I have burned The Need for Speed about 4 different times, each time it just got past the bios, the screen would go black, and it would sit there indefinitely. I tried 3 different images, but all the same behavior.
I also boot up with my memory card in the slot, and it has never caused an issue to this point (I just always have to choose the "Start Application" option every time I boot a game). I finally decided to test Need for Speed with my memory card out of the slot...Aha! It worked! For some reason, booting the game with no memory card allowed it to work. Any ideas what might have caused this?