During its fiscal 2005, Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS) commanded a whopping 63% share of the sports video game market segment. Yet only one of the Motley Fool Stock Advisor selection's 31 platinum titles for the year accounted for more than 10% of the company's $3.13 billion in revenues -- and it wasn't even a sports game.
The game: street racer Need for Speed Underground 2.
Last month -- just in time for the debut of Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Xbox 360 -- EA delivered its latest iteration of the series with Need for Speed: Most Wanted. And while the 15 million units NFSU 2 sold in fiscal 2005 will be difficult to match, EA has managed to come back with a fresh approach to its No. 1 street-racing series.
In Most Wanted, EA combines the cop chases from NFS:Hot Pursuit with the street racing and car customization of the Underground games, as well as a complete city in which to roam freely (as in last year's NFSU 2). This time, you play a street racer who gets cheated out of his car. And in order to get revenge, you have to climb "The Blacklist" of the 15 street racers most wanted by the police. And to do that, you have to both win races and earn rep (or "bounty" in this case) -- not by modifying your ride (as in NFSU), but by intentionally getting into cop chases, running road blocks, "trading paint" (making contact with a police vehicle), and causing damage.
Once you have earned enough rep, the next player on the Blacklist will challenge you to a pair of races.
The vehicle lineup has shifted. Gone from the import-tuner-oriented NFSU 2 are the entry-level sport compacts. Most of the elite Japanese import cars remain -- including the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII, Toyota (NYSE: TM) Supra, and Mazda RX-7 and RX-8. But there are no Nissans (Nasdaq: NSANY), no Hondas, no Ford (NYSE: F) Focuses, and no Mazda Miatas. In their place are high-end exotics, including the Lotus Elise, a pair of Lamborghinis, and several Porsches.
The mix of races has also changed. Gone from NFSU 2 are the drifting (my favorite) and "Street X" (an alternative form of autocross). In their place are the tollbooth races -- basically, the checkpoint races found in your typical arcade game -- and the speedtrap, where the goal is to go through the checkpoints at the highest speed; the racer with the highest total speed at the checkpoints (and not necessarily who gets to the finish line first) wins.
On the plus side, players can win the pink slip to a Blacklist rival's car after defeating him or her, rather than having to modify new vehicles from scratch. And while performance modification is still an integral part of this game, visual modification plays a less prominent role, though all of the modification options are there.
And following Brooke Burke in last year's game, Most Wanted features Josie Marian as the lead female character.
In all, the gameplay is still there and the graphics are great -- especially on the Xbox 360 version, which I saw at the SEMA Show at the beginning of last month. But most importantly, Most Wanted is fresh; it's not just another more-of-the-same sequel. And while I won't bet that Most Wanted sells 15 million units this fiscal year (though it might), there is no doubt that Need for Speed is still the king of the street racers. It's also clear that Most Wanted is the game to beat for EA's top street-racing rivals, Take-Two Interactive (Nasdaq: TTWO) and THQ (Nasdaq: THQI).
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Fool contributor Jeff Hwang owns shares of Electronic Arts. The Fool has an ironclad disclosure policy.
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