2010 | Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit

Developer: Criterion Games, EA Digital Illusions CE, Exient Entertainment (Wii)
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Wii
Genre(s): Street Racing
Mode: Single-Player; Multi-Player
First Released: November 16, 2010
Played on: Microsoft Windows

This is Electronic Arts’ street racing rendition of the Need For Speed series for the year 2010, just before the Christmas Eve. Also, this is the 4th game by Criterion Games (who were famous for making the Burnout series which I really liked). Need For Speed games developed after Most Wanted, from 2006 to 2008, including Carbon, ProStreet and Undercover, were all huge disappointments, atleast for me. After the fresh success of Shift back in 2009, EA decided to bring back the street racing and action together in a Need For Speed title, and because the Burnout series’ became famous for the “bumping and busting cars” element, EA put Criterion games to develop the new game instead of EA Blackbox. So what they did is bring a police story aside from the usual street racers chased by cops. This means that we play both as a cop and a street racer, and chase each faction to gain level and unlock new cars, missions, race locations and most importantly, race weapons.

It’s true. This Need For Speed game will let you drive the famous REVENTON car by Lamborgini. As you can see, the REVENTON looked exactly as what we can see it in real life (if you can really see it in real life). Great details and lighting effects. Aside from cars from Lamborghini, there are also real and concept cars by Porshe, Pagani, Dodge, Chevrolet (including the 2010 Camaro used for Bumblebee in the movie Transformers), and many more. But these are just cars. Let’s take a look at the graphics during a race.

Up there is a screenshot of the game during a Gauntlet race, wherein you are solely chased by cops. What I’ve noticed during gameplay is that, the game can render graphics as fast as how we enjoy a race. I cannot see any major bug in the game. AI is great because: your enemy racers are good enough to beat you at times, that makes you throw your controller or smash your keyboard down; your enemy cops can make you annoy most of the time. In short, enemy AI is well produced. I have no complaints on it. My GPU is ATI RADEON HD4850 with 512MB memory, and I can play the game at the very maximum settings at a screen resolution of 1360×768. I had no lag or framerate drop issues, and I believe I can still play this game in maximum settings with 1920×1080 screen resolution.

Next thing I noticed are a few bugs that, well, not really frustrating but just can make you laugh at times. There was a time when I was playing a Duel race and then my enemy racer crashed his car and stuck in an edge and after that, it does not move again. Weird but funny.

The game, as I’ve said before, made me play as both a Street Racer and a Cop, both with different profile management, both with some different exclusive cars as well as weapons to use. Weapons you can use during the game are: EMP – makes you fire the opponent in front of you; Spike Strip – if you’ve played Most Wanted, you know this already; Jammer – a Street Racer exclusive that can distract the race, turn off your opponents’ gps and weapons for a short period of time; Helicopter – exclusive to cops, can help you chase cars and deploy spike strips; and Turbo.

The console version (PS3, Xbox 360) have the ability to use custom music/playlist saved from the system’s hard drive, but the PC version lacks that feature. In anyway, that is not a problem for PC users as we can always turn off the in-game music and turn on our favorite media players, just make sure to reserve more RAM.

Also, the game includes Autolog system which basically is the menu of the game, features Online capabilities, specially if you have Facebook, it can send information in your wall feeds regarding your recent race, etc. Good idea? of course.

Because of these almost-flawless features of Need For Speed Hot Pursuit, I will, without a doubt, buy myself the PS3 version, just for trophies. Too bad there’s no 2-player split screen, oh well there’s online multiplayer anyway.

Below is a race footage I just recorded with Fraps earlier. It is a Gauntlet match and I have Slapshock’s Carino Brutal and In Flames’ Reflect the Storm playing in the background. Take a look: