Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit

I'm drowning in a sea of new releases; a sea primarily filled with sequels and next installment in series. Black Ops and New Vegas were just the beginning, now I'm just bogged down with Assassins Creed Brotherhood and the new Need For Speed. And its not that they're really difficult, its that the multiplayer from Black Ops, ACB and NFS is too tempting to avoid.
Well, this week I played a hell of a lot of NFS: Hot Pursuit and here's what I thought about the reboot of the classic game from 1998.

STORY
As far as I can ell, there is no real story in NFS: Hot Pursuit. Basically, you reside in Seacrest County, a region infested with street racers and high speed cop units trying to clean their mess up. You are a racer OR a cop, and Hot Pursuit gives you the opportunity to switch freely between both careers.

Thats really all that this game gives you to work with in terms of story. While it provides an adequate framework for your NFS experience, I personally found that it didn't give me much motivation towards progressing through the races set out for me. That may just be me though.

PRESENTATION
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit is an absolutely beautiful game. Cars are sleek and realistic looking, and the colours are vibrant and bright. The landscape of Seacrest County is amazingly varied; ranging from highways to forest roads, to desert tracks. The look of the game is very cool, but not everything about the games presentation is fantastic.

The soundtrack (on the most part) is absolutely horrible (at least, in my opinion). With the exception of one or two tracks, the music is really lame. In a racing game, i expect to hear fast or heavy rock tracks, not electro or rap (well, some rap was good in NFS Underground... I'm looking at you "Get Low".) Seriously, it was so annoying to me, that I actually ,muted the soundtrack and listened to my iPod as i raced.

I'm not sure where to put this in my review, the menu in Need for Speed is really cool. The "Autolog" has been described as "the game's Facebook" and it tells you where you have placed within your circle of online friends on races, as well as suggesting races to you that your friends have beaten you on.
It doesn't stop there though; the Autolog actually suggests other Need For Speed players to add as friends. It's honestly pretty cool.


GAMEPLAY
Hot Pursuit returns NFS to its roots, with Cop VS Racer gameplay. Long gone is the racing sim gameplay of Pro-Street, but so is the customization of the Underground games.
Controls are pretty standard for a racing game, but they work well and thats about all you can ask for.

I noticed some small problems with the gameplay, such as the collision detection between racers and traffic cars is a bit strange. While you may just tap into a car and get wrecked, an opposing racer may smash into oncoming traffic and drive away like it never happened. This was a fairly rare occurrence so I'll let it slide.

I really enjoyed the hot pursuit/interceptor race types for the Cops; which involves chasing racers and taking them down with equipment (spike strips, roadblocks, etc), BUT the racer AI is often too perfect. I've hardly ever seen computer racers smash into my roadblocks, or get hit by spike strips dropped by my helicopters (although the main problem here is with the roadblocks).

Exotic, fast, expensive cars make up this games garage; for both racers and cops, and its good to see that the developers weren't afraid to let you crash the hell out of them. Honestly, the crashes are really fun to watch, if annoying to be a part of. Its Criterions little stamp on NFS, (hopefully you'll remember their previous racing games; the Crash fests known as Burnout).

My biggest problem with the game is with the unreasonable times that must be set for certain time trial type races. I understand that to get the highest reward, it must be difficult, but after performing a somewhat perfect run with no collisions and boosting along the straights, you may find you are still 10 seconds off the top time.

REPLAYABILITY
Like any good racing game, Hot pursuit offers players a fun multiplayer experience, as well as challenging single player races that can be repeated over and over. However, it features no split screen. I thought split screen was just a no brainer in the racing genre. Whats the point of being able to race fast cars if you can't do it with someone in the same room?

NFS does have an amazing online mode, but split-screen should have been there. Just saying. oh and theres a bunch of trophies and achievements for you hunters and whores out there.

OVERVIEW
At the end of the day, yes Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit is fun; if a little annoying. Some races can really get on your nerves; simply because the AI can be truly "PERFECT". AI racers don't make many mistakes, and when they do, they reset almost instantly. On top of this, the distinction/gold medal times for certain time trials are just too much. I understand that the highest marks in levels need to be hard to get, but it can get extremely frustrating.

Do I recommend Hot Pursuit? Sure. The level of customization seen in previous games is non existent, but the inclusion of Cop vs Racer gameplay is a welcome addition. It makes for some action packed, fun gameplay, especially during multiplayer. Yes, the game is difficult, but that makes the triumphs all the more sweet.


Next week, I'll definitely be review Assassins Creed: Brotherhood. That game is making me paranoid, i swear. You never know who's gunna break your neck. Anyway, see you next time!