Since the day I realized that investing in racing simulators just isn't for me, I’ve stuck with arcade racers like Daytona USA and the PERFECT OutRun 2, along with a few modern simcades like Forza Horizon (which has its flaws) and Gran Turismo, but that’s about it.
That said, Need for Speed has always been a constant in my life—but not so much in terms of actually playing. Back around 2004, the LAN house I frequented the most—RIP Orion Games in Vista Alegre, a neighborhood in Rio’s North Zone—had basically three games installed: Counter-Strike 1.5 (obviously), Warcraft III (with the then-unknown DotA mod), and Need for Speed Underground 1.
It was kind of weird, because playing NFSU in a LAN house meant always trying to sit at the same PC and hoping no one messed with your save. Or worse—deleted it.
I saw plenty of kid fights over that, back in a time when relationships were more personal—and in turn, more real.
That’s how I discovered my first Need for Speed of that generation. Yes, I had played Hot Pursuit III (1998) on the PS1, and I’d watched a lot of tv ads about the PC version of Need for Speed II (1997) about a thousand times, but this was my first contact with an actual fun NFS game (at least for me, sorry Hot Pursuit III).
But this was my first game of the so-called “PS2 generation,” and since it’d be years before I owned my own console, I got into the underground racing scene through a LAN house PC.
Need for Speed on the PS2 Era
After its early success on the 3DO and PC/PS1, the series got a new breath of life on PS2, thanks to the Canadian studio EA Black Box. They were responsible for the first PS2 entry, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, which was well received—at least on Sony’s console.
After that, Black Box kept the momentum going, developing Underground 1 and 2 (2003 and 2004), Most Wanted (2005), Carbon (2006), and ending that generation with Pro Street (2007).
Since they were all made by the same studio, these games share the same DNA and were built on the same engine: EAGL (EA Game Library), which evolved over the years.
From Underground to the Blacklist
As you know, Underground 1 and 2 were high points for the franchise, which had previously focused more on exotic cars and TV-inspired police chases.
With Underground, the tuning scene was all the rage—night races, neon lights, and those now-cringy flame decals on the side of cars. It pulled in a younger crowd.
Now it wasn’t just racing game fans buying Need for Speed, but also Fast & Furious fans—whose franchise, lacking good games, had lost ground to EA’s offerings.
After two games with the same vibe, Black Box decided it was time for a change. Out went the neon-lit night races, and in came the sepia/yellowish tone of games like NFS III: Hot Pursuit.
Rockport City is inspired by northeastern U.S. areas like Baltimore and Philadelphia, mixing industrial zones with leafy suburbs.
The sepia tone, often criticized today, was back then a visual novelty. The idea was to give an autumn vibe—most races happen during the day or in a warm, orange sunset, a far cry from the neon nights of the previous two games.
The Most Wanted Racer
The game’s story is told through stylized FMVs with real actors.
You play as an unnamed driver (nicknamed only “The Player”) who rolls into Rockport City to challenge the top street racers.
During a race against the local top dog, Razor Callahan, he sabotages your car (removing the oil block), causing you to lose and get arrested. While you’re locked up, Razor takes your highly tuned, fastest-in-the-city ride and uses it to climb to the top of the Blacklist—the ranking of Rockport’s 15 most wanted racers.
It’s a similar setup to the previous games, but this time the progression is clearly structured around these 15 racers. You might think, “Oh, so just 15 races?”
Oh no, my friend. This is an EA GAMES (challenge everything) title.
To face each Blacklist rival, you need to win several races and complete “milestones”—and these milestones are what drag a 9.0-worthy game down, and I’ll tell you why.
Race Modes
There are great ideas in this game. When it comes to regular races, there’s nothing to complain about. The game has a bunch of cool variations, some of which I haven’t seen in modern titles:
Circuit
Closed loop races (2 to 5 laps).
First to finish wins.
Sprint
Point-to-point race, one continuous route.
No laps—just get to the finish line first.
Lap Knockout
Last-place driver gets eliminated each lap.
Continues until only one remains.
Speedtrap
Winner is the one with the highest total speed through all the speed cameras on the track.
Final position doesn’t matter—just the speed sum.
Drag
Straight-line drag races with manual gear shifts.
Straight tracks with traffic and obstacles.
Requires quick reflexes for gear shifts and lane changes.
Tollbooth Time Trial (aka Tollbooth)
Time trial through several tollbooths (checkpoints).
Each booth has a time limit. Arrive early to gain extra seconds.
Lap Time Trial
Solo lap(s) against the clock.
Goal: finish one or more laps in the shortest time possible.
Rare in the main career mode.
All these modes appear throughout the campaign as part of the challenges to face each rival. Say you need to win 5 races to unlock a rival—the game presents 9 challenges, and you can pick which ones to complete.
This gives players variety and choice, letting you skip repetitive 3-lap races and focus on time trials or other interesting modes instead.
The Problem: Milestones and Bounty
On top of the regular races, the game forces you to complete “Bounty” and “Milestones,” which are police pursuit objectives like:
- Stay in a pursuit for X minutes
- Damage cop cars, break through roadblocks, or escape spike strips
- Reach a specific bounty value
- Pass speed cameras at high speeds
Getting chased by cops is annoying. Sometimes the AI just ignores you or runs away, making you lose the chase and have to start over.
Damaging cop cars is fine… but again, you risk losing progress at any moment due to the game’s inconsistent AI.
Bounty is its own nightmare. The game forces you to wander aimlessly dodging cops just to raise this arbitrary number, artificially padding the game’s length.
And that’s the real problem with Most Wanted: locking your progress behind milestones makes the player feel like a clown.
Many of my sessions while replaying the game for this review involved nothing but running from cops, circling a known “spawn point” to game the AI.
And even then, it got so boring that I muted the game and played YouTube videos on my second monitor.
Modern PC Mods
In the end, I got tired of fighting a game that clearly didn’t care about my enjoyment—and used several mods. Some were purely cosmetic, others were built to let me HAVE FUN despite all of EA Black Box’s nonsense.
The PC version runs fine on Windows 10 and 11 and has graphic packs, controller mods for PS4/PS5/Xbox, and a mod called Extra Options that even lets you tweak your wanted level, helping you skip hours of repetitive grinding just to avoid losing progress to a bugged-out police AI.
There’s a great mod pack over at moddb.com called 'Most Wanted HQ 1.19.6.1' that bundles everything together.
I recommend installing it over a clean copy of the game on Windows. Nothing else needed—it has everything for a solid experience.
Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) can be played on PC, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox and Xbox 360. Other versions (not covered by this review) can be played on Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS and PSP.
Pros
- + Good arcade-style driving
- + Realistic graphics that have aged well
- + Varied race modes that go beyond the basics seen in other games of the time
Cons
- - Intentionally padded progression to artificially extend gameplay
- - Unremarkable soundtrack
- - Terrible police AI
9
Gameplay
9
Graphics
5
Story
7
Sound
4
Replayability
7
out of 10
Overall
Need for Speed: Most Wanted was a big hit at launch. The arcade-style controls are great, the orange-hued Rockport City reflects the era’s aesthetics perfectly, and overall, it’s a fun game to play for a few hours.
But its artificially padded progression system does more harm than good, and I’d bet most players from back then never actually finished the career mode due to how frustrating it gets.
The milestone system is so painful that even the police chases—the game’s main selling point—become unbearable due to the police AI flipping from dumb to unstoppable in seconds based on your wanted level.
The issue became so glaring that in its direct sequel, Need for Speed: Carbon, police chases were no longer mandatory. The progression was switched to a territory system, way more forgiving on your free time.
The racing, however, is excellent—far better than modern entries like Unbounded (2022). And the hilariously cheesy cutscenes are a bonus, especially with eye candy like Mia, played by actress Josie Maran.
If you want to dive into this game, protect yourself from frustration: install the mod pack, learn to use Extra Options, and only use it when needed. Despite everything I said, the game only really starts to drag around the 5th Blacklist rival—up to that point, it’s actually a blast.
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