Does anyone remember 2002? I do, it was my senior year of high school and also the year I met my wife. Bands like Eminem, Nickleback and Linkin Park are at the top of the scene. Hollywood brings us such films as Spiderman, Ice Age and Signs. Well not to be outdone EA Black Box develops and releases a game Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2. I had the PlayStation 2 at the time and this game showed me what a racing title could and should be. I fell in love with it instantly and played for hours on end. The game received great reviews but for some reason EA never followed up with a sequel. No they instead decided to go the way of street racing instead of open country roads; to tuner cars instead of muscle and sports. Enter 2010, EA produced, Criterion Games developed Need For Speed Hot Pursuit. Criterion Games is no stranger to racing with their ever popular Burnout series. So when you mix high octane speed that Need For Speed series has come to offer with wild crash scenes and destruction that Burnout series is known for you get possibly the best racing game to date.
Need For Speed Hot Pursuit takes us back to either running from the law in high speed racing or chasing down the punk speeders as the cops. We are brought back to the great cars like muscle, sports, and oh-my-god-how-fast-does-this-thing-go. You can do both Cop and Racer story mode which is actually just a bunch of races both ways. This time around although the Cops get to call in spike strips, road blocks, helicopters and EMPs to slow the racer down or to ultimtely bust him. While that seems unfair to the Racer just know that the Racer is not without his/her tricks. The Racers are equipped with spike strips, turbo, EMPs and jammer. The jammer temporarily knocks out communication among the Cops stopping them from either calling one of their weapons in or to shake off that EMP lock before you are hit. Turbo is one long burst of speed that does not let up until you have emptied the tank, so make sure you have a straight stretch before punching it. The online mode is equally as fun and challenges you to put the skills you learned form single player to the test against your friends and all of XBOX Live. One neat thing that they added that I found particularly cool was Auto log. Auto log keeps track of each race you perform and the time it took you to complete it. It then compares it with any of your friends to see if you or they have done better. If you have not beaten them it will tell you on the speed wall their time and you then have the chance to re-play and try and beat their time. If your a perfectionist like me then it will drive you nuts as you try to stay on top of the speed wall but it's fun to see how your friends stack up against you..
All in all the game is damn near perfect, but like every game you can't please every gamer. I wish there would have been some great jumps to get some awesome air time. It does get a little monotony playing race after race after race. Auto log seems to just black out at random times and re-connecting to it isn't always right away. The scenery is quite stunning and they did an excellent job on graphics. This game finally brings the series back home where it should be. I give Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 10 Gamma Bombs outta 10.
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