Video Game / Need for Speed: Most Wanted – Pepega Edition

"You won't stand a chance, hotshot!"

The one that completely evolved police pursuits to a whole new level, featuring the iconic blue and silver car... Now turned into a low poly Java vehicle.

Need For Speed: Most Wanted - Pepega Edition is a Game Mod of Need for Speed: Most Wanted developed by Team Pepega. The mod is a Denser and Wackier take of the main game, including various memes and reference to the Need for Speed community.

The game includes brand new features, such as new vehicles, content initially cut from the game, brand new missions and much more, on top of being a love letter to the whole community and KuruHS, a YouTuber known for speedrunning the franchise.

The mod was originally released in October of 2020, while V2 of the mod, known as the Anniversary Update, was released the following year, with more cars added, new race track layouts and challenges in the Challenge Series (now called Cancer Series), and an optional extended soundtrack.

A sequel of the mod, made for ProStreet, named the Need for Speed: ProStreet – Pepega Edition was released on April 1st, 2023.

"This here is the number 15 guy in our trope list"

• The Alleged Car: The starting vehicles have been completely replaced by brand new ones, specifically ones that have became infamous in Real Life for being unreliable, such as the Fiat 126P and the Yugo^note which was added in career mode as of version 2.0.
  • Some of the vehicles aren't even actual cars, such as Pepe the frog in a scooter and a literal Coffin referencing the "Run's dead" meme.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Beating a Blacklist member gives you all the possible markers, giving you the possibility to unlock everything, like the pinkslip to unlock their vehicle.
  • Every police vehicle had its gravity lowered, making them less of an annoyance to deal with.
• April Fools' Day: On April 1st, 2021, the team released on KuruHS's channel a trailer for the upcoming Pepega Mod for Need for Speed (2015), including BlackPanthaa lamenting about it during the ending. In 2022, the team jokingly released a "new" trailer of the mod, which in reality states that nothing has been changed and everything is just how it looked from the Anniversary Update released a year prior. Subverted in 2023, when they released ProStreet Pepega Edition on that day.
• Art-Style Clash: The majority of the vehicles are taken from the infamous Java games, using the same models, texture, and engine sound.
• Artistic License – Cars: Played for Laughs with the vast majority of things the player can use to customize the vehicle, such as big and long exhaust pipes and a literal movie spoiler as a spoiler. Additionally, a new type of vehicle was included, labeled under a new icon to specify its high tuning capability.
• Artifact Title: All the cutscenes have either been replaced with memes or completely edited out in the same level as a YouTube Poop. Same thing also goes for most of the vehicles in the games.
• Brutal Bonus Level: Challenge #74 in the Cancer Series, "Stock Punto Challenge", requires beating a late game tollbooth race using a Fiat Punto with stock parts. Said task is easier said than done. Beating that challenge unlocks challenge #75, "Bonus Event: Mayhem Mode" which puts the player in a pursuit against condition 13 cops and requires the player to amass 100 million bounty points (which can take over half an hour to do) before escaping them. The kicker? All of the pursuit breakers and hiding spots are unmarked!
• Color Wash: For the Halloween update, the entire game was given an orange filter to fit the theme.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The spike strips have been altered to now be plain objects that can be hit and thrown away by the player and the police, dealing no damage on the wheels. This can be both a blessing and a curse, as players might get used to the change and probably fall for it when playing unmodded Most Wanted.
• Demoted to Extra: Three of the mod's Blacklist racers suffered this fate in the mod's Anniversary Update.
  • Dominic Toretto, who was #9 on the Blacklist in the original release of the mod and drove a custom Dodge Charger, was replaced by LPN05 and his Audi S3. Dom's bio cutscene was repurposed as an intro cutscene to one of his challenges in the Cancer Series.
  • TakaiDesu, who was #7 on the Blacklist in the original release of the mod and drove a custom version of the Mercedes-Benz CLK 500, was replaced by SlapTrain and his Infiniti G35. The only traces of TakaiDesu left in V2 of the mod are her vinyl for the CLK 500 (and the FAK 500 by proxy) and her name occasionally being used for opponents.
  • "Aniki" Billy Herrington, who was #5 on the Blacklist in the original release of the mod and drove a custom version of the Chevrolet Corvette C6, was replaced by Shinyodd and his Nissan Skyline R30. Billy's bio cutscene was repurposed as an intro cutscene to one of his challenges in the Cancer Series.
• Denser and Wackier: Compared to the vanilla game, at least.
• Developer's Foresight: Two possible skips (one during one of the Pepega!KuruHS races and one during the last escape from the police) have been completely patched, causing a level restart when they are performed.
• Dramatic Ellipsis: Ryan Cooper will send you this, since he's The Speechless in his home game.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Pre-release, release and 2.0 have some differences in terms of vehicles used during the scripted events of the start game and end game.
  • The very early version still used the iconic BMW M3, getting later on replaced by a Golf GTI stylized in the same way as the M3 (with the same thing done to Razor car as well). The official release utilizes the infamous Nissan 350Z from the Java release of Need for Speed: Underground 2, while in the 2.0 update, the vehicle is now the M3 yet again, just Java-fied.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: One of the spoilers is a Played for Laughs spoiler of Avengers: Infinity War, stating that none other than SpongeBob dies, referencing a popular meme at the time where people added completely random characters that allegedly ends up dying in the movie.
• Felony Misdemeanor: Played for Laughs, right after Cross and his partner arrested the player. Cue the player being sent straight to the gulag.
• Fission Mailed: The game pretends to crash on two occasions, both during cutscenes.
  • During the cutscene before the final pursuit, the game freezes just as Cross is about to shout "EVERYONE!" before cutting to a fake BSOD, then pretends to restart the computer and goes back to where the cutscene left off.
  • The cutscene for challenge #93 in the Cancer Series, "Pizza Delivery", freezes up as the pizza car hits the donut shop pursuit breaker before giving a fake error message saying that the game stopped responding.
• Gag Penis: Some of the new race layouts in V2 of the mod resemble penises. This is lampshaded further with the tracks being called "Oh, Cock!".
• It's Always Spring: As of version 2.0, the game was given a seasonal overhaul, taking place in spring instead of autumn.
• Joke Character: The GMC C6500, a large truck that's unlocked after beating Kuru in V2. It's pretty much useless in races, but it's the heaviest vehicle in the mod aside from the tank, serving as a Bragging Rights Reward.
  • Lethal Joke Character: The drift variants of cars introduced in V2 of the mod. The drift cars have high acceleration and top speed stats, along with almost unlimited nitrous boost, and they're free to grab from the showroom, but there are two catches - the cars have very stiff handling meant for drifting, and their performance cannot be modified. However, in the hands of a skilled player, the drift cars can decimate the competition.
• Metaphorically True: The brakes are renamed as "You don't need these", due to not really being a requirement in Most Wanted.
• Mythology Gag: Due to this game being a homage to KuruHS, the majority of references are about his career and memes.
  • Most of the menu icons are replaced with various Twitch emotes, with most of them being from Kuru channel, using a Pepefication of Cross.
  • The majority of the pizza places, pizza boxes (as of the official release) and pizza cars (as of 2.0) have been edited to include the Domino's Pizza logo, referencing a common Berserk Button of Kuru regarding his experience with the restaurant chain.^{The reason?}In a stream Kuru mentioned how in Sweden, the pizza he bought for the first and last time from Domino's was awful. The pizza he ended up getting tasted terrible, comparing its flavor with someone adding multiple spoonfuls of sugar as topping.
  • Formula One driver Charles Leclerc being one of the members of the Blacklist references an incident that happened between Leclerc and Kuru during a "Not The GP" event.^ContextAfter the COVID-19 Pandemic resulted in the 2020 F1 season being postponed, a series of virtual races were held in the interim on Codemasters' F1 2019, featuring real drivers competing against sim racing talents and other personalities. During the "Not the Baku GP" event, Kuru ended up interacting with Leclerc multiple times, ending up beating his time and later accidentally rear-ending him as a mistake.
  • The "Run's Dead" coffin... "Car" is a reference to a common Kuru meme of the same name, used whenever a good run ends up failing due to A.I. Is a Crapshoot.
  • Back in the early pre-release version of the mod, the 10th Blacklist (who used to be none other than Bob the Builder himself, at least in name) mentions how he stolen a drill from an Austrian man.^ContextThat Austrian man is none other than Kuru himself, as he mentioned that event on stream.
  • In the pre-release, the icon for the roadblocks was two police cars stacked together, in reference to a Need for Speed: Undercover stream where Kuru encountered the glitch. It would later turn into an Ascended Meme when the game fully released, with a stacked police car replacing one of the Rhino SUV variants.
  • The Speedtrap racing mode is renamed to "Fucking Rubberband", referencing to a common line spoken by Kuru whenever he deals with Rubber-Band A.I., especially in games like Most Wanted and Carbon. The race mode's icon was changed to Earl's Lancer Evo VIII, as a nod to his notorious reputation as a difficult boss in the vanilla game which earned him the Fan Nickname of "Rubberband Earl".
  • For references not entirely related to Kuru:
    • The Top Gear trio utilizes their most infamous vehicles, like Jeremy Clarkson using the Reliant Robin, James May riding the Alpine A110, and Richard Hammond driving the Rimac Concept One (yes, the same one that almost killed him).
    • All the Youtubers drives specific cars that are either references to their real life vehicles or specific ones they became famous for - for example, Jimmy Broadbent drives his time-attack Mazda MX-5, Shinyodd drives a Nissan Skyline R30 and Kuru of course has a Golf GTI.
• No Fair Cheating: Attempting to use an iconic skip during one of Razor/Pepega!KuruHS races to go out of bounds and skip a huge chunk will cause a pickup truck to arrive at high speed againts you. If that wasn't a warning already and you still continue to do the trick, the game will purposely restart and force you to beat the level fair and square. The cutscene that plays after that race is an edit of late El Risitas mentioning the out of bounds glitch and laughing about it.
  • The same thing also goes to the final police chase, when the level will reset if the player attempts to no-clip.
• Overly Long Gag: The "Seven" voice message from TTS Brian, where he takes over a minute to read a very large digit comprised of the number 7, along with the "Take the L" voice message, where he reads a row comprised of the letter "L".
  TTS Brian: Why are you still listening to this when you can continue to play the game, you Pepega?
• Rule of Funny: The Golf GTI is labeled as "The Golf is better", with the brand logo jokingly replaced with one of Kuru emotes. As of the Anniversary Update, this variation now serves as an endgame vehicle due to his status, and is completely separated from the base Golf GTI, now replaced with a slightly modernized take of it.
  • Every car with an Australian origin is flipped upside down, poking at the National Stereotypes of Australia. Despite that, they all behave like a normal vehicle.
  • The main opening of the game, with Mia Townsend replaced with Kuru in his gaming set, doing a parody of the original purpose of the warning but now aimed at his own Twitch Chat.
  • Some of the harder police cars variants have been replaced with brand new ones, such as stacked police cars, the M3 with the Pepega Police livery, a tank, and a UFO now replacing the helicopter.
    • On top of that, the police car physics have been altered to now be floatier, leading to hilarious situations.
    • The cherry on top is their siren noises, now changed to be A Cappella.
  • Every NPC vehicle noise has been replaced with the infamous "REEEEEEEEEE" scream, giving an hilarious result whenever your vehicle goes fast enough.
• Sensory Abuse: Some of the mod's cutscenes and phone calls have moments where the audio goes really loud. The mod even included a warning about loud sounds when you start the game, right after the "Team Pepega" logo.
• Shout-Out:
  • The sound effects for turning Speedbreaker on and off were changed to "Stop!" and "Hammer time!" respectively.
  • When you win a race, the winning message says "You're Winner!".
  • Getting totaled in a Drag/CBT race gives the message "SAMIR YOU BROKE THE CAR", a reference to a video involving rally driver Samir Thapar, where his co-driver yells at him due to Samir's reckless driving.
    • Heck, the Drag/CBT mode itself has an icon that is based on the Crash Team Racing cover art, albeit with its acronym changed to "CBT".
• Tank Goodness: The heavy Rhino SUV is replaced with a military tank.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: When V2 of the mod was first released, Challenge #101 in the Cancer Series, "The Drift King", which required the player to gain 200,000 bounty in a condition 3 pursuit while driving Aki Kimura's Mazda RX-7, was impossible to beat, as trying to launch the challenge caused the game to crash. An update was eventually released to correct this issue.
• Weird Crossover: With various media, with examples like Sonic the Hedgehog, Takumi, and the Top Gear trio being on the Blacklist. Various characters from the other Need for Speed games are also in the roster.