During EA’s Gamescom keynote, Criterion’s The Websterhoff took to the stage to get to grips with Need For Speed : Hot Pursuit.
As you can see in the footage below the experience starts off in the game’s Autolog, this is a ‘live’ homescreen where you’ll be able to see at a glance what your friends are doing. You’ll be able to respond to challenges and get notifications if they’ve beaten one of your times, with the option to jump straight in to try and better their time.
From then on, it’s straight into the action as you race super cars through gorgeous scenery in a world brought to life by EA’s DICE studios, which is four times bigger than Burnout Paradise. The gamplay seems to show a kind of ‘Spidey sense’ whereby you get a little preview of obstacles ahead including roadblocks, police spike strips, and yes that is a Pagani Zonda police interceptor unit.
In the past I’ve always been confused by Need For Speed, I’d never really bought into the whole urban racing thing, and although NFS: Shift was solid I felt it was lacking something, then when I’d heard that Criterion (one of my favourite devs) were doing Hot Pursuit I thought the waters were muddied further still.
However, following this outing it’s clear that no one knows how to add thrills and excitement to a race quite like Criterion. Its now shot straight to the top of my Crimbo must-buy list, and I’m counting down the days until its November 18th release date.
ProjectJAY
Looks…dull. Really, really dull. I’m also given to understand this will be a free-roaming racing game. Hasn’t Burnout Paradise taught us that free-roaming racing games do not work?!?!?!?
DJ Judas
Hmm, I’m confused now….is it open world?
cc_star
Yep it’s an open world game, which they say is 4 times the of Paradise.
Not sure what you mean free roaming race games don’t work? burnout was a huge success and is probably the most widely loved racer on the PS3, however I personaly prefer menus and direct entry to events like the old Burnout games, but to say it doesn’t work is odd and it has very clear advantages like zero loading times once you’re in the world?
Anyway, actually watching the vid, its clear it has old skool style arrows keeping you one a ‘track’ within the world, although I did notice the potential for shortcuts
ProjectJAY
I suppose ‘don’t work’ might be a bit strong, I just found BP incredibly frustrating before they patched the hell out of it. That, and Burnout Revenge remains my favourite racing game of all time, so it had a lot to live up to. Allow me to refer you to the Zero Punctuation review for BP:
“The fun in a street-racing game comes from driving really fast and breaking things; that’s a winning formula. Then you throw map-reading skills in there and its the metaphorical shot of Baileys, overpowering all the other flavours.”
I’m sure NFS’s gameplay will be solid but I hope Criterion doesn’t make the same mistake with BP in making all the races end at the same fecking landmarks over and over again. It destroys the opportunity to explore the city via racing rather than trundling around looking for collectibles. That’s what made the Big Surf expansion better than the ENTIRE game.
Oh, and including a ‘Restart’ button for races at launch rather than patching it in later would be MUCH obliged, Criterion.
DJ Judas
Thank god it looks like there are clearly separated races with set paths that are NOT open world!
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Highly excited by the fact it reminds me of Takedown :D
My only upset from the video is that it looks a little sluggish in the handling, but waaaay more excited about this than I was when I thought it would go the way of Paradise.
DJ Judas
nvm, just had it clarified that it is open world ¬_¬
Excitement levels falling again :(
cc_star
Its got Burnout (PS2) old skool style arrows keeping you on a circuit within the open world, so presumably you can go anywhere anytime (and have the benefit of zero loading, and a great place to meet-up with friends) but once an event starts you’re ‘locked’ into a circuit
DJ Judas
Ah Ok, that’s a little more interesting. Looks from the vid like you can select any race in the world without having to drive there which would be nice.
BigCheese
Wow, that has completely re-ignited my interest in NFS. After Undercover, I promised never to buy another NFS game but THAT was fairly epic. I trust Criterion, I’ma get this
mightyice
I have allready orderd it. since my Tv sucks i wont even look to GT5 and F1 since my TV would only destroy them. will pick them up when i get new tv. this will be more fun to play. but dont look as good.
TSBonyman
That looked intense, the collision does seem a little clunky particularly for the head on collisions but i’m fairly sure the ‘original’ (NFSHP2 on PS2) played like that too.
I had good times with the first game so i will be getting this at some stage but with lot’s of competition in the release schedule it probably won’t be day 1.
DJ-Katy
Hm. Not sure what to make of this, the open world in Burnout Paradise really put me off, I liked Revenge alot better. This just looks like Most Wanted with better graphics, and strangely the graphics don’t actually seem to be as good as those in NFS Shift. If the tracks are locked once you start an event then I’m ok with that, I absolutely hate how in BP you have to spend more time looking at the minimap than the road when you’re racing, kind of destroys the experience.
Kennykazey
I will have it
rht992
is there a lack of corners? seems like one small bend followed by a straight followed by a bend and another straight. doesn’t look like it takes much thinking to get through a level
Blayney
All of that looked exactly like the last hort pursuit . nothing new bar the online
3shirts
Looks like a perfect balance between the pursuit modes of the old NFS games and Burnout’s feeling of speed and control.
Awesome fun!