Pretty and quickly. Especially boring.

Let's make no mistake about it: Where it says Criterion, Burnout is inside. Do not care what else is on the package. We have already learned in Hot Pursuit, which up to the chase with his namesake had less in common than with the last Burnout. With Most Wanted it behaves similarly, because here you rush through an open game world, during Geschwindkeitsrausch is periodically interrupted by solemnly celebrated crash animations. If NFSler the first hour are disappointed that there was "no real" Need for Speed ​​is more, they therefore have not understood something fundamental. Anyway: The expectation is nothing. The game is everything.

In fact makes most wanted only times everything right, which already Burnout Paradise has done right: great graphics, arcadige control, good music, and a perfect sense of speed. So far so good. But after the first few laps in the successful game world is annoying quirks reveal in gameplay.

Divorce on the control the spirits, which is in every racing game that way. Most Wanted has a more drift-oriented, spongy control that remains imprecise about the central location. Those who expect to land with precise driving style and timely braking curves at No. 1, can abschminken again the same. The key is to unlock the Nitro Boost for every vehicle, because only with this can be even the heaviest race easily deny, namely this: Man is racing at full speed in a curve, braking just before relent, and expressed using the Nitro again out. Finish is the first place. That's just, quite fun, but very undemanding.

On top of that, repeat the race to unlock car mods like Nitro often. I get a new car, drive the same race for the tenth time, and have my desired upgrade. Yawn. Why do I need a huge game world, if I ever anyway along cucumber same routes? Of course you can around pastes funny in the City and the sweeping mountain roads, but at the end of the day affects the whole as waste. Most Wanted is in any case overwhelmingly boring after a few hours.

The wonderful and lovingly detailed graphics, screaming with each pixel "High Production Value", the steering wheel can not turn things around, because as a perfectionist and whiners I also find here the fly in the ointment ... or we put it differently: it jumps me a complete toupee right in the face. The keyword is overstimulation. Is all well that the engine can represent great Lensflares, also the virtual dirt on the camera, really bombastic. In glaring sunlight dazzling streets and spray that robs all meaning - great! ... But please do not all the time. And certainly not I need a pop-up info on a straight "geslamten" opponents in the middle of the field of view, so I do not see the next concrete wall and ... Did I mention that the crash animations also nervous at some point? When I go with 300km / h through a tunnel, including two-way traffic, I do not know that I have just done a cop with a Turbo Monster Action Slam. No, not really.

The degree of difficulty is also a problem elsewhere: Even if I'm driving at full speed against a wall - the game leaves me because of rubber band AI always the chance to win a race yet. There were days when I drove along the biggest crap and still was at the top of the podium because the other drivers had also happened to an accident or their supercar temporarily able to drive only 120. Something like that can prevent frustration of course, but one has on the other hand never the feeling of having won a race himself. When my mom took me as a child playing drafts can win, I thought it was always stupid, and in video games, I'm no exception. Arcade well and good, but that should have been solved differently.

Strange affects the procurement of new vehicles: You drive in Most Wanted no cars free or only once need to earn money to afford these can, but finds it more or less hidden in the street where the car can be changed by pressing a button. This one should be encouraged to explore the world, which in turn extends the playing time artificially. It is a typical shortcoming idea loose games, to give the monkeys before the screen cheap search and diligence tasks, so it thinks the game could have real content. There are even serious in-game achievements for a car to drive for an hour. Nothing else. Just go. Whether quickly if slowly - no matter. Expected you seriously that I for wasting my time? So ... in real now?

Where for me the fun but just stops on principle, is the audacity to misuse that auto search feature as a marketing element. As with many games is also available for Most Wanted DLCs with the new car, which can be purchased for real money. The problem: the carts are previously around in the game world. I stopped countless times ie before a newly discovered car, just to read the note, may I please buy the DLC Blablubb, so I can drive that thing. Maybe I'm kinda old-fashioned or so, but I expect for my money if you please a full, finished game, and no virtual bazaar, every few meters the money will go out of his pocket me. The ironic side effect of this is that you can very quickly lose interest in mind at all to look for new cars. What would I have ever from buying the DLC? I possessed only a few new cars that would ultimately drive just like any other. Varied physics knows Most Wanted namely not even a cockpit view does not exist. For comparison: When buying a Gran Turismo DLC I get real added value thanks to loving, remanufactured to detail car models including interior and different driving physics. In Most Wanted not. And of course at the same price.

Most Wanted is so much fun and makes it at the beginning, a flawless Blender. It looks great and makes, both visually and acoustically, orderly riot. But under the hood lies a weak-gameplay engine with an annoying marketing mechanism which reveals its weaknesses after a few kilometers. For occasional speeder that might be bearable, but certainly is unique and spectacular game makes it so ... not.