Need for Speed: Most Wanted is an intense racing game that will have you burning rubber on the streets. Race against the clock and other racers to become the most notorious and elusive street racer. Compete in Quick Races and Challenge Series, and test your skills to outrun the police and become the most wanted. Experience the rush of adrenaline as you race to the top!

Gameplay

Cars: You have access to most of the more notable cars as you progress through the Career mode, including Aston Martin, Audi, Chevrolet, Fiat, Dodge, Lamborghini, Lexus, Mazda, Porsche, but also Subaru, Renault, or Volkswagen.
Upgrades: Thanks to Performance Parts, you can upgrade the different parts of your cars, like the engine, suspension, breaks, Nitrous, and more. Depending on your modifications, you will improve your car's stats, including acceleration, top speed, or handling.
Dodge the police: As you break the law and commit crimes, you will be up against chasing levels from level 1, with a simple police patrol trying to catch you, to level 6, with unmarked cruiser patrols driving impressing Chevrolet Corvette C6 and helicopters that will make everything they can to stop you. But that's worth risking your life because you will gain reputation points on the streets and move up the Blacklist.

Level design: You can feel the map has been designed to deliver exciting races and pursuits full of the landscape of industrial structures. Also, tons of different races await you to test and hone your driving skills on these wild streets.
Faster, better: This is a Need for Speed game, so ensure to manage your Nitrous Boosts wisely to defeat your opponents one after another.

Graphics and sound

When it was released, the game was praised for its sharp graphics and great sound effects, which made the whole experience quite immersive and realistic. Seriously, at the time, it delivered the next level of graphical excellence in the video game industry, and the soundtrack album featured lots of artists, which is stunning.

Duration and game modes

Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) will last about 20 hours if you focus on the main objectives, but can easily take over 30 hours and beyond, depending on how far you want to go. The game offers both single-player and multiplayer game modes:

Career: The single-player campaign mode will show you the lore and the story of Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Also, as an incentive, the more progress you make in the Career mode, the more content you unlock in other modes.
Challenge Series: This is a single-player mode featuring various pursuit milestone and Tollbooth Time Trials events, including Pursuit Length, Pursuit Evasion, Infractions, Cost to State, Bounty, Trade Paint, Roadblock, and Spike Strip. This is different from quick race, as events are unlocked sequentially, and you are given a specific vehicle for each race.
Quick Race: This is where you can create custom single-player and multiplayer courses and tweak settings like the number of laps and opponents, difficulty level, traffic density, and transmission type. But it shines as you can also create procedurally-generated races.
Race Events: Multiplayer races are split into different categories, like Sprint (point-to-point races), Drag (short version of Sprint), Circuit (races based on lap), Lap Knockout (circuit races, the last racer is eliminated at each lap), Speedtrap (point-to-point, with checkpoints recording each accumulative speed), and Tollbooth (point-to-point, with checkpoints adding additional time).

What do the reviews say?

Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) has an excellent Metacritic score of 82/100 and a User Score of 8.8/10. Over 16 million copies were sold worldwide, which was undoubtedly a commercial success.