Pick One: Which Of These Need For Speed Games Is Your Favourite?

Out of those, definitely Most Wanted. Underground 2 was great for it's time but I think it aged really poorly, one of those games that was the first to do the whole open world thing but now that just seems to work against it. It seems like Most Wanted really aged better, and those cheesy cutscenes have become a classic.

After that I would have to say Carbon is probably the next best, Hot Pursuit 2010 always felt like a misstep to me, like they were trying to bank off the old Hot Pursuit games but it failed to capture that lightning in a bottle. The Criteron era in general felt off, they did a great job with Burnout games but I never liked their NFS games. I still think Hot Pursuit 2 is probably the best NFS game overall, then I am a fan of all the old PS1 classics. The first Underground is also a surprisingly good game to go back to, a real product of it's era and clearly inspired by the early Fast and Furious movies.

Out of the modern/last gen era games, I would have to say it's easily Payback for me. I think NFS 2015 was fun in a cheesy Most Wanted sort of way but it's a game that seemed to be eventually ruined by updates. Payback is pretty much the opposite, it's a game that was ruined when it released that eventually became a great game as it was fixed by updates. Heat is okay but definitely not my favorite, I think Payback was a lot better for all the different racing classes and the fact that they brought back the drag racing that I always found to be a ton of fun and a real highlight of the original Underground.

none of the above... Need for Speed hot pursuit 2 original xbox

I’ve only ever played 2 NFS games; The Run on 3DS and Most Wanted on Wii U. I enjoyed both, so I should probably try some more games in the series.

I voted Most Wanted 2012, as it is the only game I’ve played out of this selection.

I've never played any NFS... Not a huge fan of teaching, but did play the burnout games especially burnout revenge and paradise, they were the only racing games I really played...
On saying all that, that was a long time ago, and more than prepared to give this genre a rattle

Need for Speed High Stakes 😎

I'd go a little further back and say Hot Pursuit 2 from THE PS2/GC/Xbox era was overall the best game in the series. Masterpiece of a racing game for its time

I played only Shift 1

I enjoyed NFS Heat..

I don't like police cars swarms so I chose Underground 2, this first I played.

The best on is Need for Speed 2 on the PS1.

You could race as a T-Rex, a shipping container and a log.

They never topped that.

Hot Pursuit 2010 in my opinion. Not only do I think it's Criterion's best game, but also the best racer of its generation.

@Originut Thanks! Underground 2 kinda feels like Jak 2 to me, where it's this game that got all kinds of praise and admiration for it's open world, which was at the time a relatively new concept. I'm sure it was quite impressive at the time it released, but going back to these games now is pretty rough. The worlds are just really dull and lifeless, they are no longer great to look at, and it just makes you do a lot of unnecessary traveling around to get anything done. I might be spoiled by all the later open world games that have been far more impressive, but that's kinda the thing. Sometimes these early attempts are just not as great as they were made out to be. That said I still find the old GTA game worlds from the GTA3 era to be a lot of fun, but there was a lot more to them.

When it comes to classic NFS games I just prefer the older ones up til Hot Pursuit 2 and the first Underground, after that I just no longer have much desire to go back to them. I just prefer that older menu based setup where you can quickly pick out your car and your race and just jump into the action, plus those older games just seemed to have a better style to them, better music, better gameplay, and better tracks. In fact the track diversity pretty much went away after Hot Pursuit 2, it's easy to forget how the games used to be all about tracks being at all these different exotic locations. That and they were all about driving cars in their stock form for the most part, before all those Underground inspired mods became a big part of it. Felt like the games were more focused around the exotic cars back in the day.

Most Wanted 2012 for me. Now I have to admit that I missed the original, but I loved the remake and as it's the version I am used to I doubt that I would prefer the original to it, it would appear a little janky I guess.

I played it on the Wii U, and if any one remembers that was one of (if not the only) ports that was actually superior to the X360/PS3 version. It ran well and had higher res textures.
Great game. Best open world driving game outside of the FH games.

I picked "other" because I remember being thrilled by Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit all the way back in 1998!

I also have a bit of a soft spot for Need for Speed: Shift. I remember the cockpit view being really dynamic with the movement as you cornered. While many games since do this routinely, I don't remember if other racers had done that before. Also, the sound effects and overall immersion made it very intense.