Like all the best video game locations, Seacrest County is a completely ridiculous place. The roads are universally pristine and peppered with awesome shortcuts. The national parks are gloriously free of gigantic RVs. And when people decide to break traffic laws, they do it at 200mph in exotic supercars. If that sounds like a slice of heaven pie to you, then you're going to want to check out Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, a reboot of Electronic Arts' cops-and-speeders driving series from veteran developer Criterion Games.
You might recognize the Criterion name from such over-the-top virtual driving experiences as Burnout: Paradise, the 2008 open-world racer that placed a premium on high speed and crazy crashes. Criterion has brought its amped-up aesthetic to the Need For Speed series, and the result is a slick and surprisingly focused driving experience that's positively bathed in adrenaline.
The concept of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit could have been dreamed up at a middle-school boy's sleepover party. What if there was a place where both cops and the illegal street racers drove Lamborghinis, Mercedes, Bentleys, Porches and other drool-worthy marques around a gigantic network of roads at supremely high rates of speed? Oh, and wouldn't it be sweet if they could crash into each other and drop spike strips and call in helicopters and run each other off the road? And when you crash into someone, it should drop into ultra-slow motion and give you a ton of points!
What I love about Hot Pursuit is that it completely embraces that spirit of adolescent madness and just runs with it. There is no wedged-in storyline here. You can play as a cop or a racer, and you increase your rank or wanted level as you run people off the road, drift around corners, drive into oncoming traffic (as a racer), and generally behave like a motoring maniac. Along the way, you'll earn Bounty to unlock new cars, expand your arsenal of weapons/gadgets and open new sections of the Seacrest County map. The more you drive, crash, smash and win, the more cool stuff you get. It's simple, and it works.
This is no racing sim, but the cars do have their own distinct personalities. The Bentley Supersports, for example, is basically a tank with leather seats. But it handles surprisingly well, making it a great choice for Pursuit events where the goal as a cop is to smash racers into submission. If you're entering an Interceptor event where it's just you against a single wily racer who's liable to pull constant U-turns and shortcut maneuvers, you're better off in something light and agile, like the brilliant Pagani Zonda Cinque.
Hot Pursuit isn't a car collecting game. Although you unlock vehicles as you progress, there's no real garage to speak of. [big][big]The focus is on driving these cars, not upgrading, tweaking or painting them[/big][/big]. But that's OK because the list of vehicles in Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit reads like a multi-billionaire's Christmas list. The Bugatti Veyron, McLaren F1, Lamborghini LP 670-4 SuperVeloce, Mercedes SLS AMG, Nissan GT-R SpecV and Porsche Panamera are all here. And that's just a sampling.
Criterion has created a racing landscape that feels alive. Traffic (all licensed vehicles) comes and goes, aircraft fly by as you're driving, weather effects are realistic and dramatic, and the buildings along the roads just seem, well, real. [big]Hop into Freedrive mode, and you can hop into any car you've unlocked and just tool around the entirety of Seacrest County[/big]. As you motor along, weather will come and go, the sun will rise and set, and the world will just sort of roll along.
Freedrive doesn't affect your career, so all the damage you do to your car will just slide right off (if you choose). It's a great mode for taking perfectly-staged screenshots of your car in action. Unfortunately, there's no way to access the Seacrest County overmap while in Freedrive mode, so you'll have to rely on your smallish mini-map to explore the landscape. It's a bit of a frustration in an otherwise nice addition.
But most of your time will probably be spent in the Career mode. Unlike Criterion's last effort, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit isn't an open-world game. You won't be driving around randomly in your race car or cop car waiting for something to happen or triggering it from your vehicle. Hot Pursuit's single-player mode is far more focused than Burnout: Paradise. In order to start off an event, you'll choose a marker on a map of Seacrest County and bring up a list of available events. Choose one that strikes your fancy, and you'll be taken into that event after a brief (and skippable) cutscene. And there's no decision to be made up front about which side you'd rather be on – you can alternate between cop and racer events at will.
These events are the meat and potatoes of Hot Pursuit. As a racer, you'll have access to a handful of different basic event types, all of which involve you trying to get from one place to another faster than everyone else. Sometimes you'll be chased by a cop or two; other times you'll just be up against other racers. And if you need a break from the intensity of those events, there are also time trials that are just you and the clock. As a cop, your main goal is to shut down these illegal street races
One of the linchpins of the Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit gameplay is the arsenal of weapons and gadgets. As a cop, you'll have access to spike strips, helicopters, EMP blasts and roadblocks. Each has a different purpose: spikes are good for taking out the fools behind you, EMPs are for those in front, helicopters can track suspects who are far ahead or off-road (in addition to dropping spikes of their own), and roadblocks are nasty far-ahead speed traps.
Racers can also deploy spikes and EMPs, but instead of roadblocks and choppers, they have turbo (blazingly fast) and a jammer, which shuts down everyone else's weapons for a spell, negates pending EMP blasts and blocks out cops' radar/mini-map. It's a devastating little device when used correctly.
The good news is, all these weapons are fun to use and none end up feeling too overpowered. The downside is that the weapon mix ends up being what differentiates many of the later events. Because there are a limited number of chase event types, these events become mainly about permutations of weapons and conditions (nighttime with only EMPs and Roadblocks, rain with only Helicopters and Spike strips, etc.). Because of this, event fatigue can set in after a while. Once you've tried every event type with every imaginable weapon mix, things do get a bit monotonous. Sure, there are time trials and car previews to do, but isn't the whole point of Hot Pursuit to crash into things, not to avoid them?
But that's where Autolog comes in.
It may not have a sexy name, but Hot Pursuit's new competition engine is one of the coolest additions to game design in a long time. In the world of online-connected gaming, there is a small fraction of the population that actually expects to rank at the top of a global leaderboard for any given game. If you're like me, when you post a hot personal lap time in a racer like Forza 3 or Grid, you hop over to the leaderboards to find out where you stack up. And then you instantly realize how much you suck. But then, to make yourself feel better, you toggle over to see where you compare to your friends. There's bound to be someone crappier than you, right?
Hot Pursuit's Autolog takes that idea and boils it completely down to this idea: The only thing that really matters, in terms of player-on-player competition, is how you compare to people you know or people you come to know while playing the game. But Hot Pursuit doesn't just bury that data in a stats menu somewhere. The Autolog system takes your friends list and makes it central to the experience. From the launch screen, Hot Pursuit is telling you how you're stacking up, what your friends are doing, and who's achieved what rank. With a quick click on the Wall, you can see a stream of information about what your friends are up to in the single-player game, from times they've posted in events to pictures they've taken of the cars they've unlocked.
The Wall is a collection of posts from your friends, things they've chosen to share. But there's also an Autolog Recommends function that's constantly gathering info about your friends accomplishments and sharing them with you, daring you to step up. If someone on your list beats your dearly held time in your favorite event, Autolog Recommends will track it and tell you so. Click on one of these messages, and you'll jump straight to that event. If you end up reclaiming your place on the podium, a message will pop up asking you if you want to post your news to the Wall. You can even customize your message so you're newly-owned friend will see your trash-talk.
In addition to the single-player career mode and the Autolog overlay, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit also has a full online multiplayer mode that allows up to eight players to team up and compete in cop and racer events. The mix of weapons allows for some real strategy online – coordinate as cops to drop spike strips ahead and then have those at the back fire EMPs. It's tough to avoid spikes when you're drifting out of control for a few seconds. Whereas Autolog provides a way to compete with your friends at everyone's leisure, the competitive online multiplayer brings everyone together for a head-to-head battle. The party system is intuitive and smooth, and you continue to build your Bounty with everything you do online. [big]There's no split-screen multiplayer[/big]. But I played several sessions of couch-based Hot Pursuit with my fellow IGN editors, and we had a blast passing the controller back and forth.
Closing Comments
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit is pure over-the-top driving entertainment. The cars and environments are gorgeous, the crashes are spectacular, and the new Autolog feature breathes new life into the time-honored tradition of video game competition among friends. The single-player races can become somewhat repetitive and there are some presentation issues, but overall, Hot Pursuit is a blast. If you’re looking for a high-octane racer that grabs on tight but doesn’t take itself too seriously, give this one a shot.
8.5 Presentation; The menus aren’t exactly beautiful, but they get the job done. A few gripes here and there, too. [big]No cockpit view? Sadface.[/big]
9.0 Graphics; I’ve never seen better-looking environments in a racing game. The scenery shines, the cars are beautiful and everything runs smoothly.
9.0 Sound; Excellent. The engine notes are spot-on, and hearing certain cars is bound to give you chills. Rain, thunder and environment sound are dramatic. Soundtrack is better than I expected.
9.0 Gameplay; The cars are a blast to drive, the crashes never get old, and the races truly come to life. Hot Pursuit just feels good in your hands.
8.5 Lasting Appeal; The career mode gets a bit repetitive after a while, but the brilliant Autolog, online multiplayer and the sheer enjoyment of driving and crashing offset it.
