The very first games in the series had no career, and all cars were available at the start. In this game, very few cars are unlocked from the start, so it is advisable to start a career right away. I am going to give you what I think are the basics on career step by step, but I also recommend you to read this post all the way through, as the pointers I give out about higher levels may be useful for you to know during your entire progressing.
The first thing you need to know about career is that you need autosave for the climax, as there is no option to save after beating Razor, but before then I advise you to turn autosave off. And of course, don't forget to save manually. First of all, when you get busted, you can always take a clean save, plus you don't have to drool for get out of jail markers. Second of all, you can keep racing blacklist members until you get their car. It is advisable to have plenty of cars, so you can switch when heat gets too high.
After first teaser races with a fast car, you are driven to a car lot, where you have a choice of four cars. Oh, about Golf. It costs 35,000 and you don't have that in the beginning. Or do you? The trick is, you have to have an Underground 2 save, and then the Most Wanted game gives you bonus money as a thank you. So you could either buy a stock Golf, or tune out a cheaper car. Stock Golf will do just fine. With any luck, or patience, you will be driving a pink slip soon anyway.
As for pink slips, my experience with different careers is that it most likely is a constant pattern form left to right, starting at random. If it started with second, it was 2-3-1-2-3 and so on, until Mitsubishi, from there it got more random. Personally, I aim to get a pink slip and a performance upgrade, because you can always get more money by re-racing won races. Also, it is not much, but you can sell your car's visual upgrades, the price of the car is not affected.
Blacklist #15, Sonny, drives a Volkswagen Golf GTI. This is why I advised keeping your Golf stock. Selling a car will only give you half of that car's price, performance upgrades do not add to the price, there are no performance parts unlocked after beating Sonny, and the races are easy to win with a stock Golf. You probably won't come back to those races after you have beaten that level. The races are only 1,500 money units, and not interesting to drive. You have to complete 3 milestones, they can all be achieved in one pursuit. There is also a speed ticket milestone, beatable with a stock Golf.
If you like achievements, you are recommended to endure the slow cops, and get the 30 minute pursuit in this, or the next two levels. The map is limited to Rosewood, and you have to wait, if I remember correctly, 6 minutes before you reach level 2 heat, and even then you have to be careful as to not lose the cops, but at heat level 3 and up, the cops are more aggressive, and you can easily slip up. Oh, and resetting your car in the midst of a pursuit gets you busted instantly. If you flip over, wait until the game resets you, as somehow this reset will not get you busted as fast, and you have time to get your speed up.
Blacklist #14, Taz, drives a Lexus IS300. At this level, you have six races to choose from, only four is needed. Races are 2,000 money units, so not appealing to come back to, if you need money. Still, I would like to mention two:
Heritage Heights is a nice relaxing circuit. By the way, from now on, when I mention a race, I mean minimum cop probability, unless said otherwise.
Skywiew & Campus, a tollbooth along the roundabout, great for testing your cars in the key of "faster than a sixth grader".
Blacklist #13, Vic, rides a Toyota Supra. Hopefully you have had the luck, or patience, to win both previous pink slips. You'll want to win Supra, too, because you might want to use Supra for races until you get Porsche. But do not sell your other cars, you'll use them in pursuits if Supra's heat gets too much. After this level, Camden Beach is unlocked. Cash reward is 2,500 money units, and there are two notable tracks:
Highway 99 & Highlands, a tollbooth on the roundabout.
Highway 4 & Forest Green, a nice tollbooth. Mostly on roundabout, a cut through town, but on relatively quick roads.
This level is the last one with heat level 2 being the highest. If you haven't done the 30 minute pursuit, do it now! Also, the developers' idea of looking pretty may not match yours. You can make your Supra look cooler without removing the unique vinyl:
Blacklist #12, Izzy, drives a Mazda RX-8. In this level, you'll get heat 3 chases, so, if you have not done the 30 minute pursuit, it is a bit harder now, since heat 3 has Pontiac GTOs that travel in packs of three and are trying to box you in, and light rhinos. Light rhinos are SUVs, identifiable by having no black bumper horns across their front grill, not that you have time to investigate during a chase. Destroying a Pontiac GTO will get you 2,500 bounty, but a light rhino will get you 10,000. Rhinos are used in road blocks, and they also try to disable you by initiating a full speed, head on collision with you. As you've guessed, the SUVs are unable to make fast changes in direction. This level also introduces drags, and a drag is just what I would highlight from this level:
Bayshore & Broadwalk. Drags are worth less money, in this case, 750 units, but this drag, despite having some turns, has barely any traffic. And you only have to change lanes, if needed, taking a curve is automatic, and since speeds are high, a turn is confusing and funny.
Since you need 10,000,000 bounty to race Razor, you better get started now, as opposed to struggling with high heat cops to barely make the bounty required, as I did with my first save. Next four levels are great for building bounty, as you get decent amount for destroying units, and pursuits longer than six minutes won't bring you level 4 or 5 cops. If you aim to destroy cars in roadblocks, try to ram the rear end, as the front end is heavier. Hitting nitro before ramming the roadblock helps; nitro can also help you get out of cops' attempt to box you in. In these four levels, I took my time and got around 6,000,000 bounty, so I was safe until Ronnie (number three). But in last three levels, milestones are ridiculous, so you will earn the remaining four million in the process.
Blacklist #11, Lou, rides in a Mitsubishi Eclipse. Eclipse handles just as good as Supra, so don't upgrade your Eclipse, upgrade Supra. No noteworthy details.
Blacklist #10, Baron, shows off a Porsche Cayman S. Oh, you'll want his car. You'll have to upgrade it every now and then, but you will probably use it until you get your fingers on a Lamborghini. No other noteworthy details about this level, apart from... Look, how pretty it looks after I removed the custom hood and the big spoiler:
Blacklist #9, Earl, drives a Mitsubishi Lancer EVOLUTION VIII. Great car for pursuits, but for races, I prefer Porsche. If you didn't do your 30 minute pursuit achievement before getting heat 3, and are too lazy to start a new career, do the pursuit now, next level brings heat 4. You will also unlock Downtown Rockport. One track from this level worth highlighting:
Seaside & Camden, a nice, almost straight drag. Light traffic.
Blacklist #8, Jade, rolls in a Ford Mustang GT. Races here are 8,000 money units, and are fun. Unfortunately, two of them are the blacklist races, meaning once you progress past those, you can't come back to them in career. On the plus side, you may have to do them over and over again to win her car.
This level unlocks Downtown Rockport, and heat level 4. According to NFS wiki, the heat 4 cruisers are also Pontiac GTOs, but on this heat level, they are black. Also, there can be a whole swarm of them ramming you and trying to box you in. In addition, heat level 4 brings heavy rhinos, helicopters, and spike strips.
Due to programming which may or may not have been planned, police radio informs you about a spike strip or a road block very often only after you have passed it. Thus, pay attention to your map, and if you see something resembling a block, slow down a bit, and if you see the block, be on alert for holes in the block, as they may contain spikes. There is a possibility to evade when your tires are shot, but you have to either be very close to a pursuit breaker, or manage to drive to one. I have succeeded in doing this, but only once, and in Undercover. In most cases, however, if you drive through spikes, you're done.
Heavy rhinos have these black bumper horns across their front grill I mentioned earlier, and also five spike rims. Heavy rhinos do everything light rhinos do, except they stick around to help in boxing in. On heat 4, only one of them will appear at a time, but on heat 5, there will be two. Heavy rhinos give you 15,000 bounty, black GTOs give you 5,000.
Helicopters are not much of a threat, but they can annoy you. If there are no ground units in sight, a helicopter still sees you, even in some hiding spots, as not all on them are under a roof. Or, you have to be in plain sight for possible ground units, since you can't drive out of a tunnel to a hiding spot. Additionally, the game has a bug in that when you are in a hiding spot before cooldown starts, hiding spot does not work. So you have to drive out of the hiding spot and back in for it to work, thus risking exposure.
Highlight-worthy tracks of this level include:
Highway 201, knockout. Relatively easy, with a few tricky parts. At 8,000 money units, worth farming.
Cascade, another knockout. Some 90 degree turns make it interesting.
Waterfront & Highway 99, a tollbooth. Half the track is along the roundabout, it stats in the beach borough, and takes you through the town.
Camden & Ironwood, a sprint. Easy to beat, and beautiful to drive, available only this level as a blacklist race.
Union & Rockridge, a drag. Once you have learned the traffic sequence, wonderful to drive. Available only this level as a blacklist race.
Blacklist #7, Kaze, scorches around with a Mercedes-Benz CLK 500. Races on this level award 10,000 money units, and are fun to drive. It should also be noted that after winning your fourth race, your heat is dropped, so to take advantage of it, you may get your heat maxed out before the fourth race. No specific races needed, any of them will do.
Out of the ten races, five get highlighted:
Interchange & Bond, a sprint with maximum cop probability. It's got two sharp turns at the end, however, first half is on the roundabout. There is a more highly rewarded version of this track later on, with no cops, and in reverse.
Highway 201 & Highway 99, a tollbooth that spans both roundabouts.
Beach & Skywiew, a tollbooth with maximum cop probability. Features all three boroughs, but very briefly compared to a few endurance runs on final level.
Union Row & Ocean, a sprint. This one also features all three boroughs. It starts on the roundabout, takes you through the downtown, and ends on a bridge to the peninsula.
Ocean & Harbour, an entertaining drag. Not to spoil the fun, you'll have to learn this track.
Blacklist #6, Ming, burns rubber with a Lamborghini Gallardo. Unless you are purposely avoiding pink slips, and want to go through the game with your first car, which is totally possible, you must get his car. This car requires minimal tuning work, as it is tuned to the max as it is. Its top speed and acceleration are almost full, and handling is full. It has four locked parts you can otherwise get only after beating number three, Ronnie. The only thing you might want to replace is its nitro. But until you get to the blacklist race, or if you decide to re-race something for 12,000 money units, here are two highlights:
Interchange & Tunnel, a tollbooth with maximum cop probability. Covers all three boroughs, and while not insanely difficult, is not an easy ride either.
Riverside & Terrace, a drag with a twist.
The Gallardo is fast, but not huge pain to beat. For those parts that otherwise get unlocked after you beat number three, so, in essence, that you have only in the last two levels, and will give you an edge in three levels, it is totally worthy to drive the Gallardo blacklist races over and over again. Gallardo handles like a dream, thus is useful in pursuits also. Although the original unique vinyl wasn't bad, for some reason I did not like it, and went all chrome:
Blacklist #5, Webster, drives a Chevrolet Corvette C6. Beat him, and you can reach heat level 5, that means Corvettes everywhere.
I recently tried to repaint some of my silver cars, but while I did that, I also managed to create one more. The pink slip Corvette looked a bit unattractive, but I hesitated on losing the original vinyl. Playing around, I discovered it was not a black background vinyl. I found a matching colour, and ended up with dark silver car:
Blacklist #4, JV, cruises around in a Dodge Viper SRT10. This level brigs level 5 cops, so your pursuit becomes really hard. With my driving skills, I get busted most of the times. Heat 5 is everything heat 4 was, but with Corvettes. Well, obviously, heavy rhinos and helicopters can't be Corvettes, but since they replace Pontiacs, and are charged with nitrous, it will be bad news. They move quicker, including faster manoeuvring, and are much harder to destroy. If you do manage to destroy one, it adds 20,000 to your bounty, so at least that's good. Also, helicopters get more aggressive, and can try to bump you off the road or towards the spikes.
According to NFS wiki, it is possible to get Sergeant Cross himself at heat 5, but I haven't noticed him. It is also rumoured Cross will never bust you himself, and will just stand there yelling at you, but I have no desire to manipulate that situation. I seem to remember reading about someone having destroyed a helicopter, and getting huge bounty for it, but I may have dreamed it. Oh, and a funny thing about milestones, and how the game trolls you. During a pursuit, if the game tells you you have completed a milestone, make sure that it was for your current level, as you may have achieved a previous level milestone. Seems like a harmless detail, but it can irritate you when you have ended the pursuit due to seeing the message, only to discover this was not helpful within your current level.
Seems so far I have not highlighted a speedtrap. One of the things that makes Most Wanted unique are the drags, which take those disorienting drags from Underground 2, and turn them so over the top they are entertaining, but drags are still present in other titles. What are only featured in Most Wanted though, are speedtraps. They are quite annoying, as while finishing first is not required, you have to have the highest speed in a certain point of the map, and with each second you finish later than the first guy, you lose your total speed. Anyway, in this level I highlight one of the two speedtraps I mention:
Green & Fairmount, a speedtrap then. Quite tricky, as just relying on hitting nitro will not be enough. There are a few nasty turns as well.
Rosewood & Heritage, a drag. Available as a blacklist race only, but Ronnie's level features a track with similar traffic related dilemma, so you can get the similar feel without leaving career mode.
Blacklist #3, Ronnie, scrabbles the streets with an Aston Martin DB9. This is the last level you have to endure with some parts still locked, so Gallardo really pays off. You do have Murciélago and Ford GT unlocked, but they can only be updated with still locked ultimate engine and ultimate turbo, so your performance with those cars is not what it could be. In addition to the requirement races, you need very good handling and acceleration for the blacklist races. Highlights:
Bond & Forest Green, a sprint. It's a very nice track, with two sharp turns at the beginning, but the second half is on the roundabout. My favourite track, and the reverse of Interchange & Bond track I mentioned earlier. For its length, this 18,000 cash track is more beneficial than the 20,000 cash circuits I feature later.
Riverside, a knockout. Having some very nasty turns, the only reason I features this track is The Rockport Tunnel. Actually, I featured this track twice, as the next level has it reverse. Extremely tense track to drive.
Broadwalk & Bayshore, a drag. Unfortunately, not as exciting as Ocean & Harbour or the Dodge blacklist drag, but it features the reason I highlighted the latter.
Blacklist #2, Bull, taunts you with Mercedes-Bens SLR McLaren. It's a great car, but the blacklist races have really tight turns, and his car is totally tuned out. By reaching this level, you have unlocked the last cars and parts, so you may want Murciélago or Carrera GT. I don't really recommend Ford GT, as like many American cars, it tends to spin like a ballerina on accelerants.
After winning your fourth race, your heat will get to level 5, just like a few levels back it got dropped. You might want to have a second fast car in handy. One option is to do for races with Ming's Callardo, then go do some milestones, and buy the GT. This level's highlights include:
Campus Interchange and Country Club, both circuits. They have exactly the same route, but with reverse directions. Country Club starts with a curve leading through the quiet part of the town, and has the rest of the track on the roundabout, Campus Interchange ends with the same stroll through the town. With three laps, these 20,000 cash circuits may not be as time efficient as Bond & Forest Green a level earlier.
Lennox & Camden, a speedtrap with maximum cop probability. If you don't mind a pursuit after the race, you'll enjoy this, as it is mostly on the downtown roundabout, and ends on a bridge.
Valley & Highway 201 a knockout that takes you briefly through the downtown, and also features the roundabout.
East Park, a circuit that mixes sharp turns with a wide road.
Petersburg Crossing, the knockout I hinted a level earlier. Including The Rockport Tunnel, it is the reverse of the track from earlier. You'd think having the roundabout bit at the end would make this track easier than its counterpart.
Despite indicating a lower top speed than Murciélago, Carrera GT had the best acceleration, so by this level, I used Carrera GT for the races. Mercedes-Bens SLR McLaren's acceleration is equal to Carrera GT, but Porsche's handling and top speed are better.
Blacklist #1, Razor, trolls around with a BMW M3 GTR. The milestones in here are crazy. Getting the three speed tickets is easy with a fast acceleration, but from the seven available milestones, you need five. Evading pursuit in less than two minutes is also a piece of cake, but getting the fifth can prove quite a pickle. You have a choice of lasting a pursuit for 13 minutes, tagging 35 police cars, or getting 850,000 bounty.
This is where I gave up with my first save. I aimed for bounty, and following the advice of many people, I tried to just wait for the bounty to accumulate sitting on top of the busses at the bus station. It worked fine, but only heat 1 cops can't figure out how to drive up there. Maybe heat 2 cops also can't, seems logical, but heat 4 cops sure can. However, I accidentally achieved the bounty when I was aiming for tagging milestone.
It can be very useful to only aim for one milestone at a time. In lower levels, I got busted many times when I could have got away with one achievement but thought: Hey, I have only so little to go to get that other milestone! In this level I had only one more achievement required anyway, so I set my mind to tagging. Both tagging 35 cop cars, and dealing with heat 5 cops, are a lot harder than you'd think. Since I thought tagging is the easier of the two, I tried to get 35 cars tagged before I reach heat level 5. Mind you, it required starting with a heat 1 car with 0% progress, so I had to switch cars a lot.
I did it with Gallardo, with 12:15.24, 35 tagged police cars, and 929,600 bounty. I know the time was close, but had I tried to get the extra 45 seconds, I'd probably ended up being busted. For bounty, I guess what contributed, was the 200,000 bonus for getting the tagging achievement. Did I mention I love The Rockport Tunnel? It's a great way to shake cops, even helicopters, as it features a hiding spot, and a pursuit breaker just before that. This is exactly what I did: destroyed the last three cars behind me, and sat it out in the hideout. As I already have a picture of my Gallardo, here is my Murciélago in that hiding spot:
I said that on the first level, it takes six minutes to reach heat 2, but it does not take that long in all the levels, otherwise the thirteen minute chase would be a piece of cake. If I remember correctly, in the final level, and also after completing it, it takes two minutes to heat 2, four minutes to heat 3, six minutes to heat 4, and ten minutes to heat 5. This means that if you are not looking for them on purpose, you can avoid police Corvettes until the final level, as Bull's endurance milestone is nine minutes.
If you have achieved five required milestones, it's time take on races. You don't have to wait with racing until you have milestones, but you can't enter the blacklist races until you have milestones, so you might as well wait. Either way, when you are ready to race, here are my picks for this level:
Industrial & Bristol a hard sprint. It looks perfect for a quick 25,000 money boost, since it's from a bridge to a roundabout, but the opponents are usually biting your ankles, so one slight bump into something, and you'll likely have to re-race. Here is a video of some wrong moves on this track.
Hastings, a challenging circuit. Not much longer than those a level earlier, but it has some tight curves.
Petersburg & Camden, a long tollbooth, covering all three boroughs. Too bad there is no race that long, but you race with a timer, so you'll have some competition. In some aspects, a race with timer can be more challenging than a race with opponent cars.
Highway 2001, a fairly tricky sprint. No tight turns like you'd find in the downtown or the coastal area, but some are pretty radical curves.
Marina & Lennox, a tollbooth that takes you through the football stadium, and the marina. The price for these sights is a lengthy track, so if you only want to see the sights, you will be better off driving there in the free roam mode.
Bay Bridge & Seaside, a sprint covering all boroughs. It mostly covers Rosewood, taking you through the town, but not too much hassle.
Now, turn on autosave, it's time for the final challenge of the game. I am not talking about Razor. Racing him is tiresome, as he has five races, but Ronnie and Bull are actually harder. As I told you before, autosave is needed for this, as there is no option to save after beating razor. If you had autosave off when entering to race Razor, in the better scenario, when you quit the game during final pursuit, and continue to play later, you will have to race Razor again. Or worse, you'll have to re-race Razor every time you get busted in the final pursuit. And you'll get busted a lot, it took me 21 times to finally evade.
I am unsure which scenario applies, as I had read that the autosave is needed for the final race, so I had it on. As for the pursuit, you'll get a special heat 6 pursuit, with black Corvettes and supercharged rhinos, plus Cross himself. Black Corvettes are faster, and more durable than white Corvettes. Supercharged rhinos are also stronger than heavy rhinos, and they have nitro. You can not evade heat 6 until Mia calls you.
I did the final pursuit in a different way than walkthroughs suggest. Instead of running through the town, knocking off pursuit breakers, and waiting on top of the busses at bus station, I turned around right at the start, went to the highway, and just circled, until Mia called. After evading the pursuit the first time, I took a save I had stored in a remote folder, re-raced the pursuit, and made a video of it. From the video, you see that in attempt to hold speed I leaned to the right, and bumped into the bridge's railing. First time I jumped off clean, but when I was making a video, I once almost evaded, but had too low speed while jumping off the bridge, and it showed me not making it to the other side, so that is why I tried so hard to avoid the police cars in the video. Like the video isn't enough, here is a picture proving I have the BMW:
Now that the career is completed, you may want to pay attention to the percentage of the completion, I think I had 87% completion upon putting the big pursuit behind me. I am now at 99%, and the only thing not done is the thirteen minute pursuit milestone. However, my overall completion of the game is 90%, since I am at 57% in the challenge series. I would say challenge series is harder than career, as you don't get to choose your car, you get to personally experience just how poorly heat 1 cop cars handle, and you have to ride regular traffic cars, like taxi cab, and pizza delivery. They do have nitrous, although it is not much help, and a garbage truck with nitrous seems weird.
While you do your skipped achievements in the career, or just re-race for fun, you might want to max out your garage. I read someone mention that you can have a maximum of 12 cars. I have 25, and when I try to buy a new one, the game tells me my garage is full. Maybe you can only purchase 10 cars, but there is room for all possible pink slips, and the guy just had only won two. I did buy the Ford GT, and discovered that the stripe 1 vinyl for this instance is actually the manufacturer vinyl, with the text Ford GT on the side:
Most Wanted is the second game in the series to include free roam. The first, Underground 2, did feature some interesting areas like the train depot, commercial port, and some courtyards, but Most Wanted has much richer scenery, some of which you'll never visit in any race. I have giving you subtle hints to those areas. The Supra screenshot is taken on the baseball stadium; Cayman is on the American Football stadium; Gallardo, although right beside the road, is in a gas station; Corvette is in that bus station I have mentioned a few times; Carrera GT is on campus; Murciélago, as already mentioned, is in The Rockport Tunnel; BMW is on festival grounds; and Ford GT is in the parking lot outside the baseball stadium. There is also a golf course on the map, and here is a picture of the clubhouse of that golf course, along with my pink Porsche:
There is also a Black Edition of the game. Don't worry, when you only have the regular version of the game, you will not miss much. The most notable difference is in car list - you get Chevrolet Camaro SS, and the street version of BMW M3 GTR. The Black Edition also features additional races, a special challenge, and a special feature DVD that contains few interviews and videos relating to the game. You can find the videos on Youtube, but they are not very exciting. Also, the two mentioned cars, plus eight specially tuned cars, are available from bonus car list in quick race mode, and not available in career. So, the career in Black Edition is the same as regular edition. There is no 16th blacklist member, that was a work in progress idea, shown in a video in the demo, but in the final game, you race him in the intro sequence.
As of this date, both editions are available at US Amazon (I only checked there), but I advise you to buy the cheaper regular edition, as the Black Edition is three times more expensive. Then again, if you are a collector, you'd buy the standard edition, the Black Edition, the standard edition with a silver frame that says EA Classics, and don't forget both the CD and the DVD pressing of the standard edition. I have the DVD one, but apparently, it originally came out as 4 CDs.
A funny little thing about a hideout: since the cops can drive through the hideout near the baseball stadium, you can be in clear sight of the cops, but if you are directly in the hideout circle, they can't see you. However, this happened to me while hiding bar was progressing. It may not work otherwise, as like I told you before, the hiding bar appears only while the cooldown has been started before arriving at the hiding spot.
One more tip: turn the game music off. Game music is constantly interrupted with loading screens and race restarts anyway, so put on your playlist in a music player, adjust the volume in both the player and the game, and you can enjoy your favourite music while still hearing the police radio, and the sound effects. I have speech volume level higher than engine and sound effects, so I hear police radio over the music, but still hear music over the engine, and the tire screeching.
