This preview was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by Chuck Landry.

I skipped the last Need for Speed. Underground was a bit too “cool” for me to even give it a chance. The street-racing scene was a little too much for me to swallow, and so I missed a supposedly great game because I was turned off by its “urban” flare. But I love the Need for Speed series. NFS 2 was one of the first games I ever played using a 3D graphics accelerator in a PC. It was a 3D Monster FX chip, and it kicked ass. The pinnacle of the NFS series was when they called in the fuzz. There was something about outrunning and/or outmaneuvering the cops that brought NFS to a whole new level.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted aims to combine the flashy tuner world with the thrill of escaping the black and whites into one seriously fast racer. In Most Wanted your goal is notoriety. You’ll begin the game as another racer strips you of your car, and you must climb your way up the Black List 15, becoming the most disreputable street racer in town before you can get it back. Along the way you’ll race against several min-bosses (other ranking racers) who each have their own strengths and weaknesses.

What makes Most Wanted different from Underground and Underground 2 is, of course, the police force. Police chases promise to be the most exciting part of the game, and videos of the unfinished product confirm it. You might start off against three or four cop cars early on, but as you progress you’ll face six, eight, or even twelve at one time. The developers also claim the police will use real-world tactics to try and bring you to a stop, including rolling roadblocks and the like. Players will have some nice tricks at their disposal to give them an edge, including a bullet-time mode to let you squeeze through a small gap or dodge a messy wreck. There will also be areas marked on your map that provide some sort of diversion. The only one I’ve seen thus far is where by hitting a column, you can make a giant donut fall off of a cafe and block the road behind you, letting you escape.

Need for Speed Most Wanted is coming out on just about every platform you can imagine, so clearly what makes the Xbox 360 version special are its graphics. Most Wanted supports 760p resolution for HD monitors and all sorts of special effects that you won’t see on the other versions. The cars look absolutely amazing thanks to the sheer number of polygons that go into modeling each one, and effects like normal and bump mapping on the textures. The entire color scheme of Most Wanted is gritty brown and washed out, giving it a dusty and grimy look. The result is a very stylized environment we haven’t seen before in a racer, and judging by the screenshots and videos available, I’d say it works very well.

This isn’t just a straightforward racer, though. There are times when you are simply cruising around town, looking for an opponent. Here you’ll spend some time hiding from the cops while a meter runs down to signal that you’re all clear. Some modes also include cost of state and bounty, which let you see how much damage you can cause to the city and how much illegal crap you can get away with, respectively. You’ve also of course got multiplayer over Live, supporting up to four players online.

Need for Speed Most Wanted has the luxury of being a launch title, but it’s going up against some stiff competition in the form of PGR 3. There ought to be room for both, though, as PGR is more about exotic cars and straight up racing whereas Most Wanted focuses on more action-packed pursuits and import tuners. It ought to at least be a nice way to showcase next-generation graphics, and if it’s anything near as enjoyable as Hot Pursuit was back in the day, I’m going to have to grab a copy.