What?

Either the new Most Wanted, or the new Hot Pursuit, or the new Burnout

Where?

County of Surrey, Great Britain, somewhere near the Olympic madness

When 3DO in 1994 released the original NEED For Speed, it had only nine cars in it. The choice was modest, but pleasant-from the yellow Mazda RX-7 and the red Toyota Supra Turbo to the cartoon-blue Dodge Viper and the black Lamborghini Diablo. There was no tuning in the game, it was impossible even to repaint the motor. But after 18 continuations (including Underground, who made a series of popular fans “Fast and the Furious”, and the School of Shift, developed by Slightly Mad Studios) has proven itself as the most diverse series of racing games.

And then EA asked Criterion Games, talented developers of the crazy Burnout series, to develop a new line of games Need for Speed. Their first attempt was Hot Pursuit, an arcade race, in which high -speed duels of the racers and police officers were again in the spotlight again. She could not boast of the open world, like the previous game of the studio, Burnout Paradise, but an Autologa appeared in it – a system that allowed players to compete not only directly, but also in absentia, the results of their races. So Criterion created the most beloved by critics game of the series.

However, you should not forget about another, no less popular game in the NEED For Speed ​​line – the original Most Wanted. A bullet flew out of the EA Black Box garage in 2005, the game successfully combined races on close city streets from Underground with lightning champions of Hot Pursuit. An important factor in the success of the game was the plot regime, where the player was supposed to compete with 15 other psychos for the title of “most wanted by the police” of the city rider. It is this feeling of the tense competition Criterion that is trying to convey to the new part of Most Wanted. This time, however, you will boast of your offenses with friends, and not with soulless bots.

Take Me Down to the Paradise City

We stopped at the Criterion office in Surrey's sunny county in England, where we were given to play the single mode of Most Wanted in the PC version. Literally the first five minutes of the game for some reason are thoroughly hidden from everyone, but we found out that the action takes place in the city of Feirkhevan, and your goal will be the defeat of the ten “most wanted” riders of the city to become an enemy No. 1 of the local police. In a sense, it was as if Christopher Lambert changed his sword to a racing helmet and shouted “only one should stay!»At the finish line. Most Wanted immediately managed to surprise us – all the cars in the game are open from the very beginning.

[[Bullet]] Criterion logo decorated at least half of the billboards in the city.

An unusual solution that is unusual for modern racing games, where the competitive element consists, including from the goal, get to cool cars. The catch is that you first need to find these Lamborghini Aventador, Ariel Atom and other Telsa Roadster in the city, before you are allowed to steal them around the open world full of abandoned construction, roads and kilometers of the roadway. And improvements for machines, such as different types of familiar nitrogen oxide, open depending on your successes in races and tests.

[[Bullet]] about the model of damage, the authors do not spread in detail, but the generated cars look great.

While we drove under the Teenage Wasteland by the business center in Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, it became clear to us that the new Most Wanted was still completely different from Hot Pursuit, although at first glance the similarity suggested. “Car management is completely different,” the producer of the series Matt Webster admitted. – In Hot Pursuit, most of the time you drive almost at maximum speed, turns are wide, cars are quick. But in Most Wanted, the most important thing is to instantly change the direction at completely any speed. You can even go in the opposite direction that it was impossible to do in NEED for Speed ​​for many years. And cars weigh much more ".

[[Bullet]] of such a rich yellow color as in the new Most Wanted, we have not yet seen.

Perezhev from Camaro to Nissan GT-R, we took advantage of a convenient quick menu (one to one as in Burnout Paradise) to immediately start arrival. Choosing a gamepad’s D-Pad’s race or car, you will immediately transfer to the place of its implementation. And although physics has undergone significant changes, but maneuvering at frantic speed in a dense traffic flow to gain nitro, and the enemy shuffling outside the map allows the heart to swing the lits of adrenaline. And unlike Hot Pursuit, there are no restrictions on the tracks. What is there – there are no tracks themselves. While you are traveling to Chekpunts and do not fall into the clutches of cops, you are on the way to victory.

Gentlemen Agreement

For everything you do in Most Wanted, you win in races, break the opponent’s car or traveling for half an hour with one giant skid – the game will accrue you Speed ​​Points, which will raise you in the “most wanted” ranking. And, if the previous version of Autolog compared only the results of the races, the new and improved Autolog 2 records and compares everything that can be recorded and compared. How many cars you found, how far you jumped, how quickly you drove past road cameras, how many advertising shields demolished – every detail of your career will be put on the display of your friends and the whole world, although Most Wanted is more interested in your comrades.

[[Bullet]] Shop sign, do not hesitate, you can demolish the hell.

“This is not the World Cup,” explains Creative Director Craig Sullivan. – You can not compare your hundred -meter time over time of Juseyn Bolt. I think you will find yourself at best in some millionth place. You are sitting here, you take an interview with us, but there are people who play hundreds of hours long. Or, as an option, they flies. Look at some record table, continuous cheaters on top of the list. My rank in Call of Duty somewhere in the area of ​​the tenth million, and for me it does not mean anything. But if I have more glasses than our designer, then I am very happy! Therefore, it is better to measure achievements with friends. ".

[[Bullet]] In the world Need for Speed, everyone likes to ride exclusively with tinted glasses.

Although, even if you play alone, six police levels will not let you get bored. For the first time, we tasted the charms of acquaintances with local law enforcement agencies when we turned on the “ambush” regime, in which three police cars appeared completely surrealist from nowhere. In the “ambush” the ability to change the car is disconnected and you can’t call into the painting workshop, so while we were running away, the lazy eaters of the donuts on the rolleries managed to change to a group of swirling veterans who tried to break our brand new Porsche in the trash for a long time. What is characteristic – they defeated, and in order to make the defeat completely humiliating, we left the police station on Nissan Versa.

In the Coral Casino frontal

After that, we were given to play multiplayer, and, as is usually the case in a room full of game journalists, we all tried to get gold. Draw Feyirkhvan to bricks and earn speed points in free mode can immediately 12 players, and when everyone agrees to start the race, the players should still get to the starting line and stand in the right direction, which, as it turned out, is not always just to do.

[[Bullet]] two years ago we loved police cars exclusively through the efforts of Criterion.

You can compete only with cars of the same weight category, so I will not work out at the party of sports hatchbacks at the Lamborghini Gallardo party. But you can change the type of tire during the race. “Imagine you write SMS driving,” Sullivan explains. – If you are driving along a straight highway, then write a text and not fly to the ditch can still go out, although I would not advise trying. But if you rush along the winding streets of the County of Surray, doing something else will be much more difficult. So we decided that if you want to change tires during the race, then you can do it. You can also break ".

And he is right. As soon as we tried to change the harsh off-road tires to smooth roads-and due to the second loss of concentration, we crashed into a truck, rising from a worthy third place to a shameful fifth. We also failed to jump, the insidious colleague on Ford sent us to a deep knockout. Effective strategy: he has for some time from the initial 90 seconds to jump, and a broken car is a broken car.

[Bullet]] Industrial suburb is still the main motive of the game, but the scope, of course, is more sainless than seven years ago.

In the following tests, the gold medal continued to avoid us due to an unlucky combination of negligence and the bright yellow color of our “Chevy”. But we still managed to catch victory in our tenacious paws when we gathered for the competition for the longest skid around the lighthouse. We immediately took a good pace and by the time someone nevertheless imprinted us in the wall, we had already made three circles, and all the rivals had long been resting in the cuvette, so there was no one to beat our account. Well, in the last Criterion race, we were divided into two groups, each of which should knock out opponents and defend their comrades.

“Do not think that the person traveling ahead knows what you have on your mind,” Webster advised in the end. But judging by how they create a world in which fans of racing are gathering together, a world that looks great and controls, Criterion knows what is on our mind. The only controversial point is the Cloud Compete application for iOS, which will allow you to earn speed glasses on your phone or tablet. It is strange that it does not go out on Android, but about this somehow another time. If anyone knows how to develop a series of Need for Speed, then this is Criterion Games. We completely trust these people – in the end, they did not make a single bad race.

We will wait?

The rafting of ideas from the original Most Wanted and the entire previous genre experience Criterion risks turning into the most exciting race on the planet.

Percent of readiness: 85%

Gas to the floor

Producer Matt Webster and Creative Director Craig Sullivan – about sizes, motorcycles and police

Seachast County from Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit was four times more than Paradise City. And how Feirkhevan is related to Seachast County?

In Hot Pursuit, you drove 300+ km/h on winding roads similar to the hills of California. His roads were more like a sweeping web, while Paradise City was distinguished by thick, dense buildings. They cannot be directly compared. But Feirkhevan is more than Paradise, and it is built much thicker – new gameplay opportunities are waiting for you behind every turn. Feirkhevan allows you to move at different levels, the total playing area is incredibly large, while the city has open highways, as in Seachast. We have collected the best of both games.

As a lover of motorcycles, I hit a lot of hours in addition to Bike Pack for Burnout Paradise. Why are there no bikes in Most Wanted, do you plan to add them in the future?

Yes, the motorcycles were gorgeous, and they were perfect for Burnout Paradise. But in Hot Pursuit, we wanted to return the series to its origins, to the fights of police officers against riders. And during the development of Most Wanted, we did not even think about stories, we too much focused on the concept of racing, chasing and studying the world, while increasing our rank “most wanted”.

Interesting levels were in the original game. How to change the behavior of cops along with the growth of the level?

We want to slowly represent the police to the player. Chases should please, not annoy. If every five minutes they will chase you, then no matter how interesting the chases are, they will be bored. If you want, you can calmly explore the world. You will behave badly, one Crown Victoria will come and try to catch up with you, and if it doesn’t work out, he will call for a help. At higher levels, the police will try to take you into the “box”, they will build road fences and arrange tapes with spikes. With an increase in level, their tactics will also improve: to hide in the corner and hope that you will not be found, it will not work. You can jump onto the building, but they just wait until you go down. Each chase is unique, so we do not limit the player in anything, because everyone drives differently, and different cars make you come up with new tricks.

And what can you say about the version for PS vita?

Almost nothing but we are doing it.

Okay, then at least finally tell us about the game of something interesting that we still do not know!

We talked almost nothing about multipler tests. You can collect 12 players and arrange tests at once for all. For example, in total to dial 2000 meters of jumps. The points scored are folded, but the contribution of each player is also taken into account. This has not yet happened in any racing game. In general, it will be cool!