If your goal is a quickie with the gorgeous blonde at the bar (who is as dumb as a stump).. look no further.
Pros:
- The graphics in the game are extremely pretty, which is what usually makes the games fly off the shelves.
- There is plenty of driving to do in the game, the cars handle adequately, and generally you have a solid driving game.
- Lots of cars to drive. They are unlocked by your overall score and which track you are allowed to use them on. You can't simply end up with one car and race that on all tracks.
- Cop mode is an interesting addition to the racing, but failed to hold my interest in the long run.
Cons:
- The controls show beyond a shadow of a doubt this was a console port, and they didn't spend much time at all in customizing for PC inputs like the mouse. In fact, I didn't find one way to use the mouse in the game, even for tilt/pan on the camera.
- The only customization that can be done on the cars is what color you want them to be. You can't trick them out in any way.
- Limited number of racing areas. It seemed to me that after a while, I kept driving new models of cars on the same old roads. There are only so many times you can drive a stretch in a race or time trial before it gets boring.
- Free roam mode is just that - nothing to do except drive around. No dynamic encounters like many sandbox games would introduce.
- Rewards and trials can be an annoyance. Sometimes beating a time trial on a particular stretch of road means making absolutely zero errors to get the section finally checked off in gold. That includes flawless drifting around corners, pinpoint use of nitrous, etc.. you simply aren't allowed to make a mistake or that area won't complete and allow you to move on.
- Overall shallow gameplay. Everything is really pretty, like the knockout blonde sitting at the bar. Unfortunately when she opens her mouth you find out she is dumb as a stump, can't hold a conversation, and is good for nothing but a quickie. This NFS didn't have any true story behind it - just a bunch of challenges lined up for you to knock down like so many bowling pins at an alley.
- Multiplayer is probably competent enough, as are online scores, etc. But when you get down to comparing times on a track and who is 0.2 sec faster, that looses it's lustre too.
Overall: having played driving games since way back in the late 90's, I guess I expected a bit more from this one. Even back then you had the ability to modify your vehicle, race on multiple tracks, and select from many cars.
And while I too enjoy a quickie with the knockout blonde, I'd have to be habitually drunk to make that my daily routine. Sadly Hot Pursuit doesn't fit the bill, and overall is an underwhelming driver.