MaximumPC 2006 03

N

eed for Speed has always been about driving really fast cars in beautiful

real-world locations. Unlike boring driving sims, where the focus is on

making perfect corners and minimizing your lap times, NFS eschews realism

for pure action, raw speed, and visceral sensation. The latest edition in the

series, Most Wanted continues the tradition.

In Most Wanted, you not only need to build a reputation by competing

in tons of street races and completing lots of specific events, you need to

do it while you avoid arrest by the police in a large, completely open city.

The living, breathing metropolis includes a multitude of shortcuts through

shops, parking lots, moving traffic, and even off-road locales. You’ll need

to learn all the shortcuts in order to avoid arrest. There are also dozens

of Crashbreakers—obstacles that you can use to shake even the tightest

pursuit—spread throughout the city. Crashbreakers can be anything from

exploding gas stations to a collapsing water tower.

There’s a wide variety of race types—everything from Knockout, where

a racer is removed from the race after each lap, to checkpoint-style speed

runs. In addition to completing races to advance, you’ll have to achieve cer-

tain milestones, such as blowing through speed traps at an insane speed, or

evading the police after a six-minute chase. It’s a helluva lot of fun.

The setting for NFS: MW is really the real star of the show, unlike other

open-world games like GTA or Midnight Club, EA didn’t sacrifice the graphic

detail of any particular portion of the city in order to have a larger city.

Different areas of the city have a different look, allowing you to tell exactly

where you are at any time, just by the color and tone of your surroundings.

Best of all, unlike other open-world racing games, you don’t have

to drive across town if you don’t

want to; the game includes

shortcuts to all the races and

events you need to compete in.

—WILL SMITH

Need for Speed:

Most Wanted

Running from the law has never been this fun

R

emember Enter the Matrix? Shiny’s last game, timed to coincide with the

launch of the last two Matrix movies, was seriously flawed, but still includ-

ed moments of fun. Path of Neo addresses the main complaint about the first

game—you couldn’t play as Neo—but bugs, bad decisions, and schizophrenic

cutscenes leave this game in worse shape than its predecessor.

As you progress through PoN you’ll unlock new abilities and fighting styles

for Neo to use; however, the game’s simplistic, button-mashing fighting engine

doesn’t require you to use the new skills at all. All you need to do to win is to

jump around like a madman, mashing buttons. Although you have an arsenal of

weapons at your disposal throughout the game, the awkward and inaccurate

control scheme makes it impossible to use them effectively. Instead, you’ll

find yourself relying on your martial arts “skills,” except in rare circumstances

where firearms are required.

While the martial arts combat can be visually satisfying, we felt like we

didn’t actually have control over the action. Despite pushing the appropriate

buttons to start combos and enact big moves, Neo almost always ended up per-

forming the same boring routine, over and over.

Walking along the Path of Neo left us with more than one head-

scratching moment. We were initially confused (and then annoyed) by the

mashed-up cutscenes, with footage culled from all three movies in an

attempt to improve the unsatisfying second and third parts to the trilogy.

The puzzle levels couldn’t be solved using any logic we saw, instead they

required blind exploration. And worst of all, after finishing the game, the

inexplicable ending still has us wondering whether the Wachowski broth-

ers added this awful final boss because they actually thought it would

be fun, or were they making a sly commentary about the current

state of video games? We’re

really not sure, but either way it

was un-fun.

—WILL SMITH

The Matrix: Path of Neo

Yay, another horrible Matrix game

We love that changing your car’s appearance in Need for Speed:

Most Wanted actually makes it less likely the cops will recognize

you and start pursuit.

The Path of Neo seems like it could be a fun game, until

you sit down to play it.

3

THE MATRIX: PATH OF NEO

$50, http://www.pathofneo.com,

ESRB: T

7

NEED FOR SPEED: MW

$50, http://www.needforspeed.com,

ESRB: T

9

MA XIMUMPC

KICKASS

MARCH 2006 MA XIMUMPC 83