Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Review

The racing in Hot Pursuit is pure arcade, but I don't think anyone outside of a hardcore sim racer will mind. You'll still have to take a good line through a curve, use power slides to get around tight corners, and such, but you can play things rather loose in the name of speed. And speaking of speed, the sense of speed in the game is phenomenal – I'd spend more time watching the way the scenery flies past as you go racing by if I didn't have to keep my eyes as far down the road as possible to make sure I have time to react to the next turn.

Hot Pursuit is all about racing – there's no garage or tuning shop in the game, or anything else to distract you from jumping from one event to the next. That extends to the online game as well, which is so integrated into the game that it feels a lot like the single player game except with a lot tougher competition. In fact, there's no difference between the points that you earn in the single player game and multiplayer games – they all go towards advancing your level as a cop or street racer. While you can have online races, the real fun lies in the cops versus racers events. Coordinating your actions with your fellow cops or playing as a racer teamed up against the cops while simultaneously being pitted against each other makes for some online racing that's decidedly different from the ordinary.

If you have friends who play the game, you'll be able to enjoy the game's Autolog feature. It's basically like an in-game Facebook which lets you see what your friends are up to in the game, how far they've progressed, and their best times for each of the events. Taking the Facebook analogy even further, the Autolog features a Wall where you and your friends can share accomplishments and challenges. From the Wall you'll be able to jump right to the related event, so if a friend has beaten your time in an event you can get right to reclaiming your title.

Final Rating: 90%. Hot Pursuit is not the most feature-rich, realistic, or deep racing title available, but it certainly is one of the most exciting and enjoyable ones.

 



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