[Review] Need For Speed Hot Pursuit

November 29, 2010

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In times of good vs. evil, you have to choose which side best suits you. It sometimes goes a lot deeper than just good or evil, it also determines what you feel is right or wrong; would you rather be chased or be the chaser? In this race you will have the opportunity to go against the law or be the law. Welcome to Seacrest; the home of Need for Speed Hot Pursuit. I will be your driver and we shall see if this game lives up to it’s previous titles or just hype with cruel intentions.

Welcome all to Seacrest where you as the racer will decide which career you will follow, however with every career you will have to be initiated into the field. Once your first introduction race has been passed, you will get more trails throughout the game. The races are all time based where getting gold earns you more points and to level up. It will feature a lot of personal items to make yourself more in tuned with the career area; if you have a camera you can take a snap shot of yourself so others can see your mug when you dominate on the tracks. The game sole purpose is to be competitive in the best way, but with lack of customization tuning wise, you will end up using the same car as the other person to beat their score or match it.

The new feature to the racing world is the Autolog which I briefly mention. Think about it as your racing social network where it informs you of your friends that conquered races on the map and it is up to you to beat their score. This is the competition that many ask for, but I felt that at least this feature could of been cross platform when you think about. If you can send your ghost race to another person on either the other consoles or even send messages through the NFS Autolog feature that can be shared through all the consoles. The news feed gives you the latest updates on all things related to need for speed as well as new DLC for you to purchase. The cool part is Criterion games helped with the development of the game, so all those features are similar to the news feed you see in burnout which worked great.

It is nice to talk about the new, but the saying goes “If it is not broke do not fix it!” and EA is known for giving you the options of taking pictures during races or in the garage. The pictures you take will be uploaded in the photo area of the Autolog which you can share with people all over the community. In a race taking a photo will open menu options to give your car blur effects, or change the background to a a black/white color. The Wall is where you read messages from other racers and even take on challenges from there which transports you to a race. The “Autolog Recommends” is a more straight forward feature where friends recommend races to you for you to beat their time in. “Autolog Recommends” also give you friend suggestions to expand your list.

However what is a racing game without cars and the good news is you have a lot to choose from. The downside is all the cars are maxed out and you will only be able to change the color, except the cop vehicles which will stay the same color they are assigned. The cars will feature a weapon system, if you are a cop you will have helicopters, spike strips, EMP, and road blocks. The wanted side will have spike strips, EMP’s, NOS extenders and jammers to disable the cops features. There are some that feel only the cops should have these features, but frankly it gives it more of a challenge if both parties have something special.

The cons are pretty small but noticeable, without the feature of tuning your own cars, you will be forced to use the same cars as your rival so you can either match or beat their scores. The autolog should have been expanded across platforms but that is just my own opinion since it seems it could of worked like that. It seems that they can expand hot pursuit for a long time, so let’s hope they realize this.

My final analysis on NFS Hot Pursuit is a BUY, the game features great replay value and action packed arcade style that will leave you breathless. It challenges gamers not only in the career but with one another which heats up the game play to another level. It would of been great to have custom cars tune wise at least and Autolog cross platform to other consoles but it is something that can be written off since it can be done verbally to your friends in other consoles. The game also features a nice soundtrack with Weezer, 30 Seconds to Mars and Yeah Yeah’s, however if does not fit your style, you can add a custom soundtrack.

It was a pleasure reviewing this game and I hope you check it out for yourselves; Need for Speed Hot Pursuit is out now for the Playstation 3, PC, Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360 and as always stay frosty gamers!

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