Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Uninspired"

I have the original NFS:Most Wanted for the PC (and won every single race), so I wanted to see what the mobile version offers. I got the LG8300 version through Verizon, and started playing. The graphics are pretty darn impressive for a cellphone. Cars are 3D and recognizable, if a bit low on poly count. Intro screens and such are nicely rendered, and you even get the the full video intro from NFS:Most Wanted, albeit in lower res and lower FPS to fit the mobile format. The missions pretty much fit the original plot. You just arrived in Rockport and before you can beat someone Sgt. Cross of anti-street-racing unit almost nailed you, then you beat someone (in your M3R, it's a cinch), he introduced you to Razor Callahan, and you lost next race to Razor when your car fell apart. Sgt. Cross arrives and arrests you after Razor had your car towed away. You got out of jail with 3 cheap cars and no money, but Mia wants to help you get your ride back... but you need to complete like 90 races. Beat a couple local records, which will open up the blacklist driver. Then beat the blacklist driver. There are three blacklist drivers per area, and five areas, Razor being the last one, as he rose to the top with YOUR ride, and you're out to win it. back. The menu structure haven't changed, but the car mod and perf mods sure have. Menu style is the same from the PC, and it's pretty good, with the car doing a slow rotate so you can admire it in 3D. The "main" menu has three modes: shops, races, and locations (the last one only shows when you're beaten the first "area"). The shops includes your "safehouse", which houses ALL of your cars. Unlike the PC version, you can't sell cars to raise money. When you choose a car, you can quickly customize the color (except on the titular M3R which has a unique paint scheme). By going to the body shop, you can install any of the 75 visual upgrades available, from wheels to vinyl to body mods, even under-car neons, but first you'll need to unlock them through the various races. However, EA's server is accessed ALL the time, and you'll often see "timeout" or "not accessible" messages. Visual upgrades cost no money to put on at all, and does not affect performance. By going to the performance shop, you can install advanced parts that will affect your vehicle's performance. Each car starts at a certain level, and through additional parts, gain levels of performance. Parts falls into four areas: speed, acceleration, handling, and NOX. Speed basically are parts that improves top speed, basically engine improvements. Acceleration is mostly transmission improvements and weight reduction. Handling adds improved brakes and suspension and tires. NOX adds bigger / better nitrous oxide injectors, giving you the burst of power. The most expensive parts can be 30000, which, considering that you earn only a few thousand per win, can be pretty darn expensive. Fortunately, you can "sell back" all of the enhancements in one car, by simply choosing a different car from your safehouse. And you won't lose a penny. As you can imagine, the better the parts (i.e. the more expensive), the more it will improve their respective areas. It's up to you to find where's the best combination to generate the best performance, depending on which cars are available. And some cars are better in certain areas than others. There are only three types of races under the race menu, and normally you see only two... Outrun, and Speed Cam. Outrun is simple: you're given this much time, and you have to make it from start to finish before timer expires. You gain time if you perform racer-things, like lose cops, do "close misses", get some big air (hang time), power slides, and so on. You lose time if you hit a cop (or cop hits you!). While this sounds simple, when there's four to five very fast police out to get you, they will keep bumping into you and you'll be out of time in no time at all! Fortunately, there is sort of a cheat... I call it the "waggle tail". If you're at the 90% and the time is down to the final seconds (2 to 3 seconds left), start doing powerslides, left, right, left, right. Each should gain you one second, and you can do about one per second if you got the right rhythm going, so you may just make it to the finish if you keep doing this and don't let up. Speed Cam is called "speed trap" on the PC version. Basically, there are 5 or 6 speed cameras on the track, and you need to go through them as FAST as possible, beating an established figure. If the figure given is 130, then your average speed from the however many cameras need to be faster than 130. Obviously, it's never that simple. Once you gone through the first camera police will be after you, and some areas have speed cameras one after another, while others have them on curves, far apart. It's tough to keep the average up, as you basically canNOT crash at all. The boss races are real races, but those are the ONLY ones where you see a fellow racer on the road. No police though, just you and the racer, and some traffic cars. You get a "behind" or "ahead" meter instead of the timer, but that's about it. The game scales up the opposition, from area 1, Camden Beach all the way to the extremely tough area 5, Dunwich. The races in Dunwich are just about impossible, with about 80 seconds for the outruns, and 150 MPH average for the speedcams. You'll need a maxed-out vehicle to even attempt those. Strangely, I found the final boss race with Razor to be somewhat of a let down. Nice part about this is any mission can be retried / restarted with no penalty whatsoever. Police cannot impound any cars in this game. If you're busted, just restart the mission. And there's no need to elude police. As long as you beat the mission, the police won't bother you. And if not, just restart, or pick a different mission from the "world map". No penalties at all.

As you beat the 3 of the 5 races in the area, you open up the blacklist member. Beat him, and you'll open up another 5 races of next blaklist member. Repeat until you beat all of them, and you're back at the top. Easier said than done, of course. It's suggested that you beat every mission for the money, as you need every dollar at the end for the final upgrades. As stated before, the final area will have you pulling your hair out as the times given are just about impossible. You have to make use of every time bonus as well as avoid being bottlenecked by police (and have your timer pecked to death by them). The speedcams are also nearly impossible. All in all, not enough racing, really. Outrun and speedcam are poor substitute for actual racing, and you only do that 15 times in the 90 missions. 3D graphics are quite good, though the cars just "tumble" when hit, instead of actually REACTING to the hit. Jumps and such look pretty good though, and a lot of breakable objects like lamp posts, signs, and such to rack up the bounty. However, that's just a measurement and does not affect your winnings, as there's no mission to "must do _____ damage". While NFS:MW Mobile is an impressive racer, it seems to have lost its root as a "most wanted" racer. Some more variations in races such as "cause X destruction" or "hit X police cars" or such should be included instead of just "outrun" and "speedcam". As is, this game is rather uninspired, given the source material available, which relegates it to merely average, despite the impressive 3D graphics engine and impressive responsiveness of the car.