APH Networks: When I read about the impending release of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit earlier in June this year, I was kind of confused. Was it a mistake? One can only think it is -- especially if you stopped paying attention for just a short moment. Normally, when new game titles are released, developers tend to increase the version number, not decrease it. Case in point: Pretty much everything that has ever been made. If we take things just slightly out of context, you will notice an interesting trend. First came Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit in 1998 (Yes, I understand the 'III' here is the version of the Need for Speed series, but you get the point), then Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 in 2002, followed by the latest release, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Um... yeah. That being said, after spending a good amount of time "testing" this arcade racer -- which is just really an excuse for me to play this game, except I can claim I am actually 'working' -- my advice to you is simply forget about everything you have seen with Hot Pursuit 2, dig up all those fond memories of the original Hot Pursuit, put it in 2010 context, and relive all those childhood hours you have wasted evading cops in your Italdesign Schigera on your Pentium III computer. Well, 12 years has gone by, and while there are no more Italdesign Schigeras, and hopefully you no longer own a Pentium III, inside the box is a whole slew of modern supercars waiting for you to abuse electronically. What made us so impressed? Read on to find out.
After nearly three decades of NFS games, here's a list of the best Need For Speed titles that have ever been released in the past years, ranked by The Nerd Stash.
Best NFS in my personal opinion
Highstakes, Hotpursuit 2 and Underground, Mostwanted, The Run.
Rest of those titles are Junk,Crap, disappointing.
Paul writes - "EA know a good thing when they see it, and for multiple years November was Need for Speed month. In a break from the usual routine, I'm going to be looking back at two games here, released in 2005 and 2010 respectively. The earlier game is Need for Speed: Most Wanted, which has the distinction of being one of the very best in the franchise. The second game comes from 2010, and is Need for Speed Hot Pursuit; which I'll talk about just as the Remastered version of the game has hit the stores."
I completely adore this game! In fact its probably my favorite racing game. I recently dusted off my xbox 360 to play Most Wanted 2005. Still a great game, though I do not remember there being such horrible performance. Like massive frame-pacing issues. screen tearing, latency. If any game ever truly needed to be remastered, it this one for sure!
A pulled retailer page previously listed a November release date.
No NFS released since Hot Pursuit (2010) has came close. The Ghost Games NFS games were just dreadful (to me they were anyway, 2015 was okay I suppose). Would love to replay this and I hope it has an update for next-gen as well.
I loved Most Wanted as well (on PS3, I think it released in 2012). After that, it has gone downhill, but the latest games are slowly coming back up. I loved NFS Heat, but it needs to get better before it comes back to same level as NFS Hot Pursuit and Most Wanted.
Then again, NFS Hot Pursuit and Most Wanted were likely better because they were from Criterion (in fact, those were the last 2 games from criterion in nfs series).
I would be excited but NFS is basically dead in the water at this point, a shell of its former self.
