Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

Every time I want to say something about the newest Need for Speed whether it would be on a forum, or a blog or simply to a friend of mine, I cannot do so unless I compare it to one of the previous installments. I guess it is understandable as Need for Speed is one of the longest still running franchises and through the years it had many ups and downs, it had very arcade-style racers and some quite realistic ones. Now I can’t say I’ve played every Need for Speed. The first game from the series I got my hands on was Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit but the game that really got me into the franchise was Need for Speed IV: High Stakes. However, I still consider its successor Porsche Unleashed to be the best game yet and it seems unlikely this will change any time soon.

Before proceeding with the actual review I’d like to say I really love racing games. What I really enjoy about them is the feel of driving a cool car with mind-boggling speed but without all the cons this can have in real life. In other words, I like the moderate realism – no gear shifts or uncontrollable vehicles in tight turns but I still need a good physics engine, challenging opponents and at least a simple damage system. With this said I guess everyone who has already played the newest installment of the series would understand I couldn’t really like it, even though I tried.

To start off, when I understood Criterion are the game’s developers I couldn’t but wonder what they would make out of it. I tried playing one of their Burnout games on my PS2 and didn’t quite like it. It seemed to lack any kind of physics whatsoever making driving feel like controlling RC cars. Unfortunately, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is quite similar. This killed a great deal of the fun for me. I really had hoped for better experience with this aspect as the current generation has the CPU power to achieve it (not that it was needed for Porsche Unleashed which had most likely the best physics engine of all games in the franchise).

If we put this major flaw aside I quite enjoyed the car park the game offered. I was happy they completely gave up on The Fast and the Furious inspired gameplay of the Underground/Carbon/Undercover series. I simply cannot accept having no customization on the cars as negative as some reviewers tried to make it. I cannot agree a Pagani Zonda needs some 14-year-old sticking colorful vinyls and putting spinners on the rims. The time a developer needs to pull such customizations off is better spent elsewhere.

The graphics the game offered were also pretty good with some lightning effects standing out. However, the generic lightning looked a bit dull at times and could use some polishing. Fortunately, the game didn’t come short on speed feeling. Driving with 250km/h or more was quite enjoyable and looked real.

The presentation layer, as great as it was, couldn’t save the game for me though. Another great feature all Need for Speed games simply forget about since Porsche Unleashed is the damage system that actually matters. One thing is having to pay almost as much as you paid for the car in repair bills after a bad race, completely different thing is simply clicking the restart button. Cars that worked just the same with 100% durability and with 0.1% didn’t help either.

As a whole I can’t be very negative about the game. It seemed like a step in the right direction. There is a large room for improvements which can keep Criterion quite busy. On the other hand, there is quite a chance EA will simply maintain the current separation – Shift – very realistic, Criterion future games – super cars, cops and wild chases with very arcade gameplay. If this is in fact EA’s idea about the franchise I will simply play Codemasters’ games instead. They seem to be able to keep things in the middle quite well.

Just for the sake of it. If I am to rate the game as it is, an arcade racer I would give it 8.5, maybe even 9.0. But for me it is a straight…

Final score: 7.0