Which career do you like most?

My first run from the cops was epic as I didn't really know where I was going, or more importantly how evasion works. I was pretty much just out of tutorial, did my first time trial, alerted the cops and it kicked off from there. I had player cops all over me, dodging them around hairpins, late change of directions and lots of nitrous, with helicopters being called in overhead, road blocks and spike strips being dropped in front, and just as you think you've got away the timer resets and a cop spawns near you or comes full speed head on. Before I knew it I was up to heat level 10, run all around the north of the map finding it impossible to evade them and stop the chase.

I had (wrongly) assumed that evasion would be similar to previous NFS games, where you had to evade the cops before you enter your safehouse. Lesson for this game - just get to the safehouse and hit the button to enter.

I ended my first pursuit hitting heat level 10 and banking 280k SP while driving just the stock starter Porsche. I didn't really appreciate the difficulty until I'd played a few more hours and lost some 100k runs. Now when I start earning those levels I really start looking to get back to the safehouse and avoiding more chases.

I've also tried being a cop for a bit - you have the freedom to explore the world without being chased, and can decide if you want to focus on your own race, or break off onto a pursuit.

Both careers unlock cars really fast, but on the cop side you get them for free and don't spend money upgrading them (only the pursuit tech), so there is less investment needed if you want to hop into another vehicle to try it out.

For now I will say Racer is my preferred career, but lose a couple of 75k+ SP runs in a row and I will swap over to Cop to enjoy that for a bit.

I've been going exclusively racer so far and am at player level 17, using mostly Ferrari models. It seems to be the only make of car that consistently offers a good balance of stats, meaning less spent upgrading. I use mostly Shockwave lvl 4 and Turbo lvl 1. IMO they should have made turbo upgrades focus just on cooldown and number of times used. I can't imagine it being faster with longer duration. There's not many places on the map suited for it., esp when you already have a fast car at or near lvl 8 top speed or more.

I only tried playing as cop briefly at the start of the game, and....

S-P-O-I-L-E-R-S!!!

...of course that one level where they turn tables on you and give you a Konigsegg pursuit car to go undercover with and reek havoc with the cops from the inside. That was a pretty short and uninteresting level though.

E-N-D S-P-O-I-L-E-R-S!!!

I'm so far into the game at this point I might as well just finish as racer, then go back and switch to cop to see how the game plays that way. And if it won't let me do that after I've beaten the campaign, wtf, I'll just start a new game. I don't know, just switching randomly back and forth as racer or cop seems it would ruin immersion, which there's little of as is ever since NFS became less story and character driven.

@Frag_Maniac: You won't have to start over when you beat the racer. If you liked the racer more than the cop, you can do the rest of the speedlists and get all the way to lvl 61 (same with cops). Since I've made this thread, I changed my opinion on my favorite since I started playing as a cop. I find much more enjoyment from hunting players down than from running away from the AI cops. It's especially satisfying when I find someone who likes to drive around in circles through the same repair shop during pursuits and I still bust them. Just my opinion, Cop > Racer. I wish there were more cops though.

I can certainly see opinions changing the further you get through career. Early on with weak cars and few upgrades, escaping the cops can be really tough. But later on once you have some tier 3+ cars and the money to upgrade them, escaping becomes more fun than challenging.

My previous post a week ago - if I was up to 60-70k SP I would be looking for the safehouse to bank the points. Now it's more like - just completed a few races and escaped the cops with 150k and looking for another race or chase to make use of the multiplier to get 250k before coming back in.

I largely prefer cops. Sometimes as a racer the chase never stops, you clearly are travelling at 200mph and still, cops spot you and resumes chase. After running away the chase starts again because cops are plenty in the game. Sometimes there are so much cops and they all use pursue tech all at once, its easy to bust you even when you've upgraded your durability plenty.

Furthermore, as cops u can chase people down together... not so much as a racer.

i don't like duels, 1 vs 1 sucks then if the 1 in front is a good racer you might lose if you accept the challenge from behind.. 1 vs 1 should be next to eachother not 1 in front.

cops i don't like with the matchmaking, i want to get the 50 minute ford achievement then a level 4 racer is hunting down weak cop cars (duhh i think i have only 1 ford unlocked so far)