Need for Speed Most Wanted (Black Edition) (Sony PlayStation 2, 2005)

THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE BLACK EDITION OF NFS MOST WANTED. I LOVE THE ACTUAL GAME, THIS IS JUST A REVIEW OF THE NEW FEATURES IN THIS EDITION
Need for Speed Most Wanted is easily one of the best games in the need for speed series. I heavily enjoyed playing the career mode over and over again (I am a HUGE fan). The graphics are pretty good (even on PS2), the car selection is great, the car handling, upgrade, and tuning systems are perfect, and to top it all off, the gameplay mode is fantastic. The game's great. It's so great, I couldn't wait to get the black edition game.

Boy was I disappointed.

This is about the biggest waste of money I can think of. I hardly think any of these so called "bonus features" are worth 15$ extra. Fortunately, I was able to get it for around 10 bucks on eBay, and I feel sorry for anyone who didn't get this price. AnywayI'll go over the extra stuff for you.

Let's start with the extra cars.

The "new" BMW in this game is just a grey, downgraded version of the blue-and-white original version. This car is absolutely nothing you couldn't get out of the said regular car. The CAMERO isn't bad, a good American classic car that is a good edition to the original list. Oh...wait...I forgot. Both of these cars are bonus cars. You can't use the sucky BMW or the okay Camero in career mode or in My Cars. They're untuneble and unusable in any other race besides a quick race. Which brings me to the next thing...

The career mode.

Well, this is the worst disappointment. The black edition career mode is identical to the regular career mode. Besides the extra vinyls (which aren't good either). There are only three of them. Yellow text spelling "most wanted", a white...wave thing, and a sea turtle (???). They're all on the side, so you can't even see them when you drive your car. Actually, no where else unless you go into picture mode.

Next, the bonus races.

These aren't that bad. There are about 10 total, and they're exactly what they're supposed to be. Nothing more, nothing less.

Finally, the bonus DVD.

Whatever. This wasn't at all what I'd hoped. There are a few SHORT videos about the making of this, but they're just random production videos mashed together. No interviews with any producers except Josie Maran (Mia), who just calls her character a bad a*s and that's it. There are also videos of the city and sketches of the cars, but nothing else.
In conclusion, this is great if you HAVEN'T already bought the original, but if you have, stay away (unless you get it for free).

This is a GREAT game, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, but it does take a little time to learn how to drive the cars and escape cop pursuits. I have NFS Most Wanted in both Greatest Hits and Black Edition. There are not that many differences between the two versions. One thing to know: You CANNOT use your Greatest Hits profile in the Black Edition or vice-versa so if you have both versions like I do you have to go through the entire game under each profile. I was okay with that!

Career Mode: Early on the cars are not the fastest or best handling which can kill you in races or pursuits. Just keep trying. I recommend upgrading the cars with some cash or performance markers before moving on to the next blacklist rival just because a little cash spent now may save you time and frustration later, but that’s up to you. Try to get the rival’s pinkslip to his/her car because most of the time it’s a better performance car than the one you are running. The more HP you have under your hood the more likely your car will fish-tail when accelerating quickly so I tune all my cars to have the handling, acceleration and “feel” that I prefer.
My son and I have defeated this game five times between us and we have 100% Career Mode completion in both versions. We have both completed each version and it was fun (and sometime frustrating) each time through. Even now it's great to get the cars out and engage in a cop pursuit or run the races again. My favorite car to run is the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. I have won the pinkslips to the VW Golf GTI, Lexus IS 300, Supra, RX-8, Eclipse, Porsche Cayman S, Lancer Evo VIII, Mustang GT, CLK 500, Lambo Gallardo, Corvette C6, Viper SRT 10, Aston Martin DB9, Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren and the BMW M3 GTR. It’s fun to take the cars to the shop and upgrade the performance or change the visuals. It can get expensive though - I have spent over $350K upgrading the Porsche to the highest performance level.
I have over $550 Million in bounty if you combine my profiles. This is by far the best NFS game ever. It's better than Carbon or ProStreet. Underground 2 was a good game but this one is still better. I am just getting ready to start Underground but need to get my fill of Halo 3 first! That will probably take a while though....
I found an “in-game map” of the layout of all the streets at gamefaqs.com which was like gold during the last cop pursuit before you (finally) win in Career Mode.
One note: The drag races are pretty fun once you learn that there is a pattern to each one of them.

Challenge Series: Gets pretty tough and really frustrating at times as you progress. I am at number 56 but the best ones are #46 (garbage truck) and #50 (cement mixer). I prefer the pursuits over the Toll’s any time.

There are a few things I would like to change if I could: 1) There is no way to have a two player cop pursuit (which just plain stinks), 2) In the Challenge Series you cannot tune your car the way you like so you are stuck with the way the car handles and performs (which adds to the frustration), 3) You should be able to turn catch-up off (during Blacklist races) but you can't and 4) You WILL have bad things happen to you during races and cop pursuits, so you just have to live with it!

This game is great. It seemed as though it was going to be extremely easy at first, but after you move your way up the blacklist and get close to number one the milestones start to challenge your driving skills a little, espically with a cop helicopter and 25 police cars behind you. If you liked the other Need for Speeds you will enjoy this one as well.

I love playing the game! Pretty challenging at times. Love the game but my only complaint was as soon as I got it done,my memory card messed up al that file became no good any more. Oh well,it gave me an excuse to play it again!

Being a race fan and Need For Speed collector i just had to own NFS Most Wanted Black Edition. I read all the hype about the extra cars, tracks and the new challenges. Most Wanted for Game Cube is now my favorite game so i was really up to the extras Black Edition offered.
First the bonus cars in Black Edition can only be used in the quick races. Also Black Edition only offers one new challenge (Black Edition Challenge) which i defeated very easy with the beautiful Camero SS which sadly you don't win the car. The bonus cd was in my opinion was a wasted effort and only added to the hype. There was nothing of real importance on the disk.
So, overall i have been very disappointed. I could have bought Most Wanted and saved a lot of money.
The game does offer a few added bonuses. In Black Edition it will now rain, there are birds, the graphics blurr from speed, the sky changes colors, there are some new Police cars and you get a few bonus graphics.
Don't get me wrong i really like Need for Speed Most Wanted and welcome Black Edition into my NFS collection but, i really feel short changed. I let all the hype around Black Edition make my descision when buying it. I beleived that Black Edition was going to be a complete makeover from the Game Cube game. I was wrong.
NFS Most Wanted is a must have game but, save your money when it comes to Black Edition. Trust me when i say the added features are not worth the added cost.