Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010)

Intro

This is the latest offering from Criterion Games studio, in partnership with Electronic Arts and DICE, formerly known for their work with the Battlefield series, is served up as the spiritual adaptation of the elder Hot Pursuit games of the classic Need for Speed series, complete with high-definition graphics, sounds, and most importantly; gameplay. A compelling take on the older NFS's sees Hot Pursuit drop players into the fastest of sports cars, exotics and their police counterparts, all in various different scenarios, races, and other high-octane challenges. What is truly unique about this newcomer's version of the “Cops and Racers” formula previously exhibited in Most Wanted as well as the older Hot Pursuit, is the socially focussed networking system referred to as Autolog.

Autolog in Brief

Autolog is all about how every achievement, every race and every time trial that each player earns throughout the game is able to be recorded, broadcasted and even make way for a system of online player challenges to further extend gameplay possibilities. Friends battle each other for the fastest time in a challenge, or the highest score and much more. This is all tracked by Autolog and players are free to comment on these records and even upload photos taken ingame and post it on their Wall.

It is a unique system never-before-seen in the racing genre, a social platform that could potentially bring more players to easily hop into a challenge that their friend had posted to them, in the hope of beating them and adding motivation to the social competition of the game in its online aspects.

Gameplay

Hot Pursuit offers a traditional arcade racing experience, with the added thrill of police versus racers in the eternal struggle for justice of the law against pure speeding freedom. Various modes allow players to select if they are to compete in a race to the finish line on various winding routes throughout the game's setting, Seacrest County, or to participate in a “Hot Pursuit”, where police fight the racers and vice versa, where the racers are trying to race each other to the finish and keep the race alive, while the cops make it their mission to shutdown the entire race before the racers escape. Players may experience their racing career from both sides of the law, starting as a Cadet in the SCPD ranks, with only limited access to cop vehicles and equipment and a Speeder in the Racer hierarchy, again with limited access to racer vehicles and equipment.

Players progress by earning Bounty, which accumulates to give them rewards of exciting new cars or equipment to give them the upper hand on the opposition or even the police, with separate Bounty totals for the player's Racer and Cop career. Further events are also unlocked as the player gains Bounty, with events in both careers to drive some of the fastest and albeit dangerous vehicles known to the motoring world.

Graphics

At first look, Hot Pursuit is visually stunning, with glorious motion blur effects, sparks, light coronas and dynamic weather/sunlight cycle, and often brings oneself to reel back and wonder how such graphics were made possible. It is a part of the game that does not necessarily demand full attention, yet rather complements the gameplay, as opposed to detracting from it.

However the extreme lack of any advanced graphics options to finely tune performance on PC's is a downright shame on Criterion Games' part. Players looking to tweak their gaming performance to optimum levels for their system will be plainly faced by 3 basic options of high resolution textures, motion blur and shadow quality. This is a relatively wide step taken by the developers, whose previous installment of the Burnout series, Burnout Paradise, had a decent approach to graphics options on its PC version, including shadow settings, SSAO, multi-sample anti-aliasing, environment mapping and much more.

At the time of writing, enthusiasts will immediately notice the complete lack of anti-aliasing or any mention thereof within the game, forcing Nvidia users to wait for a future driver update to be able to override the games deficiency, while ATI/AMD users sit with a hotfix driver release that only applies anti-aliasing to the car model, rather than to the car and the environment.

Controls

Hot Pursuit offers support for all widely known gamepads and controllers to date, except that it does not actually offer any kind of support for control tweaking or any possibility of custom control configurations. Nor is there any advanced settings for existing configurations, with deadzones, sensitivities and other issues plaguing some gamepads and most steering wheel controllers, which leaves those users in the dark.

For the controllers that do work well and are supported, the game experience is quite acceptable. I reviewed this game using the Microsoft Xbox 360 Wired Controller, using Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller for Windows drivers available via Windows Update or manual download by the Microsoft support website. This controller is fully supported and controls feel tactile and responsive, provided that graphical settings are set accordingly as to not cause havoc in the gaming experience.

The mostly arcade feel of the game may present a strange learning curve to previous Need for Speed fans, as braking and accelerating appear to be exaggerated at times and softened up at others. Steering works well in most cases, with precise, smooth steering needed to win most race style events. Vibration force feedback is enabled in this game and it feels quite accurate and immersive.

With that in mind, Hot Pursuit appears to work well with a gamepad/controller that is well supported.

Finer Details and Conclusion

The game feels quite incomplete in a sense, with areas that seems to reek of rushed development and Q&A testing sessions that barely scratched the surface of the bugs that emerged after release. Fixes and important game-improving changes need to be made, and quickly by the developers at Criterion Games. Their talent has been shown time and time again with their most successful Burnout series, and tiny, yet revelatory details such as full driver animations in cars or even the well written and voiced descriptions of each car show the creativity and ingenuity potential of this game. But for the most part, it has the framework of 2010's most outrageous arcade social racing experience. It has well deserved its declaration as the spiritual successor to the elder Hot Pursuit games of the Need for Speed series, and it may one day, earn its rightful badge at the top of the ranks as the Hot Pursuit we've all been waiting for.