Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit super review

The Need For Speed franchise has had a couple of bumps in the road, but the series’ evolution has been pretty fascinating. Whereas just about every other annual sports title updates rosters and adds a feature or two, Need For Speed has taken to completely reinventing itself year in and year out. Look at this oddball track record:

From Left: Cholos, X-Games, Live Action Criminals, Simulation, and Hot Pursuit

Barring 2008’s Undercover, the NFS series has gotten stronger with each entry. Whatever EA’s reasoning is for throwing the baby out with the bathwater every year, it’s certainly not because the last game sucked. Hell, people like me were a little miffed when we found there’d be no follow up to last year’s phenomenally simulation-oriented NFS: SHIFT. That is, until we played Hot Pursuit…

As much as we’ll miss experiencing the true-to-life thrill of accurate physics and neck trauma, it’s not like this season needed another “driving simulator” with Gran Turismo 5 on the horizon (and SHIFT will reportedly be back next year). Besides, Hot Pursuit cares significantly less about impressing gearheads and is instead far more concerned with being awesome right when the light hits green. This is arcade racing at its best, a true revolution of the highest octane. While many games in the genre have tried to bridge the gap between hardcore thrills and casual accessibility, no one has done it quite as splendidly as in Hot Pursuit. They’ve even managed to tackle the difficult task of enhancing the experience online.

Familiar with Burnout? Of course you are. Even players who care little for racing games have joined in the pursuit of automotive mayhem simply because it offered all the streamlined intensity a Triple-A game should, without bogging the affair down with menus, stats, and unnecessary car minutia. So, in case you didn’t know by now, the same developers behind the Burnout franchise, Criterion Games, are the folks moonlighting behind this Need For Speed game and you’ll find evidence of their pedigree everywhere. High speed takedowns, simple controls that’ll help you drift turns for miles, driving recklessly to charge boost, and more all make finely tuned appearances in Hot Pursuit.

Nobody we played with had trouble jumping into the game and “getting it” immediately, and you too will find yourself instantly rocketing through the gorgeous vistas of Seacrest County an experience truly worthy of a racing title in 2010. But don’t get too comfortable… the police don’t take kindly to kids tearing up their town. Beating the clock and other racers encompass a mere fraction of your on-track woes, and the cops are outfitted with exotic roadsters just as expensive and up to the challenge as yours.

You can try and wreck them, but your best bet is to avoid them altogether. Shortcuts don’t just save time, they momentarily put you out of Smokey’s way and you can even use a Radar Jammer to throw them even further off your scent. Yeah, Hot Pursuit’s also brining weapons into the equation, racers can use a Turbo boost to evade, and can launch invisible magnetic missiles to disable the engines of both cops and opponents. And would you look at that? Racer’s can even beat cops at their own game by laying down spike strips to shred the tires of those on your tail.

As if things weren’t shaken up enough, the other half of the game involves you playing as the police. You’ll have separate profiles and Bounty (XP) for both classes, yet you can switch between the two seamlessly. Just like Racers, Cops also come equipped with spike strips and EMPs, but since their goal is to stop races and not win them, they’ve got their own special brand of obstructive justice.

Call in a Helicopter to go where you can’t and drop spikes directly in front of fleeing vehicles or roadblocks set up ahead of racers with the push of a button, because a line of parked vehicles and concrete vehicles can stop just about anything. However, blockades generally come with a random sweet spot through which careful racers can squeeze through. But as you get better, you’ll start to find superior locations on the track to call them in, as placing them just after turns and tunnels makes threading that needle much more difficult to negotiate.

And our absolute favorite part about the game is what the cops alone will do for playing online. You know those dickheads who either fall behind and give up, or simply just hop online to drive backwards and ruin the fun for others? Play as a cop, douchebag! It’s part of the game now, you’ll earn Bounty and increase ranking to your integrated on/offline profile, and fewer people will hate you. Assholes great and small: Hot Pursuit has a place for you. Which brings us to…