Mini Review – Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

Racing

Som bitch!

Mark

Prior to this I’d never been fussed with the whole Need for Speed series (not including a brief play of the original circa ’94) with its Fast and Furious pretentions and odious mix of bad music, ridiculous posturing and overuse of Burberry. Things changed this year when Criterion took time out from crafting the always fun Burnout series to take a crack at the NFS series adding the Burnout staples of big crashes and big speed.

Essentially what you’ve got here is Burnout Lite with the fictional area of Seacrest County standing in for Paradise City albeit in a far smaller but more focused way with missions for both racers and pursuers or a freedrive option is you want to take in the sights or more importantly learn the numerous shortcuts hidden around the county. As a racer you battle rival drivers and the cops in a variety of muscle and sports cars in a few different race types trying to avoid damage and building up boost to use at opportune moments.

Bullshit PR screenshot? Check.

As you progress better cars unlock and new gadgets become available like turbo boosts for even more speed, EMPs to zap rival cars and jammers to prevent the po-lease calling in roadblocks and helicopters. As a cop your job is to shutdown these vehicular felons by ramming them or damaging their rides with EMPs or droppable stinger style tyre spikes with bonuses given for quick shutdowns and avoiding collisions with civilian cars.

It’s good fun at first but you’ll quickly release that the grind of drive, smash, drive, dodge doesn’t work as well when it’s diluted like this when compared to Burnout with all its compromises to fit a fat round peg in a small square hole like licensed cars from real manufacturers, dire soundtrack and quasi anti-authority storyline that simultaneously exalts and condemns you actions be it as an illegal speeder or fascist law enforcer. You can improve things a bit by playing online but things quickly become a clusterfuck with each player littering the track with spike strips, roadblocks and indiscriminate EMP blasts.

If you want a pure experience get either Burnout or Forza as much like a Prius this hybrid is a poor mix that neither thrills with speed nor excites with driving excellence but occupies a stodgy middle ground with its plodding gameplay and slovenly cars.

7/10