The information screens you are shown before the race and while you're waiting for the race to load are well laid out.

The quality of the graphics is great but the ridiculous aspect of the crash camera sequences really detracts heavily from the racing aspect in my opinion.

Each race you'll usually find shortcuts that you can take, however not all of them are shorter or faster than the main route, so that's a good feature.

The sheer speed and acceleration exhibited by the other cars and the cops is just insanely inaccurate. Now I'm putting this in the good section aswell because many people like close racing, so having the ability to keep up with the other racers some find enjoyable, or the fact that you're constantly being challenged because irrespective of how fast or well you drive the AI opposition will always be right with you, if not in front of you.

Playing as racer or cop you both have similar equipment that you can deploy to " Slow Down " the opposition / cops / racers. I use the term slow down because it seems no matter what happens to them they can still continue to race.

Overall the Game Play can be fun, but I'm not really sure how sustainable that level of fun is, because there's just too many annoyances that seem to steal focus.

The sheer speed and acceleration exhibited by the other cars and the cops is just insanely inaccurate. The reason this is also mentioned in the bad is because it's frustrating when you make your opponent crash and you speed away doing 230kmph only to find that opponent is still racing and now only 1 or 2 seconds behind you. Just back on the crashes. You can " Take Down " your opponent, which by my understanding is they crash and are therefore out of the race? Well no that is not EA's take on it. Sure they crash, but their car is instantly recovered and in an amazing turn of events, not only is it recovered but it instantly starts racing again at 170kmph. Totally ridiculous. The only benefit in taking down the opposition is for points because they are still in the race. For me if a car goes crashing over the barrier and ends up on its roof, the likely possibility that it would be able to return to the race is ZERO. Plus damage your car sustains (yes there is a damage indicator) appears to have no impact on the performance or handling. But the car does look terrible though.

In previous NFS releases driving at the speed limit when the radar detector goes off, and then past the cop car, would result in the cop not chasing after you. In this release the cop comes after you irrespective of the speed you're doing? It's like the game is scripted that the cop will engage as it assumes you'll always be speeding? Hmmm.

There is no skill setting for the game instead there is this issue of catchup. That being that a car which is behind seems to be granted some ability to close the gap. To test this I ran a race and drove reasonable. I got a time of 5:01.00 and finished 4th. I repeated the race but this time at the start (which by the way is always a rolling start). i slammed on the brakes. waited for 30 seconds. Then took off. Quite frankly I should have had no chance. I once again drove reasonable, not flat out and rarely use the nitro. I finished the race with a time of 5:31.00 and in 3rd position. Total of 5 racers in the event.

One last point is the Free Drive mode. This allows you full access to all roads so you can simply drive around. Great Idea, however all you can do is drive around. There are no sub missions if you're driving as a cop you could bust speeders, or if you free drive as a racer, then you would have to look out for cops. Back in Need for Speed Most Wanted when you just go free driving you still had to obey speed limits or end up being chased by the cops (you could only play as the racer). Quite frankly that was the best aspect of the whole game. Being able to use the whole open map design to avoid the police was awesome fun. Yet in this game there is NO SUCH FEATURE for free racing as a cop or racer. What a shame.

Also it is interesting to note that all the normal motorists (ie traffic) speed. Check out the slide show gallery to see where i'm driving a Ford GT-40 Police car and following some traffic. Also there is no cruise control! The posted speed limit is 35mph. Yet look at my speedo (which is in KMPH, clearly the game doesn't adjust the in game speed signs to match what you actually configure in the game settings?. Thats pretty dumb). However 35mph is only 56kmph, so why cant I bust this motorist for speeding?

In general the game is slick and well polished. The information bulletins are interesting and high quality (even if you can't skip them and after you've seen them once they are just annoying). The race map / menu selection looks great other than navigation is laborious and the main menu is unique and a whole lot better than the previous Need for Speed Shift.

Over all it is a very good looking game and on first inspection should be good, but there's just too many aspects holding it back.

The in game map / radar is quite small so you don't have a whole lot of warning as to what is coming up. You can only see a short distance ahead.

There are too many non skip able events. During a race you can't skip past the action slow motion camera shots. Even before you start the race you are shown an intro movie and it does say press enter to SKIP but even hitting enter the second that message appears you still end up watching atleast half of the movie sequence before it actually puts you in control of the car. Then after the race you will be presented with bulletins or equipment update messages. These want to tell you what you now have access to, such as spike strips, or if you get level 2 spike strips, or if your profile has increase, or if you have been promoted, or if a new vehicle has been made available. YOU CAN'T SKIP ANY OF THEM so it can take quite a few minutes before you can even get back to the menu to select another race.

You are provided no ability to modify or upgrade your car. This was always a key aspect in other Need for Speed releases, such as Underground, Most Wanted etc. but in this game you don't even have a garage. You don't have to buy any vehicles, you don't have to repair any vehicles and you can't even adjust any settings for the vehicles (such as suspension, gear ratios etc). infact it has to be the most boring Need for Speed release I've ever played. Previous titles had some annoyances, but with this release they've enhanced those annoyances and added a whole lot more.

There's lots of things happening in the game, from other traffic, other racers and the cops, but the absolutely largest annoyance is with the in game " Notifications ". They have decided it's not enough to simply have a radar detector mounted on the revision mirror, that beeps and flashes when police have been detected as previous NFS games did, no, in this title the game is placed in a mini pause while the camera zooms in on the cop then a few seconds later returns. This can happen numerous times during a single 5 minute race. So if you were in the middle of turning or about to release a spike strip etc, it's quite disconcerting.

Without a doubt the next major annoyance (which funnily enough continues on from the last one), is once again with the in game action sequences. When you take out a cop car, or another racer, the camera pans behind so you can see that car crash in a sort of slow motion death sequence, BUT the game doesn't pause, so you have no idea where your car is heading to and when the camera does eventually return to the normal position, you car could be facing anywhere. In one race i was approaching a 4 way intersection and took out a cop car, I had to wait for the crash sequence to finish and when i was returned control of my vehicle I was annoyed to find that I had been driven through the intersection, however the car I was pursuing had turned left, leaving me no option but to turn around. Of course this means I'm now losing touch with the target and you guessed it. race failed as I was too far behind.

It is a shame that was not a configuration option to turn on or off. See it once and the crash slow motion footage is great. But see it 50 times and it's just a nuisance, especially when you are trying to win the race or evade the other 4 cops that are currently chasing you.

This game provides NOTHING. Sure you get bounty points as a racer which unlocks new events, but you have no control over which events are unlocked as they seem to be randomly scattered across the map. You also get points as a cop which gives you promotion, but neither of these are tied into anything.

Many actions includes sound effects all of which are good and complement the action you have performed / requested.

While racing the engines all sound very similar and not very pronounced either. Infact the ambient noises such as thunder / wind or water is louder than my engine even when at full throttle. I dunno about you but I didn't play this game to hear birds and bees, I want to hear the engine at full song. Also there is very little difference in the engine sound from the 3 available camera views. I would have expected when viewing from Chase camera that the engine would be louder but alas it is not.

You do have the ability to turn the music off

Audio gives you the option of setting the music level, the Speech level and the sound effects. That's all

Having to navigate everything with the keys is cumbersome especially on the race map because you can't go directly to the race you want, instead you have to use multiple keystrokes in order to highlight the required race. See the photo gallery above where I demonstrate this aspect.

Game requires quite a few Press Enter's in order to get anything done. You're looking at 3 to reach the menu, and when you goto select a race, expect atleast 5 press enters before you actually get in the car.