I, like many people, had fond memories with this game.

I remember playing this at my friend’s house when I was 10 where we worked together to try and get up the blacklist. I even borrowed it a few times and kept my little sibling’s pink PS2 running since I had no memory card at the time, though perennial power cuts made that useless.

Two particular memories stand out:

1. The time when my friends and I were trying to evade the cops to be eligible to race a Blacklist member and we were down to one car on its last strike before impounding. We spent the whole day getting continuously getting busted and losing the car.
2. I loved Top Gear at the time and I spent a day compiling a list of track times with the various cars. Eventually argued with my friend over the fastest car in the game (he loved the Ford GT).

I guess the enjoyment had to do with how you work towards something and just how fast you could go blasting down a golf course at over 300km/h. You also get to fuck shit up through the cop chases that get much harder as you try to get away. All of this while you’re hearing a banging sound track.

Know what, I might just give this game another shot and tell you how I feel about it (18!) years later. The game isn’t sold anymore so you’ll have to find it on the interwebs. Once you do, I recommend that you install the Redux collection of mods to improve the graphics quality.