First of all, the concept of having a racing game be an MMO is pretty great. You don't have to wait for your friends to come over and race and there is a lot of people you could race with at any given time. I thought it wouldn't be a great idea because having so many cars around would just mean that on cluttered areas there would just be a lot of lag and "car-walls" but there's none of that. Aside from actual in-game races, you just drive by other people's car like they weren't there.
Now for the gaming part. They used an automatic matchmaking system to put you into races. You join up a specific race on your map and you're free to roam around the city while you wait for people to join up. The problem is that sometimes it may take up to 5 minutes for the race to start and other times it's instant. Another problem is that you can only queue up for one race, so there could be a hundred people on Race A and you're all alone in Race B and not know anything. Once inside the race, you have your pre-game screen much like SC and you wait a few seconds for everyone to load up and the race starts. The race is just like any other NFS game out there, so I'm not going into detail there.
You also have a pursuit where you pretty much have to run away from the cops. To trigger a pursuit, you'd just have to hit one of the many cop cars patrolling around the city. Once it starts, you're all alone in the city with cops and traffic, no other players (much like an instance in WoW). You have to outrun the cops and hide in order to escape. Meters on the bottom of your screen tell you your progress. There are 5 dispatch levels with 5 being the highest. Here's a short breakdown of them:
1) Local - You only get a few patrol cars which try to ram you.
2) County - County patrol cars are much faster and they are more aggressive towards you. You also start seeing road blocks.
3) State - Same cars as before, but you get spike strips on most road blocks you see, which will also be more frequent.
4) State Tactical Forces - County patrol cars are still around, but you also see big SUV's in road blocks which are quite difficult to move around with if you are very close to them. They are also very aggressive and will almost always try to ram you and box you in.
5) Federal - Very fast cars in large amounts of numbers. You'll still have to deal with SUV's trying to box you in.
Pursuit, in my opinion is the most fun aspect of the game. You get to destroy a lot of stuff while trying to run away. The rush of extending the pursuit gets better and better as it gets harder, but you'll have to watch out when you've get 10 patrol cars on top of you and a massive road block up ahead. The only problem I see with pursuit is that you're all alone. It'd be great if pursuit could be done with all the other players. Like working together with 3-4 people trying to escape. Also the thought of being at a street corner and seeing someone flyby with 10 cops right behind me.
Now for the cars, and this is the aspect I like the least about the game. There are virtually no customizations for your car. No engine parts, no improvements no nothing. Every Porsche you see out there will have the same exact performance. There are special editions for each car that cost a bit more, but that's about it. There is a great paint job and vinyl customization, but nothing else. Instead of improvements for your car you get power ups. Power ups are these small "crutches" which help you win races. Some of these include Nitrous, an extra lap, a traffic magnet which directs traffic to try to crash other players and a few other nifty things. Some people think it's like cheating and others will use them at will, most just don't bother to care about them. I know it gives a little extra spice to races, but they should be more like something you have to earn, instead of it being practically given to you for extremely cheap prices.
Personally, I wouldn't be buying the game. The graphics aren't all that impressive at all, even though the game does run as smooth as it could possibly can with the exceptions of a few bugs, but this is a beta after all. Pursuit is great, but you're all alone and in an MMO you'd expect there to be a lot of people. Races are also "instanced", but they should be but there should also be races on the outside world with everyone around. Having non-customizable cars is a big let down. In previous games, you worked hard to get the most out of your car, now you just buy one, then the next one and so on.
None.
