Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit - Full Review

As most gamers who play racing games know, the last 7 years have been rather turbulent for the NFS series. The NFS “Underground” series put the franchise on a high, then, along came “Most Wanted” which pushed the franchise even higher, and since then, it’s gone downhill with “Carbon”, “Pro Street”, and “Undercover” with only “Shift” bringing some respect back into a failing franchise… EA knew they had to do something, so what did they do..? They decided to go back to what NFS was all about (Cops and Racers) and oh yes, they brought Criterion (of Burnout fame) so has it worked..? Let’s take a look.

The graphics in NFS: Hot Pursuit look pretty good, although it’s hard to admire the scenery when your buzzing past at 180mph, but lest we forget, Criterion are the masters at making things look great even at that speed! The cars look gorgeous, the tracks are well laid out with plenty of shortcuts on most tracks (even though some of them are intended NOT to be shortcuts, so you’ll need to be careful) and the crash replays are also well done, with your car taking damage based on how beat up it is. All in all its what you’d expect from a racing game

Sound in any racer shouldn’t be too difficult to do, and NFS is no exception, the cars sound superb and as they do in real life which people come to expect so that’s not a surprise. The sounds during the race are pretty good; you can hear a screeching noise when you scrape down the side of a rival car. Not sure what could be improved so it’s a thumbs up for me



Gameplay wise, I think this is the most fun since Most Wanted…The core of the gameplay centres around the career mode, where you be a Cop or a Racer but it’s not as simple as that. If you are a racer, the events are Duel (1 v 1, cops), Time trial (no cops), Race (no cops), Gauntlet (you vs. cops) and then Hot Pursuit where it’s you and the racers vs the cops…You have 4 weapons at your disposal that you gradually unlock – Spike Strip, EMP, Jammer and Turbo. As you progress through the Racer events you get upgrades to the weapons (spike strips become wider and longer, and eventually drop 2 in 1 go etc.) The cops are brutally difficult to shake off and in some of the later challenges, it can feel like the most frustrating thing in the world, but it’s not something that puts you off the game. The Cop mode features Interceptor (You trying to bust the racers), Rapid Response (Like racer time trial but any collisions cost you 2 seconds each onto your time) and Hard target (The racers have “wingmen” you need to get past before you can go for the main targets). Career also features autolog that is banded about as a “Facebook” addition to the game where any time you set on a track, is uploaded to autolog where friends can take on your time and try to beat it. It makes a good addition I feel.. The online mode is cops vs racers, and can be any combination… 7 cops, 1 racer, or even 1 cop 7 racers… the choice is yours!

Here is a short video explaining autolog:



People who like to whore achievement points will enjoy this game. I’ve been playing for about 15 hours in total, just doing the racer side of things and I’ve unlocked 480 points, and the full 1000 are easily achievable albeit with a bit of grinding, but autolog challenges of friends beating your times will keep you coming back for more which gives you more XP to level up, so 1000 points are well within the majority of peoples grasp!



My thoughts on this game are that I really enjoyed the racer side of things and have just scratched the surface of cop mode. If its anything like racer mode, I will love it.. Some of the racer mode challenges were quite tough in terms of getting the gold medals in each event, but worth it. The cops are persistent and there are times you feel like they are not bothering any other racer, just you… I would say this is more than a rental, and if you’re a fan of the old need for speed games, then this is a must buy. Hopefully some good DLC will be released to make this great game better! I think the only thing a lot of people will not like is the fact there is no car customisation at all, but to me, it doesn’t detract from it at all!

My score 8.5 out of 10