Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005 video game)

The player's car, a Porsche Carrera GT, is being pursued by several undercover state police cars and a police helicopter in Free Roam mode. This screen-shot also depicts the use of simulated HDRR on the sunny sky and surface lighting.

While the concept of players being engaged by police was first introduced in Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit, the development of Most Wanted saw the gameplay mechanic enhanced and firmly introduced into the series through the employment of a complex system. When players become engaged in a police pursuit, usually from conducting a traffic offence (referred to as "Infractions" in the game) in sight of a police unit (such as speeding), their aim at this point is to escape from the pursuit by either evading or taking out pursuing vehicles. The game's on-screen HUD is modified during a pursuit, including highlighting pursuing police units on the mini-map, displaying the vehicle's heat level, and adding a Pursuit bar at the bottom detailing the number of police units in the pursuit, how many have been evaded, and how many have been taken out. The pursuit system calculates how the police handle the player via the heat level accumulated against the player's current car. Heat accumulates from committing offences and continually evading capture by the police, with higher levels of heat causing the police to be more aggressive, from employing additional tactics and tools (such as roadblocks, spike strips, and police helicopters), to involving stronger, faster police cars such as police SUVs and Federal units. If a player has only one car actively pursuing them, reinforcements may be called in and arrive after a period of time.

Players can lose the police through skillful driving, making use of their special abilities, ramming pursuing vehicles and utilizing "Pursuit Breakers" - environmental traps, highlighted on the mini-map, which when triggered cause a certain number of police vehicles to be taken out of action, such as smashing through a gas station. Evading and losing the police - either by disabling/immobilizing vehicles, gaining some distance from pursuers, or a combination of both - does not end a pursuit, once there are no more active vehicles. Instead, the player enters a "cooldown" period when this happens, which pauses the pursuit (and any reinforcements being called in), they must hide and avoid being spotted by police for a period of time. The length of time for this period is longer at higher levels of heat, but can be decreased significantly if the player reaches and hides in special concealment spots around the game's setting, which are marked on the mini-map during this phase and place them out of sight of police units. A pursuit fully ends when the player successfully escapes the police, or is overwhelmed and trapped, and thus "busted" as a result.

In the game's main mode, the objective is to race against each of the setting's major street racers (or Blacklist Racer) and defeat them. Initially, players begin by completing a tutorial sequence of events to ease players into the game, whereupon they must choose a car to use for the rest of the game. The selection available is limited, but more become available as the player defeats each Blacklist racer, including better performance upgrades for these, with players able to sell any car acquired at any time during the game - cars can be bought at car lots, while upgrades and customization parts can be bought at garages. Events in this mode are divided into two categories - Racing events, and Milestones. While Racing events focus on the game's main series of racing events which earn money rewards when won, Milestones focus on completing specific objectives, most of which usually involve being involved in a police pursuit and raising the player's Bounty - a form of currency detailing how much trouble the player has caused for the police in the game's setting, based on the number of offences and damage to property they had caused. An example of a Milestone can be the player being required to enter a police pursuit and then attempting to escape it within a set amount of time.

Police pursuits in this mode can occur in Free Roam, during a race, or from activating one in the game's pause menu - the latter can be done only if there are any Milestones yet to be completed. Although police units will mainly impede a player if they begin pursuing them in a race, they will attempt to arrest them when in Free Roam. If the police achieve this, the player is fined based on their heat level, which is reset, and their car is given an impound strike - if the player cannot pay their fine, or receive a third strike on their car, it is impounded and lost; losing all of their cars this way and having no money to buy a new one, automatically ends the game. If the player escapes pursuit, the car retains the heat level it accumulated, but can lose this by either having its visual looks changed, or by driving another vehicle for a period of time. Players can view a statistic screen at any time during this mode to view their records regarding infractions, cost to state, deployed tactics and pursuit lengths.

To take on each Blacklist Racer, players must complete events and Milestones associated to them, whereupon they must win against the racer in a successive series of races - the number increases as the player progresses in the story. Defeating a Blacklist Racer not only unlocks the next opponent and a new series of events, along with new Milestones to achieve, but also unlocks additional cars and upgrade parts as well, along with allowing the player to claim two rewards from them. Each Blacklist Racer has six rewards they can offer when defeated. While three of these rewards consist of special customization parts and unique performance upgrades, the other three, concealed from the player until selected, consist of the racer's personal car - a uniquely modified vehicle - and two randomly selected bonus functions - extra money; impound recovery of lost vehicles; a "get-out-of-jail-free-card"; the removal of an impound strike on any car. Any component Markers selected can be acquired by visiting the garages after returning to Free Roam. In addition, defeating specific Blacklist Racers also unlock access to the other districts of the city - the player has access to one district to begin with, but unlocks more as they progress in the game, including additional safehouses.

In Quick Race mode, players can enter any event they wish and use any car that they want, while opting to either make custom parameters for the event (i.e. number of laps), or let the game create a random set of parameters. The number of events and cars to choose from depend on the player's progress in the game's Career mode.

In Challenge Series mode, players take part in a successive series of events, in which completing one unlocks the next event. While around half of these are focused on checkpoint races, the other consist of a mixture of pursuit events akin to the Milestone events in Career Mode, with each event tasking the player to complete its goal using a specific vehicle on a specific route/from a starting position, and beginning on a certain level of heat. Vehicles for each event are pre-tuned, and range from various cars available in Career mode, to those not accessible such as dump trucks and police cars. Completing specific challenges reward the player with bonus cars for use in Career and Quick Race mode.

Multiplayer in Most Wanted consists of online modes, which were available for the Xbox 360, Xbox, PC and PlayStation Portable editions of the game. Up to 4 players can participate in an online race and can race in 4 game modes including circuit, sprint, lap knockout and speed trap. Furthermore, there is the option to enable Performance Matching in an online race - all cars in the race are automatically upgraded to match the performance (i.e. top speed, handling, etc.) of the fastest car in that particular race. However, as soon as the race is over, all modifications made to the cars by performance matching are removed. The online multiplayer lobby was shut down on August 1, 2011,[2] though it is still possible to play the game in multiplayer, but through an unofficial, open beta modification called "Most Wanted Online".

The fictional city of Rockport consists of three major districts (Rosewood, Camden Beach and Downtown Rockport) consisting of grimy industrial areas, more affluent suburbs, mountainous and wooded surroundings, a university campus, and a downtown core, with a mixture of road networks ranging from coastal roads to major highways. The setting is heavily influenced by cities in the United States' "Rust Belt" and Pacific Northwest with some resemblance to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon. Much of the game's events and story take place in a fixed time-period between sunrise and sunset, compared to the previous title's races that took place at night.

The game begins with the player taking part in a sprint race against Clarence "Razor" Callahan (Derek Hamilton), in order to take his #15 spot on the blacklist. During the race, the player receives a call stating that his custom painted BMW M3 GTR suffered an oil leak at the start line, and that the player had to end the race fast. Despite the warning, the engine seizes due to lack of oil.

In a flashback to a few days ago, the player is seen arriving at Rockport for the very first time, hoping to take part in the city's illegal street racing scene. Upon arriving, he meets with Mia Townsend (Josie Maran) in her Mazda RX-8, who offers to help him get started. He also crosses paths with Sergeant Jonathan Cross (Dean McKenzie), the city's top traffic police officer in the Rockport Police Department (RPD) who drives a custom-painted Chevrolet Corvette police interceptor, along with his unnamed partner (Simone Bailly). Cross seeks to bring down the "Blacklist", a group of the fifteen most-wanted drivers sought by the RPD[3] and declares that street racing in Rockport is "finished". Cross almost arrests the player before being forced to answer another street racing distress call; Cross leaves after keying the player's car. The player starts competing with other street racers, such as Ronald "Ronnie" McCrea (Paul Dzenkiw), and befriends fellow racer Rog (André Sogliuzzo). He soon catches the attention of Razor, who underestimates the player and dispatches Toru "Bull" Sato (Kevan Ohtsji) to defeat the player; Bull is defeated instead. The player thus receives the chance to race against Razor in a "pink slip" race and the timeline comes back to the present.

The player loses the race due to the oil leak caused by Ronnie sabotaging the player's car under Razor's directions, and Razor soon claims the player's BMW for himself before fleeing with the other racers, as Cross and the RPD arrive. With no car to escape, the player is arrested.

After some time, the player is released from custody due to lack of evidence, and is picked up by Mia. She explains that Razor had the BMW sabotaged to win it, and used it to take the #1 spot on the Blacklist. Providing the player with a safehouse and helping him buy a new car, Mia recommends that the player work up the Blacklist himself, defeating each of its racers, in order to challenge Razor and win back his car.[4] In exchange for her help, including the involvement of Rog, Mia asks for the unquestioned placement of large "side bets" on the player's street races. As the player makes progress, Rog contacts the player to inform him that Mia's bets are earning her large amounts of money that will likely attract RPD's attention, and suggests he keeps distance from her.

Eventually the player becomes #2 on the Blacklist and attracts Razor's attention from the reputation he had accumulated over time, culminating in the pair racing against each other. The player manages to defeat Razor and recover the BMW from him, but quickly learn that Mia is an undercover police officer for the RPD, who had been working to bring down the Blacklist from the inside for Cross.[5] As the RPD begin to arrive on the scene, Mia advises the player to run, as Razor and the Blacklist racers are arrested, despite several of them trying to flee when they realize Mia lured them into the RPD's ambush. Cross, angered at Mia's inability to arrest the player as well, calls in a city-wide police hunt for him.[6] Unable to return to the safehouses due to Cross knowing about his location, the player finds himself aggressively pursued around the city. Mia soon contacts him, directing him to jump from a derelict bridge outside the city limits. The player successfully evades the cops by reaching it and leaves Rockport.[7] In a post-credits scene, Cross creates a national-level warrant for the player and his BMW, adding him to the National Most Wanted List.