The 2006 game in the Need for Speed series is an evolution of the gameplay introduced in the previous games. The career mode offers complete freedom in a city with a story mode supported by FMV cutscenes, as featured in Need for Speed: Most Wanted, but now also set in the Carbon Canyon, where racers duel for territory in the city below. There still are many police pursuits. At the same time, the focus on tuning and sculpting your car remains, as introduced in Need for Speed Underground. As you win money from races, you can visit garages and car lots to make improvements to your vehicle.
Enhancements are still unlocked gradually, but the cars have now been divided over different tiers. There are about 40 cars to unlock. Many of them have been featured in previous installments, but there is a new selection and this year's edition introduces powerful muscle cars such as the Ford Mustang and Dodge Charger. Other features include the possibility to form your own crew, more detailed sculpting features, drifting races (introduced in NFS:U and replaced by drag races in NFS:MW) and the new car classes. The PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 versions offer online multiplayer, missing from the PS2, GC and Xbox releases. Up to eight players can race together, in the Pursuit Tag or Pursuit Knockout modes, with a few variations. Pursuit Tag is a race of one civilian car against cop cars. To become the civilian car, you have to tag it and then try to fend off the cops as long as possible until you are tagged again by other players. In Pursuit Knockout everyone starts as a civilian car, but the last one at the end of the first lap becomes a cop and needs to cause as much damage as possible to the other speeders. Another mode allows you to drive cooperatively (up to four players) in a single race.
