Published: Nov 15, 2012

NFS Most Wanted Outruns the Heat

Downloadable demo of the latest Need for Speed game gives a taste of what looks like a thrilling racing game.

If you're looking for a racing game to occupy your time, there's no lack of choices. PlayStation gamers enjoy the GranTurismo franchise, Xbox has its Forza series, Codemasters makes some of the best games on any platform and Grand Theft Auto satisfies those with a penchant for violence. But few franchises have endured quite like Need for Speed. Since the first game launched in 1994, the Need for Speed series has bred a couple dozen installments by now, the latest of which was just released.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted (the second game bearing that name following the original in 2005) is still published by Electronic Arts, but has been developed by Criterion Games in the UK. And the new developers have by all accounts pulled out all the stops.

The premise lets players race against each other in a variety of cars through the fictitious city of Fairhaven (replacing the Rockport from the 2005 original) while trying to evade police that are using a series of measures to arrest the renegade drivers. Criterior's Autolog system (not to be confused with the car-news site of similar name) to rank the top ten "most wanted" outlaw drivers in the game. The awesome machinery which NFS Most Wanted offers gamers include supercars like the Lamborghini Aventador, SRT Viper, Koenigsegg Agera, Porsche 918 Spyder, McLaren MP4-12C and Bugatti Veyron SS and much, much more.

Classics like the Shelby Cobra and Lamborghini Countach, hot hatches like the Audi A1 Clubsport and Subaru STI Cosworth, and oddities like the Ford Raptor and Bac Mono also feature. In other words, there's no lack of cars to drive, and instead of forcing players to unlock levels to drive the cars, they're all hidden around the game's virtual environment straight from the get-go. Following a pre-release that garnered rave reviews (including the Best Racing Game award at E3 2012, the game was launched in North American just a couple of weeks ago, kicking off a staggered global roll-out that's culminated with the Japanese-market launch today.

The game is available to play on a wide array of platforms, including Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, Apple's iOS, Android and Amazon's Kindle Fire, with a Nintendo Wii U version to follow next year. A demo has just been launched for Xbox 360 and PS3 with four cars - the Aston Martin V12 Vantage, Porsche 911 Carrera S, Audi R8 GT Spyder and Ford Focus RS50 - and two stages to give you a taste of the game before buying.

by Noah Joseph
NFS Most Wanted Outruns the Heat

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NFS Most Wanted Outruns the Heat

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