My racing lifestyle is pretty boring, really. Someone would probably say that my idea of underground racing is me driving through a tunnel on the way to the local Gamestop. It's "typical", if you will. But I've seen the shows on TV and the DVD's where illegal street racing seems to be a style upon itself, and a rather thrilling one at that. Think about it. There's pressure galore, from keeping an eye open for the cops to appear at any time to putting your car on the line in the most intense of races and possibly ending up having to go home on the bus.

For years, video games have tried to represent this art form into video games, and a few have been successful. One of these companies is EA, whose Need For Speed: Underground remains one of the forerunners for the genre. But by the time Underground 2 surfaced a year later, it was as if the point might have been hammered home a little too well. A bit of change was needed to keep the formula fresh.

And that change has arrived in fine form for the Xbox 360. Need For Speed: Most Wanted, like its current console cousins, mixes together the fine elements of underground racing and combines them with the earlier Hot Pursuit games to create a dizzying hybrid, loaded with all the thrills mentioned above from real street racing. Your car's on the line, but this time so is your freedom, as the cops are looking for someone to bust. Someone must've cut short their donut supply, you think?

The game starts you off in a fly ride, building speed through a couple of races and showing your tricks of the trade. It isn't long before you garner the attention of Mia Townsend, played by the beautiful Josie Maran. She digs your ride, and maybe even your style. Unfortunately, you've also gathered the attention of the ruthless Razor Callahan, a street racer who holds nothing back in his races. He challenges you in a pink slip race, and midway through, you find your car's performance falling apart. His boys have tinkered with your ride, and you lose your car as a result. Worse yet, the cops show up just in time to arrest you. After they're unable to charge you with anything, Mia picks you up and explains Razor's tactics, and how you need to get him back.

See, Razor sits at the top of a certain blacklist, a list of racers who are considered the most dominant in the city. In order to get revenge on him, you'll have to work your way up through this blacklist, beating racer after racer and getting better rides along the way. During this trial, you'll also have to build a little bit of notoriety, meaning that you'll have to evade the police on a number of occasions and build up what's known as bounty points. The worse your reputation, the better chance you have at moving up the blacklist and settling the score with Razor. However, keep in mind that he's been using YOUR ride all this time to get to his ranks. Beating him will NOT be easy.

In fact, the game's got a swing on its progressive difficulty scale that proves this. The beginning of the game is a cakewalk as you enter race events, but as you move along the blacklist, each racer becomes more and more aggressive. By the time you enter into the top five, you find racers that are so determined, they'd even run over their own mother in order to get ahead. Some might be thrown off at the game's difficulty curve as a result, but then you have the pursuits to keep your skills at bay.