When talk of racing games comes up, I’m one of those people. “I DON’T REALLY LIKE RACING GAMES BUT BURNOUT’S GREAT,” I blurt. And then some people sigh dejectedly and resume their debates about cylinders and dinosaur liquids while a precious few join me in discussing rad crashes that mangle metal into fiery explosion pretzels. And that’s how I make friends. So now we arrive at Need For Speed: Most Wanted. Normally, I wouldn’t even give this series the time of day, but apparently, someone forgot to tell Criterion it was making a Need For Speed game. So it made Burnout Paradise 2 instead. And I wept. But just a little. In a cool way. You can do the same with this video of NFSMW’s open world in action. Otherwise, we might not be able to be friends.

(more…)