Interestingly, despite the wealth of options here, we're not trusted to choose our own form of anti-aliasing from the in-game menu, nor with a discrete tweak to its config file.
The PC version we have running is set to the full-fat visual experience we have the high resolution texture pack enabled, with reflections, shadow detail, motion blur and geometry detail all set to high. A similar tactic is employed by Battlefield 3 to save on memory bandwidth, which can be a hog for games using various advanced rendering features. But instead, the margins are kept small enough to blend in with the black borders of most HDTVs (or else vanishing into the overscan area) making it unnoticeable unless compared with the PC release. Thankfully no upscaling is involved here to stretch this frame-buffer to the full-screen which might have muddied the image quality.
The actual visible output on PS3 and 360 is trimmed down to 1280x704 apiece, where 8 pixel high borders can be spotted at the top and bottom of the screen. PCĬut-backs have been made to the resolution on consoles, though they are slight. Need for Speed: Most Wanted - Xbox 360 vs."First impressions confirm that Criterion has once again handed in an extremely close cross-platform project, with plenty of additional PC bling if you have the horsepower to cope with the additional load." For those who might prefer stills, there's a lengthy triple format comparison gallery for you to browse through too. To get the ball rolling, we have our usual head-to-head video on offer below, made up of the many lucid - and frankly, sometimes nightmarish - cut-scenes that come up before each race. Here, we take a close look at the 360, PS3 and PC versions to see whether this high standard is being upheld across the board. Console parity is a clearly taken as a serious matter of concern for the developer, given its impeccable reputation in delivering like-for-like image quality on performance on each. It's a big game and as if to add to the burden of development it also arrives as an ambitious multi-platform release with some extra tricks up the PC's sleeve. It's also backed up by a rigid technical baseline in the studios' modified Chameleon engine, which brings to life the congested city-centres, seaside beltways, and outskirt industrial complexes you'll be whipping past.
As a game design concept going on six years old, the hook of vying for the greatest notoriety in the city of Fairhaven is a sharp one. Today, the Guildford-based developer takes a similar tack with its latest offering, a re-envisioning of Need for Speed: Most Wanted, originally released at the very start of this generation. No doubt, a tough call to make for an arcade racer project, and one which gave the PC version more gravitas. The biggest was the abandonment of the fluid 60FPS response previously enjoyed by console Burnout Paradise players, where the focus switched to pushing for higher-detailed locations and effects at 30FPS. It was a daring game of cat and mouse across a dense city sprawl that necessitated some changes, however. The Need for Speed series' fortunes turned around to dramatic effect with 2010's Hot Pursuit - a technical marvel which added Criterion Studios' signature open-world sandbox design, and introduced its now widely-imitated Autolog feature.