PSP

Need for Speed: Most Wanted 5-1-0

Need for Speed Most Wanted 5-1-0 is a solid, nicely paced portable racing game with one frustrating design element that is a major part of its overall design, unfortunately. The cops are there to punish you for performing well, which is precisely opposite of what games have taught us throughout history (or the last 20+ years, at least). Aside from that, the game's pacing and layout is designed very well for a PSP racer in that you can hop in and out of races at easy, but it's still rather shallow. Like the Underground titles, there are a ton of ways you can customize and outfit your vehicles, making the game more personal than simply selecting from a list of preconfigured automobiles. It's not the deepest or most enthralling racer around, but it's certainly a solid one.

Many races have your driving alone once you take the lead with only text to keep you apprised of the other racers' misadventures. It just fails to capture the urgency of the console versions to a degree that I wish they'd left the cop angle out entirely.

I don't know how Electronic Arts can get away with charging $50 for this title. It lacks a compelling single-player foundation and I couldn't imagine people wanting to play the multi-player much longer. The race events are playable, unlike the Nintendo DS version of Need for Speed Most Wanted, but they restrict you to racing and that's about it. What happened to avoiding the cops? Yeah, you can try to evade them after a race, but all you're doing is lapping around the same course you just raced on. If you have to take EA's pink slip, make it Burnout Legends, not Need for Speed Most Wanted 5-1-0.

S'il avance quelques arguments indéniables, Need For Speed Most Wanted 5-1-0 pourra vite lasser ceux qui ne sont pas adeptes du gameplay arcade. Malgré tout, la bonne réalisation graphique et la possibilité d'incarner la police font que l'on a du plaisir à jouer à ce titre qui s'impose en digne successeur de NFS Rivals. Les amateurs du genre seront donc certainement séduits, les autres un peu moins.

The addition of 5-1-0 in the title probably isn't enough to let people know this is a different game from the ground up. A new title for the PSP version probably would have been a better marketing move. As it is, fans of the other iterations will probably skip this when they expect the same game. That's a shame, because the effort put into this title is obvious, and it comes off as one of the PSP's premier racers.

Need for Speed Most Wanted 5-1-0 has its appealing aspects. The ad hoc and infrastructure multiplayer modes are always welcome features, the career mode is quite deep and lengthy, and car fanatics will enjoy tuning up and customizing their rides. But even with all that said, 5-1-0 really doesn't do anything better than other racers on the PSP, and in some cases, it does certain things worse. Above all else, though, 5-1-0 just isn't as thrilling or exciting as a street racer should be on any platform. It's a decent racer with some enjoyable components, but it's not a must-have for any PSP-owning racing fan.

Was ist bloß los mit Electronic Arts? Anstatt eine ordentliche Umsetzung von Need for Speed: Most Wanted auf Sonys Handheld abzuliefern, kommt mir die PSP-Fassung wie eine Sparversion vor, bei der vor allem die spannenden Verfolgungsjagden auf den Konsolen verhunzt wurden. Und warum gibt es keine offene Stadt mehr?! Dass es auch anders geht, zeigte zuletzt Rockstar mit der Dub-Edition von Midnight Club 3, die auch in der Handheld-Umsetzung praktisch jedes Feature der großen Konsolen bieten konnte. Und Most Wanted? Keine offene Stadt, keine Pursuit Breaker, keine Bounty-Events, keine Zwischensequenzen, weniger Spielmodi. Von daher ist Need for Speed: Most Wanted auf der PSP ein technisch beeindruckendes Rennspiel, das spielerisch allerdings längst nicht so viel zu bieten hat wie die PC- und Konsolenfassungen und mit einigen Tücken bei der Steuerung zu kämpfen hat. Wer einen guten Tuning-Racer für die PSP sucht, findet in Midnight Club 3 sicher eine wesentlich bessere Alternative

An EA game can be counted upon for a variety of multiplayer options. Lately, EA also relies upon its lame online registration service, which bogs down the experience of playing online. Lag is as much an issue as with most of the company's PSP offerings-- it hits one-third to a half of the matches you'll play--but the ad-hoc options are entertaining. Given the routine AI, racing against friends is always preferable to taking on the computer.

There's nothing wrong with Most Wanted, exactly, but neither is there anything to make it stand out from the many good racers already available for the PSP. EA has missed a chance to redesign the game to make the portable cops versus tuners dynamic really take over; at least we know they'll try again next year.