Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
I'm in a sticky situation right now regarding making content. Because last week I had the most horrifically awful stroke of luck imaginable, with both my main & backup PS2 controllers going out of commission within 48 hours of each other. I did quickly buy another one, but it doesn't have full analog, in other words, pressure sensitive controls. It's not a name brand Sony controller so go figure. Considering the PS2 came out 25 years ago now, official Sony controllers aren't easy to come by these days, so I'll probably have to get one ordered off Amazon at some point soon. In racing games you need full analog controls to drive at peak performance. Since my replacement controller just isn't going to cut it, looks like making any PS2 related content is out of the question for right now until I can change that. So my focus for now shifts towards PS3/PS5 content. With that said I decided to start my next walkthrough on the 2012 version of NFS Most Wanted. A very loved game now, but very controversial when it first came out. Many said & some still say that it's not deserving of the Most Wanted name. The original Most Wanted in 2005 is the best selling NFS game in the entire franchise selling over 16 million copies. Unlike almost all the other beloved NFS games that came out before this in the last 10 years, this one was made by Criterion instead of Black Box, and this game marked the start of the NFS franchise's overall turn for the worse, despite how loved this game is now. This isn't Criterion's first NFS game though as they also brought back the Hot Pursuit name in 2010 and that game was universally loved both today & from the start. It did so well in fact that it got a remastered version in 2020 for modern consoles.
Anyway the premise of the 2012 version of Most Wanted is mostly the same as the original. There's no blacklist, but you still have to defeat Fairhaven's top 10 most wanted street racers to become the most wanted yourself & complete the game, while of course outrunning the cops. Instead of bounty, this game runs on a speed points (SP) system. Where doing things like busting through security gates, billboards, finding new cars, winning races, and of course escaping the cops all earn you SP. You have to earn a certain amount to challenge the next most wanted racer. Then once you beat them, you have to catch them in the open world and make them crash to shut them down & actually unlock that car & take their place on the most wanted list. With all the ways there are to earn SP, how you progress through the game is up to you. Although the best way to get speed points easily is to win lots of races in a lot of different cars. Because redoing races you've already done in a car you've already used gets you next to nothing. But more importantly races are how you unlock performance mods to better stand a chance against the most wanted racers. There's a wide variety of mods to unlock to help you in many situations. Tires specifically suited for either tarmac or off-road situations, longer or shorter gears to better suit your environment, and even mods to toughen your car up to better take on the cops. There's even a reinflatable tires mod for if your tires go down.
If your going to progress through the game quickly, you'll need some cars to win races in. In the intro you drive an Aston Martin V12 Vantage with a waypoint to your first jackspot, where a Porsche 911 Carrera S sits waiting for you to switch into. Jackspots are places in Fairhaven where high performance cars are just sitting waiting for you to find them. Apparently just using the honor system, relying on the fact that nobody would ever steal them before you can find them. Once you find one, that car is unlocked to switch over to & use. But every car has 3 jackspots, so even if you've found a car already, you'll have to find it again in a certain part of the map to be able to switch over to that car in that location. Because once you unlock a car, you can just bring up EasyDrive to immediately change over to it again whenever you want, including the part of the map you want to be warped to if you've found multiple jackspots for one car. EasyDrive is also where you change your performance mods on your car, and can do many other things. After following the waypoint to your first jackspot, you follow another one to your first race, literally a block away. After winning that race and unlocking your first performance mods, the tutorial ends and you can do what you want from there. In this playthrough we're just gonna take down one most wanted racer per video, so this playthrough will have 10 videos. This game really isn't that long to be honest, makes me wonder why I haven't done this already. I have all the DLC content installed from when I bought it on my main profile, but I'm gonna try my best to not use any of it here. It's been over 4 years since I last properly played this game so my driving might be a bit rusty to start with.
I'm in a sticky situation right now regarding making content. Because last week I had the most horrifically awful stroke of luck imaginable, with both my main & backup PS2 controllers going out of commission within 48 hours of each other. I did quickly buy another one, but it doesn't have full analog, in other words, pressure sensitive controls. It's not a name brand Sony controller so go figure. Considering the PS2 came out 25 years ago now, official Sony controllers aren't easy to come by these days, so I'll probably have to get one ordered off Amazon at some point soon. In racing games you need full analog controls to drive at peak performance. Since my replacement controller just isn't going to cut it, looks like making any PS2 related content is out of the question for right now until I can change that. So my focus for now shifts towards PS3/PS5 content. With that said I decided to start my next walkthrough on the 2012 version of NFS Most Wanted. A very loved game now, but very controversial when it first came out. Many said & some still say that it's not deserving of the Most Wanted name. The original Most Wanted in 2005 is the best selling NFS game in the entire franchise selling over 16 million copies. Unlike almost all the other beloved NFS games that came out before this in the last 10 years, this one was made by Criterion instead of Black Box, and this game marked the start of the NFS franchise's overall turn for the worse, despite how loved this game is now. This isn't Criterion's first NFS game though as they also brought back the Hot Pursuit name in 2010 and that game was universally loved both today & from the start. It did so well in fact that it got a remastered version in 2020 for modern consoles.
Anyway the premise of the 2012 version of Most Wanted is mostly the same as the original. There's no blacklist, but you still have to defeat Fairhaven's top 10 most wanted street racers to become the most wanted yourself & complete the game, while of course outrunning the cops. Instead of bounty, this game runs on a speed points (SP) system. Where doing things like busting through security gates, billboards, finding new cars, winning races, and of course escaping the cops all earn you SP. You have to earn a certain amount to challenge the next most wanted racer. Then once you beat them, you have to catch them in the open world and make them crash to shut them down & actually unlock that car & take their place on the most wanted list. With all the ways there are to earn SP, how you progress through the game is up to you. Although the best way to get speed points easily is to win lots of races in a lot of different cars. Because redoing races you've already done in a car you've already used gets you next to nothing. But more importantly races are how you unlock performance mods to better stand a chance against the most wanted racers. There's a wide variety of mods to unlock to help you in many situations. Tires specifically suited for either tarmac or off-road situations, longer or shorter gears to better suit your environment, and even mods to toughen your car up to better take on the cops. There's even a reinflatable tires mod for if your tires go down.
If your going to progress through the game quickly, you'll need some cars to win races in. In the intro you drive an Aston Martin V12 Vantage with a waypoint to your first jackspot, where a Porsche 911 Carrera S sits waiting for you to switch into. Jackspots are places in Fairhaven where high performance cars are just sitting waiting for you to find them. Apparently just using the honor system, relying on the fact that nobody would ever steal them before you can find them. Once you find one, that car is unlocked to switch over to & use. But every car has 3 jackspots, so even if you've found a car already, you'll have to find it again in a certain part of the map to be able to switch over to that car in that location. Because once you unlock a car, you can just bring up EasyDrive to immediately change over to it again whenever you want, including the part of the map you want to be warped to if you've found multiple jackspots for one car. EasyDrive is also where you change your performance mods on your car, and can do many other things. After following the waypoint to your first jackspot, you follow another one to your first race, literally a block away. After winning that race and unlocking your first performance mods, the tutorial ends and you can do what you want from there. In this playthrough we're just gonna take down one most wanted racer per video, so this playthrough will have 10 videos. This game really isn't that long to be honest, makes me wonder why I haven't done this already. I have all the DLC content installed from when I bought it on my main profile, but I'm gonna try my best to not use any of it here. It's been over 4 years since I last properly played this game so my driving might be a bit rusty to start with.
