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When doing the Blacklist mode, you go against one opponent at a time, each having an over the top attitude and persona to match it. Before you do it you must complete three different criteria: races, milestones, and bounty. There are a few different types of races. The circuit race you go around a route two-three laps. A sprint has you going from point A to B in what is usually a longer run. As you progress through the game the routes become longer and more complicated. A knockout race basically eliminates whoever comes across the finish line last in that lap, so basically in the end of it you have to be first. Speed-trap races have a bunch of speed cameras along a route, and you don’t always have to be the car ahead of everyone, as long as you are the fastest coming across the speed camera icons. Tollbooth races have you racing from a certain amount of tollbooths to the other and you have to make it between each in a certain amount of time or you lose. The drag racing, which has become the staple of the last few Need for Speed games is back, but it is a bit more complicated, and you actually have a lot less chances to do these than the other types of races which is good, because the game is after all called “Need for Speed” not “Need for Ten Seconds of Fun”. The tollbooth race forces you to manually control the car, flicking the right analog to shift up. This is an interesting way to shift and may take some getting used to but it works. You see an icon in the middle of the screen prompting you to shift, and if you do it too soon you won’t be as fast, just right of course is best. You don’t really control the path of the car, but rather, flick the analog stick to get out of the way of oncoming cars. If you crash into a car it is over. Many times you have to go under semi trucks or dodge horizontal traffic by going into a speed-breaker. The mode can get annoying at times, but you almost always have the choice of not doing them.
 The reflections are impressive.
The intelligence of the AI opponents is a mixed bag. In the beginning the AI definitely stays on you for a bit in the beginning of races, and sometimes a car will get ahead of you, but strangely and often, it seems like they stop in front of you to let you get by. In the later stage of a race you might find yourself pretty much far ahead of most of the cars but one, and if you screw up once that car will make it ahead of you. Still it isn’t much of a problem and you can beat all of these races no problem. The game gets a bit more difficult in the later half of the game and in many instances nearly impossible it seems. The vehicles that drive through the city that are just normal folk have some pretty good AI, but they do some strange or silly things. An instance is many of the roads have a incline that allow you to go flying in the air, triggering an instance where you see the car flying in the air in slow-motion. The actual environments have an AI of their own and no matter how fast a car is going, they will go flying over this one incline. You even get the slow-motion camera when you yourself simply go over the hill at a slower speed. On both versions of the game, Xbox and Xbox 360 you will get a shift in time, that has the sun going from east to west, and rainy conditions every so often. It is a nice effect, most apparent on Xbox 360 but instead of it ever getting dark, it simply will get gloomy and rainy. It isn’t a major problem, but it seems like the developers were so determined from making the game different from the Underground series that they intentionally made it towards it would never be night, which many of the races in the past two games happen in.
While doing many races, you may actually attract the attention of the police, in which case brings me to the best part of the Blacklist mode, actually outrunning, outsmarting, and getting on the nerves of the Rockport City police force. This is what also helps you get your bounty up, and the more damage, and more attention you draw to yourself, the closer you are to the bounty goal set for that particular Blacklist rival. It goes from one cop on your tail, to dozens, upon dozens. Roadblocks, police SUVs ramming you head-on, and eventually spike-strips, and helicopters swooping down on you. In the beginning it is actually hard to get the cops to come at you, as you literally have to slow down as they catch up. As your heat level rises however, more cops will follow you with unmarked cars, and police sports cars will chase you. If you stop your car for to long, or you get your tires slashed by spike strips it’s over and you get boxed in by cars, therefore getting busted. An interesting little detail about getting busted is, despite it looking like a police car camera, you can actually see the model of car you had sitting on the side of the road, while the cop slams you against their cruiser and cuffs you. When you get busted you can use a get-out-of-jail free card, which normally you can win after you beat Blacklist rivals, or pay up. After you get caught in a certain car to many times however, the car is impounded. That shouldn’t happen though, as you can switch to another car, use that, and the heat level of that car goes down over time. To see how you are doing against the cops is a meter at the bottom of chases, which if it goes into red, you getting close to being caught, if it goes into green, you are evading them. Once it goes fully into evade, it goes into a Cooldown meter which seems to go on forever. You could go to your garage to speed it up, or most usually find an empty garage or somewhere that isn’t in vision of any roads so that you get done with the chase. It is definitely the hardest part of the game, and can become frustrating and exciting at the same time.
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