A game belonging to the Need for Speed franchise doesn’t need an introduction. NFS isn’t some obscure game title announced by “just another game studio”. It’s a legend, both for its fans as well as its adversaries. Like any self-respecting franchise, Need For Speed is going in a certain direction, which changes from time to time. The last two titles of the series marked its entrance into the world of tuning. Concept cars took a back seat and everyone had a chance play Fast and the Furious with a NFS engine. It was cool back then, but things change over time. Electronic Arts kept pace with these changes and now we have Most Wanted: a NFS Underground with a heavy dose of anarchy against the “system”. At first I thought that the main goal of the game was to look for trouble everywhere you could, an impression further strengthened by the singleplayer. After a while though, you start to realize that the most useful strategy is “seek and destroy”, which is kind of natural, given your character’s more than antisocial attitude.

     You’ve lost your car in what seemed to be a pretty mundane race. Your adversary, Razor, “fixed” your car so that you wouldn’t reach the finish line. Once he got his claws on your little BMW jewel, he started to climb the top of the most bad-ass drivers in town, the true kings of the highways, winning all the illegal races that he could. All you can do now is get a car and eventually get even. This is easier said than done, because all the drivers from the Blacklist will want to see proof that you’re worthy to race against him. Up until now, everything is fine, but from this point on, it’s just a big black hole. I would have expected a more connected story, with some active roles for the main characters. Instead, everything is reduced to a couple of phone calls and SMS messages, with some full motion videos in-between. If EA can’t afford a decent script writer, they might as well close the shop and go home. Like I said earlier, the storyline is beautiful, but it’s not anywhere to be found.

     The lovely Josie Maran is a notable presence, but totally disgusting. Her acting is so bad that you’ll want to pay her just to shut up. I’ve just about had it with blondes. I don’t have anything against her but it’s just that the “girl from the neighborhood” role just doesn’t cut it for her. The rest of the characters fail to impress as well. A lot of cash, all talk and no walk. Instead of lowering the side-windows of their cars to talk, they call each other over the cell phone. Not to mention the voice messages with which they “threaten” you.