Silly me only voted for 1 - NFS 2 SE. :lol:
I wont say it's "technically" the best but it's where all my childhood memories are. The tracks, game modes, varying physics options (sim, arcade, wild), all the photos and videos of the cars and tracks, the music, etc were brilliant. It was also the first LAN game I played, and the first online game I played (over a 56k dial up modem with my cousin). If I wasn't running 64bit Windows I'd already have it installed and could easily finish a kockout comp in 30 minutes. The tournament strangely still provides a very good challenge. Last time I did it a few months ago I only won by 5 points or something.
NFS - Only played a demo - meh (I'm sure it was awesome at the time)
NFS2SE - Awesome
NFS3 - Physics were a tad weird but the police made it fun.
NFS4 - Didn't get this one on PC for a while (had it on PSX, which was slightly different). Tracks and being able to switch police cars made it fun. Presentation was also very good. I once installed the heavily modded version and loaded all the NFS2 tracks into the game as well, but it's not the easiest thing to get working (keeps saying my CD is not in the drive when it is).
NFS5 - I first played this on PSX, which was completely different (had a few small open world maps, splitscreen capture the flag modes, etc). Missions and tracks were also completely different), quite fun. Later got it on PC, which didn't have all the features, but was more polished (although at the start the game kept crashing halfway through one of the tracks which was annoying).
NFSHP2 - Enjoyed this game a lot on PC and played on a friends XBOX once as well (not fair they get split screen police coop and PC didn't). On the PC you could modify just about anything since most of the settings were in easy-to-edit text files. I've saved a few files that I changed to make the cop gameply like NFS3 (where ramming the perp does nothing, you have to stop them properly). I only played the PS2 version once, and I understand one of the tracks was completely different, and they had NOS and had fire trucks on the Redwood track shortcut). The graphics were inferior though. Only in this game did I like most of the EA trax (compared to newer games).
NFSU - Played on XBOX first, never finished it, then got around to completing it on PC (after finishing NFSU2) - didn't really enjoy it.
NFSU2 - Open world was ok, had a decent story at the time, was annoying since you couldn't warp around the large map though.
NFSMW - Enjoyed this game a lot the first time, but the map is too small to have any replay value for me.
NFSC - There are plenty of reasons not to enjoy this - but for some reason I did (no replay value though).
ProStreet - It should've been good, but the handling physics were really annoying for me. I liked how you had to use the clutch properly though. Never finished this one.
Undercover - Never finished it - too many controller and graphics issues. Everyone knows it sucked. The day NFS started to die.
Shift - was mostly good/ok. Took longer to startup than Windows 7 though.
Hot Pursuit 2010 - Finished it, but only enjoyed it for very brief moments. The Burnout Paradise handling ruined it for me. Online modes were fun, but annoyed that we missed out on the DLC game modes.
Shift 2 - Enjoyed it, but for some reason never finished it. Similar story with DiRT3. I must've been busy then or something. It was annoying how you couldn't alter your controls when paused in a race, had to always go back to the main menu. The UI was really annoying.
The Runs - this might be the first NFS that I have no intention of getting legally or otherwise.