Hello gamers, I hope you are doing well.
I couldn't dream of my childhood without playing some video games and one of the most fun games that I played was Need For Speed (NFS) Most Wanted (2005). This game has a special place in my heart. I used to play the races one by one with my brother. We would go turn by turn beating all the race events, destroying the police cars and gaining reputations and climbing up the blacklist ladder. We were mostly stuck with the single-player campaign and would beat it again and again and experiment with different cars.
But one of the underplayed aspects of the game was the Challenger Series! The challenger series is a bunch of extra challenges and race events separate from the main campaign. They start with easy challenges and get harder and harder. One of the last challenges on the list is a "Tollbooth Time Trail event" where we are not racing against other racers but against time!
Each Toolboth race has an 'x' number of checkpoints or tollbooth that has to be completed in 'y' amount of time and if you fail any of these the race will end right there. This race against time is not easy for the following race event that I am going to show you!
Here is the video of me attempting to complete it (Sorry for the poor video quality).
Rundown of the Race!
This has to be the longest single-lap race event (some circuit races take more time but they have 3 laps) which covers almost the entire major highway map of Rockport city. We start with Highway 99, the widest and the easiest one to play if you want to run from cops. But when it is a timed event, it becomes tougher as each bump will decrease your average speed and you will get punished more.
We have to complete these challenger series events with the given cars so some of them could be easier but the cars they give you make it difficult. But in this case, it was a green Lamborghini Gallardo, one of my favourite cars in the game and a beast! Even with this supercar, the first part of the race was not easy.
The traffic makes it difficult too, driving over 300 and dodging the traffic on highways is not easy and sometimes you need a bit of luck. Just like I got lucky in this case.
Another aspect that could make these races difficult is the cops. Some races have way more chances for cops to interfere and they are a constant nuisance, especially if it is a higher heat level. In this one, they were heat level 5 which is quite hard to get rid of.
These police cars go faster than race cars and are more sturdier than the lower heat-level cars. But sometimes they get an unlucky spawn just like in the following case...lol
My car was going over 330 Kmph and no police car could survive that strong hit. What makes this game fun is your car won't get totalled unlike the NFS MW 2012, which is more realistic but less fun and sometimes having less realism and more fun is needed.
Anyways, most of the race is on Highway 99 and this highway is a big loop but eventually, we are thrown off that loop and onto the city with smaller roads and more traffic.
One interesting part of racing games is the shortcuts that you can find and this one has some too. One of the riskier ones is the following one which makes your car fly!
I always take this shortcut even though it doesn't save you much time, in fact, it can backfire and you end up in a worse situation. But who cares about that when you can make your car fly? lol
Police were a real pain in this race and they will try to catch you almost for the entirety of the race which is like 9 minutes. But some things can slow them down. The entire city has some structures which you can destroy and the cops' car will be destroyed and buried under the rubble. Of course, it works with cars that are chasing you only not on those who are on the other road and those who are in front. Sometimes, I wonder if I am being chased or challenged to a race xD
Back to the race, it was a close race, especially on a couple of Tollbooths. I crossed under 1 second twice and one of those was too close.
I started well but the third one was tough and then I gained some time on the clock by finishing some good ones. At one point I gained as much as +20 seconds but somehow I lost that edge and got very close, as close as a tenth of a second to losing. But the last one was not as bad and I won it comfortably at the end.
I played a few quick races too with random cars and won all the races. But none were as thrilling as this one. That's why I wanted to share it!
I heard some rumours that a remastered version of this game is in the works. Not sure how true that is but if it is, I would love to play it. I hope they can maintain the same sense of fun and excitement and match this masterpiece somehow, which seems highly unlikely.
Let me know if you played this one and if you have some precious memories to share.
Thanks for reading...
Note:
- All the content is mine unless otherwise stated.
- Hive gaming text divider from Raizel posted in Hivegaming Discord Server.
- Screenshots were taken from the game: NFS: MW 2005
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