If you were looking forward to a Burnout game with licensed cars, welcome to NFS: Most Wanted 2012.
In all seriousness though, it's hard to find a person who wouldn't talk about how rushed and unfinished NFS: MW 2012 is. But most people will only criticize the game by talking about the point that it is not “Most Wanted”, and… that’s pretty much it. It’s hard to find a review that would focus on the final game itself.
First I want to say that it has its own vibe and positive sides.
For example, the city of Fairhaven looks beautiful, and the same goes for graphics.
I can’t really tell that this game came out in 2012. It’s almost on par with the most recent NFS releases. The city and the visual style create some great, chill vibes in my opinion.
The soundtrack is decent as of now and was excellent back in the day. It literally screams early 2010s: Skrillex, Charli XCX, Muse, The Chemical Brothers, Calvin Harris, and all the other artists blend really well with the world of the game and the time of its release. There are some dubstep remixes which I would rather replace with the original versions, but overall it's not that bad.
There are also unique intro cinematics for each event, which is a train of thought of whoever was responsible for the thing. I am not saying it’s bad; it’s actually quite the opposite: I really like those weird, creative cinematics. It is something that you simply can’t meet in the newer games. The unhinged creativity.
But that’s about it. Everything else is… rather questionable.
The game is literally being held hostage by its own naming. This is not Most Wanted; this is Burnout: Fairhaven.
It lacks not only a purpose but also a whole bunch of other aspects that would make the game worthwhile to play.
The gameplay is literally the same as in Burnout but kinda worse: complete races against faceless, generic bots who prove no resistance whatsoever; do some other generic stuff (go fast through a speedtrap, smash billboards, etc.); and earn enough score [Speed Points] in order to race yet another faceless Blacklist member, this time with cops and with the requirement to take out the opponent after the race in order to get his car into your garage.
If such a formula had worked with Burnout back in the 2000s, it has become quite stale by the time of 2012. Not to mention the amazing damage model of cars in Burnout since those were unlicensed. I don’t know who came up with an idea to try to implement such a thing with licensed cars; I personally think that such implementation will never work the way it should simply due to the manufacturers’ policies. The very core of NFS: MW 2012 contradicts itself, and as you may guess, it is not a good start.
Due to the rushed development, the progression system is questionable to say the least. Regarding the visual upgrades, the only thing you can change is the color/livery. In order to upgrade the insides of your car, you have to complete [b]certain[/b] races. You got the detail you need? Great, now use it 300 times or do something X number of times in order to upgrade it so it becomes even better.
Each car also has a certain list of available races, and once you have completed them, there is nothing else to do with the car except ditch it and switch to another one.
Every car has its own set of races, which sometimes intervene with one another (repetitiveness).
The cherry on top? Each car also has its own progression system, meaning that all of those performance parts that you’ve earned for your previous car do not carry over.
The handling model is really hard to get used to. If you don’t have track tires on, the car always tends to wiggle to the sides a bit, which results in a crash. Drifting isn’t as simple as in future installments either: if, say, in Payback any car could pass the turns in drift without spinning out, in MW2012 certain cars require drift tires or heavy control in order not to end up crashing.
You might think "oh, maybe the car is more grip-oriented then?" no, it isn't, it still tends to drift at times when turning.
The handling model with the “brake to drift” system, which has appeared in NFS: Hot Pursuit [2011], became closer to the abomination of a handling we have in Need for Speed 2015.
Speaking of crashes, in my own opinion the game is way too sensitive in this context, even more than NFS 2015. Sometimes trading paint with a car or with a wall results in a crash cut scene that is around 5 seconds long. Yeah, I still have PTSD from the NFS 2015, don't mind me here.
The side activities are quite boring. Excluding the races, there are half-baked 2-minute "drift" races, which are a rare occasion; chases, which hardly differ from the ones you might have in a race or in free-roam but somehow ended up as a separate event; and… that’s pretty much it.
Cops are not fun either: there’s absolutely no penalty if you get busted (I can hardly call a penalty the fact that you lose the SP you’ve accumulated [b]in a chase[/b]).
I couldn’t find speed cams or billboard-smashing fun no matter how hard I’ve tried. It just simply doesn’t click, maybe due to the fact that the game feels rather pointless as I've mentioned before.
There’s no ending, there’s no beginning; it really is a Burnout game that wears the name of Need for Speed for some particular reason.
I honestly think that if EA decided to reboot the Burnout series with this title or would call it the spin-off of the series, it would work far better than what we have today. But alas, it is what it is.
All in all, considering today’s trend of aimless racing (Forza Horizon, The Crew [kinda], and sim races), the game would hold great if not for the questionable progression and the half-working elements of the Burnout series. Sure, the game was meant to be drastically different, and, supposedly, to be the continuation of the original Most Wanted, but I just can't put my finger on what could have been different in order for this version of the game to work in the end.
Don’t get me wrong — it's a decent racing game for a couple of mindless evenings, but… many may find it boring and unfinished. I can’t say much personally; I personally found it fun but rather pointless to play after 3 hours.
I recommend this game purely out of pity. I understand all the depths of hell this game has been through during development, and I don't want to post another negative review just for the sake of it.
