A Need for Speed… ier?
Need for Speed: Most Wanted featured dozens of cars, but Criterion Games knows you want more than that. The Ultimate Speed Pack DLC adds five more cars to the mix, described as some of the “fastest, most exotic cars in Need for Speed history.” With them, it also brings 25 new challenges and 70 new multiplayer milestones. It’s a penny shy of $10, and it’s out today.
Isn’t that all you need to know? It’s DLC in the strictest sense: same great game, no tweaks, just more stuff. I asked Jayme Figueroa, Associate Product Manager on the franchise, whether these speed-demons might smoke the competition, since they’re available in multiplayer: “Not really. They’re much more difficult to handle, and we already have some exotics in the game. Besides, you could soup up your other cars with lightweight chassis mods, and they could go nearly as fast.”
It's clear that thundering down a highway in the McLaren F1 LM will rquire you back off the accelerator a little more often when taking big, slow curves. And without mods, a lower toughness means a touchy threshold for totaling your whip, spending precious seconds out of the race.
Along with the McLaren F1 LM are the Lamborghini Aventador J, the Pagani Zonda R, the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse, and the Hennessey Venom GT. That last one tops the Most Wanted list, so as soon as you boot this DLC you’ll have the spot to reclaim.
I’ve loved this specific Need for Speed series since it kicked off the current generation of consoles in 2005 under a different developer. Yet for a solid $10 (or 40 cents per new challenge), the Ultimate Speed Pack is best for those who’ve played the game through and are chomping at the bit for more races. With that extra ounce of top speed, they should have records to break across the board.