I actually joined to write this review, because I have seen no mention at all about the online aspects of this game, and it needs to be said the EA, besides programming a truly awesome game, has servers devoted to this game 24/7, although with occasional outages. Others have written of the many wonderful aspects of the game, I will describe the NFS online experience, from an addict's point of view.

My online persona name is Creamer, and I am currently ranked #11 on the Need for Speed High Stakes Online Racing Top 50 List, with 38361 points gained in 2544 races. I started racing online 283 days ago based on my Persona's age.

Sure, when I first got the game, I started out in Hot Pursuit mode banging into everything, and eventually got good enough to work my up through career mode to the fastest breed of cars. The tracks are extremely challenging when racing at high speed, with dips and obsticles (both movable and immovable). I had to spend quite a few races before I could beat the AI in the final races of career mode, and when I finally got that last God Trophy, I felt I was good, and was very satisfied with the life of the game, and went on to other things. Then one day, I found the Online Racing mode, and my life has not been the same since.

Once you sign up, log in, create your persona, and enter the Single Race lobby, you find yourself in a chat room, from which you can enter pits. Now if you've just bought the game, it is advisable to at least get to the point where you can beat the AI bots before even trying online racing mode. Because even if you think you are already a good racer, once you go into those pits you will find out different, trust me. There are multiple learning curves and nuances involved with this game, enough to keep many people occupied literally for years. The best of the best keep track of world record times, always disputed of course, but one neat feature of the game is that you can save and download replays of races, and use them to learn the best techniques by watching the fastest drivers. And many of the other racers there are willing to help you learn. A lot of really cool people play this game. We are sort of like the "Trekkies" of online racing. The "Trekkers" are all hanging out in Motor City Online, EA's latest online racing project. But that's a whole other story (The Next Generation?).

And the BEST aspect to THIS online racing game: it's in perpetual beta, meaning it's FREE!! No subscription fee!!

There is a downside though. First, it may not go on forever, and many are wondering how long it will last. There have been some problems with online racing, and EA has not been particularly aggressive in trying to solve those problems (but a Great and Holy racer named Turtle0 has helped us overcome the worst of it by hacking some patches). Ultimately, it turns out that the online aspect of this game was the prototype for something bigger (the aforementioned Motor City Online). In addition, EA has stopped shipping and selling Need for Speed High Stakes (so why am I writing this pitch, right? well why not?). EA is very non-communicative with regards to the game, however they continue (as of this writing) to keep the servers running.

So if you already have, or can somehow get your hands on a CD of this very excellent and highly recommended game, come join me for a few races. We'll have a blast, I promise!!

Recommended: Yes