Need For Speed Most Wanted Review

This is a guest review by LydiaInsane, which show a comparison between the GBA and DS version of Need for Speed Most Wanted.

The Need For Speed franchise has gone from strength to strength these past few years, with Most Wanted being one of the best yet, well at least up until the point they decided to put it on these two Nintendo handheld consoles; both the GBA and DS version of the latest Need For Speed game are in one word... dreadful.

Game Boy Advance

Rather surprisingly this version was the slightly more playable of the two. The simpler graphics led to the cars being slightly easier to handle from the very outset. The graphics are what you would expect from the GBA, although I feel they could have been better, the sound is rather average.

While you can still tune your car to some degree and paint it pretty colours, like in the other Need for Speed games, it's hard to actually care about such things when playing on a GBA.

While the game was easy enough to get into, after just two races I was already starting to get a little bored, the tracks seemed rather dull, event he police that ended up chasing me were easy enough to avoid, I guess the game gets move challenging later, but I really didn't feel inspired enough to stick it out for much longer.

Despite my many problems with this game, the cars themselves were easy enough to handle, but I couldn't help but wish the accelerator was some place else other than the A button, as my thumb already hurt just after a couple of two lap races, so this made me want to play even less.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted is rather unfortunately just about a complete waste of space, time and money.

Use this link for the GBA related information NFS:MW - GBA .

Nintendo DS

So the DS version has a nice shiny intro sequence and you can sign your name or draw a little picture in your profile, this is about as far as I got without once again noticing serious flaws.

The game is just about unplayable, as the control system must have been designed by someone who had never actually seen a Nintendo DS! While I have no great skill at racing games, I at least won a couple of races on the GBA advance version! On the DS I struggled to even complete the first few laps, as the cars were completely uncontrollable. Once again the accelerator was the A button, which I know is me being picky and too used to the layout of controllers on larger consoles such as the Xbox, but if you plan on playing a game for a long time you need to be comfortable.

It's a strange thing to say, but how this game fails is partly the fact of the DS itself. The fact that the circuit map is on the other screen, rather than right in front of you while driving, really does distract you, so as far as this game is concerned one screen really is better than two! Maybe once you know the tracks this won't matter, but I really didn't want to play the game any longer than absolutely necessary.

The graphics and sound are pretty poor too; the DS can do so much more than this. Those who played Need for Speed Underground 2 on the DS, will be left wondering what happened to the developers to allow them to produce such a game.

If I had to pick between this and the GBA version, I would choose the later.

Use this link for the DS related information NFS:MW - DS .

Conclusion

A huge let down and a complete waste of time, that will probably only appeal to hard core fans of either the console or the franchise.

Most of what made the Need for Speed series special is missing from these games. I have never been truly convinced that racing games belong on handheld consoles, and it was very clear that this game didn't belong on either Nintendo GBA or DS.

The sound in both version of NFS:MW, isnt the best in the world. In fact they fall very short of some of the worst. The hip-hop sound track is rather generic and it get really annoying after a while. The car engine sounds take me back to the days of the Acorn Electron, with a bit of a drone that changes pitch. It's a better to turn the sound right down for these games.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted I am sure will be a huge success on all the larger consoles and probably the PSP. I have seen both the Xbox and Game Cube version and they both look excellent, plus I am sure it will truly shine on the Xbox 360. So I recommend you go buy one of the other versions instead!