The last Need For Speed game that I enjoyed was High Stakes 2, I believe. It had a nice, big open world with an over-saturated sepia art style. It was enjoyable. How does the new Hot Pursuit compare?
Really though, I haven't had much need for the franchise since Burnout Paradise. The only thing that NFS has that I feel Burnout is missing is the ability to customize your car and a loose story to keep you interested in your goals. Oh, and it would have been nice to have had the police chase DLC for the fucking PC... Thanks EA!
Sadly, it looks like the PC will get shafted again when it comes to Criterion DLC. Last I checked, the $7 Super Sports Pack is not coming out for the PC. That pack has three new cars and thirteen new events in Seacrest county.
I don't recall there ever being a Need for Speed: High Stakes 2. May you be talking about Need for Speed: Most Wanted? That game's look consisted mostly of shades of brown and yellow. Compared to Most Wanted, Hot Pursuit does not have laughable story cut scenes, car customization outside of colors, Speed Breaker, Pursuit Breakers, or manual gearbox shifting. What it does have is a colorful and varied world made of highways, Mario Kart-like power ups during Hot Pursuit events, and a handling model that I sum up as a heavier version of Burnout. You won't be able to jerk your car side-to-side as quick as you can in Burnout games, but for all turns you only need to brake enough to maintain a good drift line (and you will want to drift through all turns unless they are very shallow).
The events are split up in to races, time trials, gauntlets (time trials with police), and hot pursuits for the Racers and rapid responses (time trial with collision penalties), interceptors (1 vs 1 hot pursuit with no track barriers), and hot pursuits for Cops. There are quite a number of the time trial events for both career factions and it can be quite tricky to obtain the highest medal. Also worth mentioning is that a lot of events restrict your vehicle selections. The racer career (60) has a dozen more events than the cop career (48) and it took me about 20 hours to complete all of them (includes many repeated attempts to get golds; still missing one). Multiplayer lets you play races, interceptor, and hot pursuit events against other people.
Hot Pursuit and Interceptor events are the only events where the power ups are available. You get limited ammunition for them from the start and you have to wait for a cooldown before using them. Both Racers and Cops get EMPs and Spike Strips. Spike Strips are basically banana peels that punish slip streaming. The EMP is a forward-facing homing attack that takes a short time for a lock on to complete before dealing damage. Racer-specific power ups include Turbos (an insane speed and acceleration boost that lasts for a period of time) and Jammers (knocks out cop spike strips and EMPs, disables cop equipment and radar for a period of time, and displays cop roadblocks on your radar). Cop-specific power ups include Helicopters (keeps racers on radar and occasionally drops spike strips ahead of you) and Roadblocks (calls down a roadblock ahead of a racer that is easy to crash in to and hard to dodge perfectly).
Some caveats on the PC version of the game: some people have experienced crashes and inoperable games on multi core systems. A recent patch was supposed to fix that but some users still can't play the game. I have no problem playing the game on the PC even without the first patch so I guess I'm lucky in that regard.
Edit: http://hotpursuit.needforspeed.com/game-info/faq#earnbounty Huh, the FAQ has some really useful game tips that I didn't know about before, particularly the nitrous entries. This stuff should have been in the manual.
About the level design of the game, all the tracks in the game are connected to each other to form a single cohesive open-world level. However, all the events in the game except for Interceptor feature track barriers of light arrows that prevent you from missing your turn. This is important as all the tracks in this game are long stretches of highways and freeways with no city streets what so ever. There is an option to free roam in the game, but from what I can tell by the career statistics screen there are no goals to accomplish in free roam. If you are looking for an open-world driving game like Burnout Paradise, then Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is not what you are looking for. However, if you missed the more focused and closed racing of Burnout games before Paradise, then Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit will provide you with new happy memories.
As a last note, I have to say that the game looks and sounds beautiful. As it should since DICE helped out with the environments and Electronic Arts has the money to afford many sound recording sessions. DICE's experience from the Rallisport Challenge games has made the coastal, desert, forest, and mountain environments have the right amounts of grit and gloss that look great during racing or the game's photo mode. The engine noise of the various super cars sound great and you will recognize their notes if you're a Top Gear fan like I am. The squeals of the tires sound just right whether you are off road or on tarmac and whether you are maintaining a steady line or constantly over adjusting. Lastly, driving at night in the rain looks appropriately slick and dangerous and the flash and thunder of a lightning bolt will give you a shock in how good it looks and sounds.
Topic: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010) (PC/PS3/X360) (Read 4942 times)
