The PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 represented a golden era for one of racing games’ most storied franchises. Beginning with Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 and then the two-game Underground series, it was a strong start, but it was the Most Wanted finish that really closed the generation out in style. No mechanic in a Need For Speed made a game feel as unique and special as how police chases were ramped up and integrated into the gameplay of the generation’s last game. Here’s why it was so amazing.
Need For Speed: Most Wanted Makes Police Chases Core Gameplay
Police chases were already a part of the Need for Speed series before Most Wanted, but they were taken to an entirely new level with the release. When developers decided to make pursuits a key part of the game, they set out to not only change the way individual pursuits played out in the game but also the effect that pursuits had on your overall gameplay experience and progression through the world.
Every decision they made for pursuits came together perfectly to make for an experience that revolutionized what the series felt like and resulted in an all-time great arcade racing game.
Escalating Pursuits Present Dynamic Challenges
There was something special about your first taste of a pursuit in Most Wanted when you got to see the game’s pursuit mechanics play out and learn just how much the game had in store for you. While your character may begin as a small fry who can simply ditch the one or two units on their tail and duck into a car garage until the heat wears off, that was a short-lived mercy.
As your reputation grew, and as your current chase escalated, the police gained more and more abilities to use against you. Backup could come in the form of both additional units, radioed in or come across in your filth, and aerial support for helicopters, which made evading the chase more than simply losing your tail. Police wouldn’t hesitate to put you into a wall, while blockades and spike strips could render your car undrivable if you weren’t on your A-game from the jump.
Dramatic Pursuit Breakers Made Escapes Cinematic
Developers knew that they were throwing more at players than in any previous games, and they didn’t leave you empty-handed to fight back against the escalating tactics of your police pursuers. For starters, pitting wasn’t just an option for your pursuers. Careful driving allowed you to cause problems for the police on your tail, riding alongside them to get yourself in position to drive them right into an oncoming obstacle, or to fall back a bit and attempt a pitting bump into their rear third yourself, sending the cop car spinning out.
Where things got really fun and eye-catching was with the designated pursuit breakers spread out around the map. These were opportunities like having stations to trigger big explosions or off-road escapes through breakable terrain, each of which would cause problems for the pursuing police, as one or more would be forced to abandon the pursuit as a result of your chosen route. When things felt dire, a well-timed pursuit breaker could be a lifesaver.
Cooldown Times Let You Feel The Tension
There’s a tremendous bit of relief that arrives when you finally ditch the last car pursuing you, but the game didn’t give you any time to enjoy that immediately. Just because you’ve lost your tail doesn’t mean you’ve escaped quite yet in Most Wanted.
Instead, you need to stay lost while a cooldown timer ticks down. Ideally, this could mean finding a safe place to tuck into and stay out of the limelight until you were no longer a target. If you couldn’t find one, however, you ran a risk with every inch you drove because leading your car into the path of any police vehicle before your cooldown has expired means you’re back to running as fast as you can in a continuation of the chase that could quickly spiral back into a full-blown most-wanted pursuit if you weren’t careful.
You Can’t Get Ahead Without Leaving Police Behind
If police chases had simply been an improved mechanic, then Need For Speed: Most Wanted would already have earned its place as one of the most beloved entries in a beloved franchise, but that was not the case. Instead, they were completely baked into the core progression loop of the game, making it iconic.
The story of the career mode play revolved around your racer looking to make a name for themselves in the city’s underground racing scene, typified by the gabled Blacklist of top-ranked racers in the city. To move up the list, you needed to take out the next name ahead of you, culminating in a race for pinkslips, which not only meant progression but also adding a new vehicle to your garage.
The racing scene in the city is all about respect and reputation; however, you can’t start competing for a spot on the list without earning the right to face the driver currently in that position, and that meant completing the challenges that made you eligible. Often, these challenges included tie-ins to your interactions with the police, requiring you to perform a set action or reach a set level in a pursuit, meaning you couldn’t get ahead in the game without leaving the police behind over and over.
Police Will Impede You In Races For Added Challenge
If you’re driving freely around the city, any illegal move in front of a cop can instantly trigger a pursuit. And in a street racing game, if you’re behind the wheel for long stretches without breaking the law, you’re probably doing it wrong. The pressure doesn’t ease once the stakes rise, either; you can still find yourself in a full-blown chase even in the middle of a race.
If you find arcade-style racing games a little too easy, there’s good news. If you already think they’re tough, there’s some very bad news. When police catch you mid-race, they won’t just trail behind — they’ll slam into you, slow you down, or even wreck you outright, turning a clean run into a complete disaster.
Car Impounds Risk Your Favorite Ride, And Your Save
We’ve established the ways that police chases could provide a short-term headache for your driver, but that’s not the only risk they pose. One of the most game-changing innovations to how pursuit worked in Most Wanted was in the long-term stakes that it offered. If you failed to make use of the various pursuit breakers and your own driving skills to escape, you could find yourself cornered with no way out and detained by the pursuing police. You did not want this to happen too often or at the wrong time.
When brought in by the police, you were forced to pay a fine imposed based on your heat level and the havoc you had caused on the road. If you couldn’t pay it, your car was impounded. This not only meant that you lost access to it for your attempt to climb up the Blacklist, but it also meant you were one step closer to something uncommon in arcade racing games: a game over.
If you ran out of cars with no money to buy a replacement, that was the end of your chase of #1. And don’t think that all you needed was a healthy wallet to stay active, either, because every time you got arrested in a car, that car received an impound strike. Three strikes, and there was no option to buy it out; that car was gone. This ramped up the stakes of every drive because you want to be in your best wheels for your biggest races and toughest challenges, but doing so also puts that car at risk, forcing you to walk a tightrope.
I’ve been with Operation Sports for a little over a year now, and in that time, I’ve never seen an opportunity to talk about sports games from my childhood that I did not want to jump on and share my love for. The best thing I can say about Need For Speed: Most Wanted and its place in gaming history is that none of them have made me want to dig out an old system and boot up an old game like writing about Most Wanted. The feeling of a frantic duck into cover after a breathtaking escape in my family’s living room is as vivid today as if it happened yesterday. If you’ve never played it before, there’s no time like today.
