"Hot Pursuit is a stellar, fast and thrilling racing game that captures the thrill of street racing and the police chases"
Positive
- Sensational sense of speed and thrilling chases
- Playing as a cop or a racer feels exhilarating, no matter the role
- Impressive attention to detail for car models and stunning visual design
- Constant stream of unlockable equipment and vehicles
Negative
- Little beyond the career mode for solo players
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit on PC is just as solid and breath-taking as it was on console; a fast racing game that pits the thrills and horrors of street racing, packing super cars and dangerous speeds that recent Need for Speed had been lacking, plus packing a huge array of vehicles and making playing any side of the law an incredible joy.
There is no story to experience in Hot Pursuit, which shouldn’t be a surprise given it is developer Criterion Games. Instead you get to start a career as both a rookie cop and an emergent street racer. The career is divided in different events, starting with those for the cops and those as a racer, so there are two separate experience points given depending which side of the law you are playing. For the most part, the racer parts are divided in typical race events, time trials and hot pursuits. While the police side are the chasing side, and provide events like rapid response, hot pursuit where you hunt multiple racers and interceptors which pit you against a single, tough street racer. Both sides are fun to play as, but the escapee role of the street racer will be more attractive to most players. To earn extra points aside from the rewards, a racer needs to drift, drive on incoming car lanes, near misses and wreck cops to add to the bonus, plus multiple milestones.
The sense of speed is exhilarating on many levels, but as you drive a Bugatti or Pagani down a highway full of traffic, clocking 240MPH and being chased by police super cars, that’s when the game reaches its pinnacle of awesome. The AI has a good difficulty curve and time trials and rapid response will increase their difficulty accordingly, so it is mostly a fair challenge. To add to the spice of the thrilling racing, cars will be equipped with special technology to combat the other side. As a cop you will have access to call road blocks, helicopter, and use EMP along with spike strips, while as a racer, they have access to jammers, EMP, spike strips and turbo. For the sake of keeping things from getting out of hand, each career event dealing with hot pursuits or interceptors give you a fixed amount depending on the event, and that can be a bit limited, but it is ensured that those given are enough. Of course, the racer’s objective is to evade the cops and get the maximum out of a race. The police will put you alone against a bunch of racers instead of providing aid alongside you, is to bust the racers. When a cop against racers, the attempt is to stop all racers, but awards are given depending on the number of busts. Cars can sustain a limited amount of damage, and whether you are driving as a racer, or fighting as a cop, if your car is totalled, you will lose the event with your current progress, and will retain the bounty accumulated in the event, and the rewards achieved, if any.
Hot Pursuit packs the best ever car line-up I’ve ever seen in a Need for Speed game. Split into five different classes, the range consists of Porsche, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, Pagani, McLaren, Ford and so many different manufactures, and that includes the sheer number of different, detailed car models for each one. And that variety passes over to the splendid police vehicles to counter the illegal activities. Plus these are awarded constantly depending on your performance and victory, so you’ll be getting newer and newer cars before giving you the chance to try them all. It’s a dream-like variety that will definitely appeal to car fanatics. And these cars handle beautifully, and while using the arcade-ish racing which the series is known for, it feels fun to drift in all cars, despite the different handling that makes each car feels roughly different.
The game connects you with your friends and other players via EA’s Autolog system that tracks your status and recommends events. Fortunately, you don’t need to be connected to Autolog to play the single player campaign, which is roughly about 10 hours long, but then there isn’t anything to do offline aside from repeating events. Now it’s been over four years since Hot Pursuit’s release, so there won’t be many players playing online after all this time.
Despite minimal graphical settings, Hot Pursuit on PC looks absolutely amazing, and the console version was quite a looker. Starting from superb car models for every single car to the varied environments, it all looks extremely good. Environments vary from forests, highways, deserts and even snowy area, which is a contrast to the usual city and urban setting employed by the franchise. Car crashes are caught in great animations that detach from the racing as your vehicle or a wrecked cop crashes. Some end up as exaggerated and horrific accidents, but it rarely gets tired to watch. Sound design offers bombastic sound for cars, and a pretty good soundtrack for change. It really feels good driving a car that sounds that good.
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is the most successful and best Need for Speed since Most Wanted. It feels fast and sublime, packing action-filled and heart pounding police chases across a huge landscape, despite lacking the open-world that would be one thing that could improve the game. But nonetheless, with a huge array of vehicles to unleash, and technological boosts to thwart your opponents, Hot Pursuit offers over 10 hours of pure adrenaline.
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Graphics = 9.2
Sound = 8.5
Presentation = 8.5
Gameplay = 9.2
Modes = 8.6
Recommendation Level = Very High
One of the best Need for Speed games in years. It’s fast, fluid, packed with awesome vehicles and exciting police chases. It might have forsaken the story and an open world though.
Level of Difficulty = Medium
But having the right car and the right skills, there is not a single event which is overly difficult. Online play will obviously vary against whom you’re playing
Hours Played = 12 hours
The solo campaign takes about 10 hours to complete all events. Then there are milestones and online play.
OVERALL = 89 / 100
Hot Pursuit is a stellar, fast and thrilling racing game that captures the thrill of street racing and the police chases.