Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit was released in 2010 and is the sixteenth instalment of the Need for Speed series. As a semi-reboot/remake of the older game with the same name, this is a racing game where you can play as either the racer or the police. Hot Pursuit is more in the vein of an arcade racer so the player can feel free to drive aggressively and carelessly smashing into other cars and into the sides of the road. The main mechanic of the game is that there are police cars chasing illegal racers with weapons to boot. There are two single player game modes, one as the racer and the other as the police. There are 60 events in racer and 48 events in cop which is set in the fictional city of Seacrest. The game takes place over one big map but each mission carves out a specific route which gives some variety. Some routes will end up feeling familiar but portions of it will still be different. You will race through various different types of environments including cliffsides, deserts, urban areas and mountains. Races take place in different times of the day which will naturally affect the amount of natural light and the draw distance.
Events will have different weather effects such as thunderstorms, rain and snow. These affect the road too as for example, cars are more slippery to handle in the rain. The graphics are wonderful and the tracks aren't busy enough to distract you from the race, you're able to make out where you need to go very clearly. As a racer you will play through time trials, normal races and hot pursuits. Hot pursuit is the mode where cops will be chasing you with the aim of destroying your car and arresting you. Hot pursuit is definitely the mode that provides the most fun. In these races, you have at your disposal four gadgets: turbo but pushing to top speed over a limited time; an EMP blast to temporarily disable cars; spike traps to destroy cars behind you; and jammers to disable the tracking by cops. Unfortunately, the rubberbanding effect of the AI is noticeable since it is very hard to keep your lead unless you're amazing at the game. It is difficult to retake your place until you're behind long enough for them to slow down. It feels somewhat unfair at times given that you can crash and three cars will overtake you yet when the AI crashes, they seem to respawn almost immediately travelling at high speed.
The uneven difficulty is even more frustrating when your car is travelling at the max 180 miles/hour and yet the other racers are easily outstripping you from behind. That being said you do feel your skills improving with each race. Hitting other cars and the sides of the road will damage your car. Crashes will occur at which the screen will shift scenes to show the crash. While the crashes look cool the first few times it gets annoying very soon and are distracting. It is frustrating when oncoming traffic comes out of nowhere in the last stretch before the finish line and you end up dropping from 1st to 4th. The events get more difficult towards the end as a racer and the tracks become longer and longer. This is horrible for hot pursuit style events as your car can't handle enough damage to last the whole way when the cops constantly hound you and do roadblocks and spike traps. To give you an edge your car can drift around corners and use nitro to increase acceleration. You gain nitro as a racer via dangerous driving like slipstreaming, driving against oncoming traffic and finding shortcuts whereas as a cop the nitro gauge builds automatically.
For the cop events, you will naturally be playing as a cop in hot pursuit to take down the racers using a variety of weapons. Two of the weapons are shared which are the spike traps and EMP but the other two weapons are unique being the ability to call on a roadblock and calling on the help of a helicopter. There are two other modes such as time trials but with a twist as you get a time penalty for every hit your car makes; and one-on-one pursuits which are much more challenging. On the whole, the cop missions seem to be easier but there are still some frustrating moments such as the AI just seeming so overpowered yet when the roles are reversed you are so weak. There is a bit more variety in how the AI behaves during cop events as the racer that you're chasing will randomly do u-turns or unexpectedly take a different route. As you win races and complete events you will earn Racer and Cop levels. Moving up the levels will unlock new cars and other perks. The frequent unlocks keeps you going to the next race. Hot Pursuit gives a great sense of speed at its best. The handling is fine and easy to pick up, it's just that you will crash a lot which breaks the flow of the game at times. There are no car customization and tuning although you can pick car colors.
The PS3 version doesn't require any installation but maybe it should have included the option as there are noticeable load times. It's annoying when it still takes 15 to 20 seconds to load a level when you select replay from the results screen. Furthermore, if you've unlocked something at the end of the race, you cannot select replay and have to go all the way to the menu before being able to select the race again. The other main single player mode is the free-roam. You will have access to the whole of Seacrest and it is fantastic to explore since during a race you might not get to appreciate the attention to detail the tracks have. In free-roam, you'll have the chance to discover little side places like an airport or how the different roads intersect. Of course, there is an online mode and you can see your friend's times in each event to build a sense of competition. The online mode is effectively dead which is to be expected. Overall, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is a really fun game. It has its fair share of frustrating moments that you must persevere and improve your skills in order to progress. Nevertheless, the sheer amount of fun and crazy driving makes Hot Pursuit an easy racing game to recommend.
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