“3-6-9, damn you fine…” what pops into your mind when you hear these lyrics? For me it is synonymous with Need For Speed: Underground. The tune ‘Get Low’ by Lil John, The East Side Boyz and Ying Yang Twins sets you up for the thrilling racing you’re about to experience in this game. Underground will forever be in my top games not only for its adrenaline enducing gameplay but also for having such an impactful intro. The year was 2003, the trend in the racing community was modified cars, crazy decals, powered by nitros and over the top driving thanks to the (at the time) new ‘The Fast and the Furious’ film series. EA Black Box joined this trend by releasing ‘Need for Speed: Underground’ giving players the ability to partake in this fun by customising their own cars and pit them against other opponents in a series of street races.
EA weren’t the first publishers to create a game based on this new street racing trend that ‘The Fast in the Furious’ had popularised. ‘Create-A-Ride’ hosted on the beloved flash gaming website, Newgrounds released around 2001-2. With Underground being such a massive success and Underground 2 slightly less so, I wanted to find out: “What happened to the Need For Speed series after Underground?” and why does it not get the hype that it used to anymore? Why did my friends and I stop talking about and playing these games? There was only one way to find out, track down each game and play them.
Between 2005 and 2022, the Need For Speed Series has had numerous developers such as: Black Box, Criterion and Ghost. As time went on the series slowly died in popularity. I played each console based game from ‘Most Wanted (2005)’ to ‘Unbound’ to see exactly what went wrong. I took to Twitter (or X, if you swing that way) and asked “For those of you who loved Need For Speed: Underground, did you continue to play the games that came after?” A whopping 83% of voters said no (for transparency the poll consisted of 6 voters lol). EA’s approach of a new game per year may have been good in the short run for business but in the long run the series’ fuel light has been on for a few miles now and will grind to a halt in loserville if they don’t fill up sometime soon.
Need For Speed: Underground (2003)
Sales: 15 Million copies
Metacritic score: 85
Developer: EA Black Box
Need For Speed: Underground’s music and visual style is what made it really stand out. Incredible soundtrack featuring many great songs and artists and a certain artist who has since severely tarnished their reputation since.
The gameplay was very linear, you picked the next race in line. Your reward money was based on the difficulty of the race you picked. With this money you could either upgrade the performance of your vehicle or add cool visual flares to gain reputation points.
Underground captured a whole new audience to their racing series with Underground performing better with the critics at the time than their previous game ‘Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2’ which was EA Black Box’s first Need For Speed game. After Hot Pursuit 2, EA went for a yearly release schedule which would ultimately cause it more harm than good…
Need For Speed: Underground 2 (2004)
Sales: 11 Million copies
Metacritic score: 82
Developer: EA Canada and EA Black Box
A year later came Underground 2 which introduced an open world element to the series where players would drive around the city to each the next race rather than navigating a menu system. Unfortunately for the sequel, they dropped around 4 million sales compared to the first game.
Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2005)
Sales: 16 Million copies
Metacritic score: 83
Developer: EA Canada and EA Black Box
‘Most Wanted (2005)’ was the beginning of the journey in exploring the series post Underground. This game is a big fan favourite and one that people would consider the the best Need For Speed game.
Most Wanted builds on what Underground started but there has been so much taken away from it as well as added it’s hard to say exactly how it compares. Underground’s soundtrack is what carries the game so well. Most Wanted, not so much, yes there is some licensed music by the same artists as before but none of it hits the same as Underground. I found it to be pretty bland to my ears despite both games sharing similar bands in their soundtracks. The game introduced live action cutscenes which are obscenely cheesy.
One element Most Wanted reintroduced was cop chases to the game. Now this is fun to spice up a race itself but having to orchestrate a police chase and tick off certain actions between races and to progress the story was a pain. I just want to race! I wish this was a side feature or exclusive to the DLC. The driving controls I found frustrating on the Xbox 360 version (at least anyway). Any small adjustments to your car’s direction to avoid the copious amounts of obstacles on the road would send your car wildly in the direction you pointed the joystick rather than a little nudge. This meant I would hit most if not all cars and obstacles on the roads during races making it feel more like an Ant McPartlin driving simulator.
With 5 million sales more than ‘Underground 2’ so far, so good for EA.
Need For Speed: Carbon (2006)
Sales: 15.6 Million copies
Metacritic score: 77
Developer: EA Canada and EA Black Box
Compared to the previous Most Wanted game, Carbon feels more like a step back to ‘Underground’ rather than a progression of ‘Most Wanted’ but this isn’t a bad thing.
Carbon introduces a “Crew” system which lets you select different people from your team to offer assistance in the races. This can be either a spotter to highlight shortcuts, becoming a draft so you can ride behind them for extra speed or a blocker to prevent cars from overtaking you. The game also introduces canyon races that involves racing a car downhill as close to them as possible to earn points, the second half is a role reversal where they do the same. The driver with the most points at the end of the race wins. Neither of these features made it beyond this game in the series.
Carbon’s soundtrack tends to focus more on an original soundtrack rather than licensed songs. The licensed songs are still present from artists such as: Gary Numan, Lady Sovereign, Tiga and Vitallic. The cutscenes in this game turn the cringe up a notch by making the live action scenes have a comic book effect over them to blur the lines between the live-action capture and the in-game graphics.
Need For Speed: ProStreet (2007)
Sales: 10.9 Million copies
Metacritic score: 72
Developer: EA Black Box
A big drop in sales for EA with ‘Need For Speed: ProSteet’ and a dwindling Metacritic score. EA took a different direction with the gameplay and rather than an arcade/action racer they went for a driving simulator approach with their usual street race flair. This change was not favoured well among fans as they didn’t even do a good job of making a driving sim. The game also introduced a damage mechanic which would negatively affect your car’s performance depending on damage received. If you’re someone who likes to use the corner barriers during races like the bumpers at a bowling alley, this is very bad news for you. Taking the fun and action out of the races to make it more realistic was a poor move by EA.
Need For Speed: Undercover (2008)
Sales: 8.9 Million copies
Metacritic score: 64
Developer: EA Black Box, Exient Entertainment, and Firebrand Games
You could barely hear this game for the screeching of EA and BlackBox doing a U-turn on the driving simulator approach to the Need For Speed Games. Black Box is joined this time by Exient Entertainment and Firebrand Games to assist. Not only did they return to the action racer they went what us Scots say “baw deep” into the genre. The game literally starts off as you’re being chased by police while in a fast car, a fitting metaphor for their departure from the previous game.
Again, sales and Metacritic scores are dwindling. Possibly due to fans leaving the series after being previously disappointed and the developers trying to claw them back.
The story is that you’re an undercover cop who is trying to infiltrate a gang which has stolen a shipment that the authorities want back. The loading screens day “when you’re undercover, you’re on your own” and that’s exactly how this game feels. It feels lonely like you don’t really have any direction or sense of progression. The structure of the gameplay is just: race, race, race, cutscene, race, race, new car, race.
The handing of the cars in Undercover is much like Most Wanted that small adjustments will make your car veer off in either direction. The physics as well could be bonkers at times. During later races in the game, your opponents will have zero issue in bulldozing their way into you and either send you spinning or push you sideways around the track. If you try the same tactics as them, your momentum will be killed and they won’t even flinch. The best advice is to use a car like the Audi TT with good handling. If you do crash, your opponents will pass you at the speed of light and take corners like they are on rails. Some of the later races or “master races” (surely they could have thought of a better name than that) can be impossibly hard to beat.
Need For Speed: Shift (2009)
Sales: 4 Million copies
Metacritic score: 83
Developer: Slightly Mad Studios and EA Bright Light.
Well whad’ya know, EA made a return to the driving sim experience this time without Black Box and they made a really decent job of it, shame the sales didn’t merit their efforts.
If you’re used to the fast paced cars of the previous street racer entries then ‘Shift’ is certainly a shift in pace. The first few races until you get an improved car feel like navigating an elderly person round an icy street. The cutscenes at the start feel like a misadvertisement as they contain fast cars and exciting visuals.
‘Shift’ not only allows dirty racing, it actively encourages it. Nothing feels more satisfying than using your car like a ramp and flipping the other racers onto their roofs. You’ll get an extra buzz if you flip an opponent who you’ve just lapped. Feels like you’re adding salt to their wound. The game allows you to drive each car time throughout the main campaign so you at least get a feel of each one rather than the one you buy at the start and stick with throughout the game.
The soundtrack on console in this game takes very much a back seat as no music plays during races, only in the menu will make you crave such belters as “Just a Day” by Feeder as featured in the popular racing simulator ‘Gran Turismo’.
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010)
Sales: 5 Million copies
Metacritic score: 88
Developer: Criterion Games
EA really returned to the action racing genre with a bang… and a wallop. The game starts off strong with high speed races and police chases. Watching the police cars and your opponents being decimated is exhilarating. The game kinda flat lines after this though. There aren’t many different types of races, no circuit races this time only sprints of some degree. You can either play the role of a racer or a police officer. For the racing you’re either trying to beat your opponents to the end, beat a certain time limit or fend off pursuing police with a selection of weapons. When you take the role of a police officer you either need to beat a certain time without collisions which incurs time penalties or destroying racers before they reach the end.
You go into this game not really knowing what is going on, you just complete races and don’t ask questions. There isn’t a storyline this time just get a maximum level as both a racer and as a police officer. The game will roll credits when you complete the racer section of the game. Most times when you win a race you will get a new car or an upgraded weapon. You get cars so frequently and they’re not always as powerful as ones you have already unlocked they kinda lose their excitement factor. You cannot modify the cars in this game, only choose their paint colour before races. The car’s stats are no longer represented with bars to show how fast they are for easy comparison, now it just tells you top speed, 0-60 speed and torque. No display of handling as all cars pretty much handle the exact same. Drifting round corners is pretty easy with a tap of the brake, no longer do you need to time your braking perfectly to make it round tight corners.
The soundtrack for this game was not too bad, some good songs on there but none that really gave you the get up and go or oomph to hype you up for a race, sometimes a relatively chilled indie song felt misplaced in this game.
Need For Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed (2011)
Sales: 1.3 Million copies
Metacritic score: 82
Developer: Slightly Mad Studios
With the success of the first NFS Shift game, Slightly Mad Studios returned to give us Shift 2 in 2011. The same year we saw ‘Need For Speed: The Run’ which showed EA weren’t ready to focus all their attention on a racing sim and still provide their fans with an action racer.
Shift 2: Unleashed was met by a great average metacritic score of 82 however a very lukewarm reception from players. The controls for the game were so hard to master and despite updates they were never fixed. The game is playable if you put enough time and effort into learning the handling and behaviour of the cars. A lot more patience is required than I was capable of.
Need For Speed: The Run (2011)
Sales: 4 Million copies
Metacritic score: 68
Developer: EA Black Box
Coming out the same year as ‘Need For Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed’, ‘Need For Speed: The Run’ also didn’t do too well for sales or reviews. Normally a new entry into a video game series means progression, building on top of the games that came before. This is not the case for ‘Need For Speed: The Run’. By this point in the series, EA’s sales of the Need For Speed games have been dropping by 1 million sales per game. Either they reduced the available resources allocated to the NFS games or they just dropped the ball here.
EA Black Box moved more towards an action and racer game rather than an action/racer game. Now featuring Quick Time Event cutscenes. What every gamer loves and wants! Especially in a racing game. The story is daft, you play as Jack Rourke who must win a coast to coast race across America to pay off the Mob and save his life. It’s that good.
At a 4.5 hour playtime for the main story this is one of the shortest NFS games. It could be that two NFS games were coming out in the same year that made this game so short.
Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012)
Sales: 8.65 Million copies
Metacritic score: 84
Developer: Criterion Games
EA and their Need For Speed series were really clutching at straws by this point to get sales. What better way to try and claw back the fans than releasing your next game under the same name of your previously most successful game. Most Wanted (2012) or Most Wanted 2 bears almost no resemblance at all to the 2005 version. It’s not a remaster, remake or reboot, it is something completely different. The ONLY resemblance to the 2005 game is that you need to work your way up a leaderboard of drivers that you race against to gain the “Most Wanted” status.
One of the biggest faults of this game is the artificial lengthening of the game with grinding. Normally in Need For Speed games you progress by completing races or missions. Each one similar but different from the rest. In MW2012 you will get to a point where you have driven all the races, beaten around 3 of the most wanted drivers and to progress you need around 50,000 points. To get these points you can either smash through billboards for 250 points, beat your previous time in a race for 500 or take a massive gamble and square go the police for fast points but you risk losing it all if you get busted. You must not forget though, this is EA and the game is littered with prompts to buy expansions and spend more money to gain points and unlock more features.
By this point in the series we’re starting to see shortening or artificially lengthening the single player experience in favour of online play and getting the player to spend more money via micro transactions.
Need for Speed Rivals (2013)
Sales: 4 Million copies
Metacritic score: 80
Developer: Ghost Games and Criterion Games
If ‘Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012)’ was a reboot of ‘Most Wanted (2005)’ then Rivals is a reboot of ‘Hot Pursuit’. Ghost Games and Criterion Games took what was established in the Most Wanted reboot and improved on many aspects of the game, unfortunately not all of them though.
Focusing mainly on online play, the basic human need of being able to pause the game has been removed. Like ‘Hot Pursuit’, ‘Rivals’ allows you to pick either between being a Cop or a racer. If you’re looking for a peaceful experience best to pick the cops, if you pick being a racer you will be relentlessly harassed by the police.
Rivals is an improvement on the series’ previous games but still has a lot to work on.
Need for Speed (2015)
Sales: 3.51 Million copies
Metacritic score: 66
Developer: Ghost Games
Shortly after the ‘Need For Speed’ film was released EA had focused on a film-like video game with photorealistic graphics and live action cutscenes, some of the cringiest yet. The gameplay is not too far removed from the previous games. Open world map with races and a garage to buy and upgrade your cars. There is however an increased reliance on an online connection which is one of this game’s biggest downfalls. Due to this gaming focusing mainly on being online you can expect to be kicked out of your game randomly due to a crash or server maintenance. Also if you’re wondering, no, you cannot pause the game.
Need for Speed (2015) is a good looking racer and as far as Need For Speed goes, it’s not the worst of the few that came before.
Need for Speed Payback (2017)
Sales: 2.93 Million copies
Metacritic score: 61
Developer: Ghost Games
‘Need for Speed: Payback’ is the third entry into the series by Ghost Games (now known as EA Gothenburg). This reboot series of sorts has been an interesting shift from the Black Box games. Shifting away from the ultra cheesy live-action cutscenes of the previous games (probably inspired by the ‘Need For Speed’ film) they have opted for ultra cheesy rendered cutscenes and gameplay graphics again.
‘Need for Speed: Payback’ starts off quite like Forza Horizon in the sense it introduces the player to the different car types in quick succession. Which is a great hi-octane way to introduce a racing game. Once that’s over you have the ability to go into the menus and set some revolutionary settings such as turning off those antagonising crash cutscenes. This however doesn’t disable the cop crash cutscenes which happen so often towards the end of the game. Not only does the game give you these welcomed settings, Ghost Games brings to us this revolutionary feature called a “pause menu”. A feature which we have missed for the past 2 games. Now you don’t need to worry about losing a race or being busted by police if a distraction arises mid-race.
‘Payback’ unfortunately underperformed with sales but I thought it was one of the better NFS games we have been given in a long time.
Need for Speed Heat (2019)
Sales: 3-4 Million copies
Metacritic score: 73
Developer: Ghost Games
The game is split between night time and day races. The night time races are “illegal street racing” where as you win races you will accumulate a heat level multiplier which will multiply points earned based on how many illegal driving techniques you use. Winning these races gets you reputation points which unlock upgrades for your car. If you risk it too much you can get chased and arrested by the police which kills your multiplier and you just get the basic amount of reputation points The day time races are very much like the old contained street races dating back to ‘NFS:Underground’ where you race to win money. This money is to purchase the upgrades unlocked by your reputation points. A MUCH better system than Payback’s loot box and roulette system.
The police are a lot more aggressive and unfair in this game. The busted metre depletes so fast that if you’re brought to a halt by the cops you may as well just give up. When pulling on the controller trigger for acceleration your car will wheel spin for a long time before moving. This made escaping cops when brought to a halt impossible, also as soon as you leave the road your car will go nowhere due to over revving. Yes your car wont do this as much if you gently pull the trigger but in the heat of the moment the last thing people will think about is “slowly pulling a trigger”.
It’s hard to recommend ‘Need For Speed: Heat’ to someone who has never played the series before as it doesn’t represent some of the aspects which made this series great.
Need for Speed Unbound (2022)
Sales: Around 1.2 Million based on the reports of being 64% lower than ‘Heat’
Metacritic score: 75
Developer: Criterion Games
Criterion are back after their work on ‘Most Wanted (2012) to give us ‘Need For Speed: Unbound’, yet again another refresh of the series and the final game played for this article. Unbound takes the framework of the previous game ‘Heat’ and improves on a few things as well as a dash of features from ‘Most Wanted (2012)’.
The game has a lot of great qualities and a lot of downsides and overall the downsides outweigh the upsides. There is a lot of work and stress for very little reward. Everything given to you for winning races is required for completing the main storyline. It feels like being paid in bricks to build a house rather than being given cool features to build said house. You can unlock some cool cars such as the BMW M3 from ‘Most Wanted (2015)’ which makes cameo appearances in most of the NFS games like Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars TV shows.
This game would be vastly improved in my opinion of the writing was better and the cops weren’t so frustrating to manage.The only way I could recommend this game to someone would be if they have not played any of the other games but even then I’d recommend another such as ‘Payback’
It seems like unlike other popular racing video games like Gran Turismo or Forza, Need For Speed has struggled to maintain the quality and consistency of their games over the years. This could in part have to do with the 1-2 year cycle of games which is a focus on quantity over quality. EA and their NFS games are forever changing without staying consistent, trying to adapt to young audiences and trends rather than picking a style and creating a solid identity for themselves (e.g. street racing and car modification) and sticking with it. EA has also cycled developers constantly over the years which only adds to the inconsistency of their games.
Progression in a video game series usually consists of new features being added or improved and lesser used, less favoured features being removed. No matter who the developer is, Black Box or Ghost. Need For Speed games seem to often take one step forward and two steps back. ‘Need For Speed: Heat’ for example, like many of the other games in the series is held in high regard by critics but not so much by the fans. The opinions are also reversed when a NFS game is slammed by critics, the fans love it. I really enjoyed ‘NFS: Payback’ as did other fans but critics hated it. Now the critics love Heat and fans disagree. There were things that were good about Heat but there are more things that are downright frustrating about it.
I know I talked about Underground in this article like an ex-relationship that I never got over. I’m not expecting a publisher to be producing the exact same games to pander to the Underground and Most Wanted (2005) crowd but it’s evident in their sales that they’ve struggled to reproduce the same incredible games they once released. EA themselves thought have not had a great reputation over the past 15 years in putting their players before their profits which also doesn’t help their game franchises.
Do you have fond memories of the Need For Speed series? If so get in touch @PureDeadGaming on Twitter/X and let us know!
