WeView Verdict: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

Last week the rather lovely Dan took care of WeView for me and he decided we should take a look at Hot Pursuit. With this year’s Need for Speed offering coming up on us fast it’s a good choice, although not many of you threw your hat into the reviewing ring this week. Maybe I need to buy an actual ring for hats to get thrown into.

Anyway let’s put hats to the side for the moment, you’ll need to take them off your head first, and actually talk about the game. The big feature this time around for Need for Speed was obviously Autolog, and most of you mentioned it in some way. Jimster71 seems to go so far as to put it as the crowning achievement of the game.

The single player missions were decent and there were plenty of them, but none of them were too difficult. The real challenge was in beating your friends times on Autolog, a genius feature that was loved and loathed in equal measure – in a similar fashion to Trials HD. The multiplayer modes were ok, but it was Autolog that kept me coming back for more.

Of course whilst Autolog was the biggest feature, with it featuring in The Run and Burnout Crash as well as the Battlelog spin-off coming into Battlefield 3, many of you were pleased to see the return of cops and robbers gameplay. 2ofclubs gave us their thoughts on this, as well as Criterions lineage.

Criterion Games have done a superb job of reviving the cops versus robbers exhilaration that the Need for Speed franchise once did so well. However it’s clear that they have brought a lot more of their Burnout lineage with them so don’t expect to be modding any of these cars. Instead expect to feel the thrill of the chase and the satisfaction that comes with threading through a road block at 200mph before drifting sideways round a tight hairpin turn.

There’s little that feels as good as just managing to work your way through a roadblock, in fact it closely recaptures the feeling of working your way through oncoming traffic in a normal Burnout title. Of course, that’s hardly surprising is it?

Next up, I feel everyone’s been a bit too nice today, so lets have a little discontent shall we? As a Need for Speed fan OrigamiKiller is clearly the prime target for Criterion’s entry into the series. However it seems not everything went to plan with Hot Pursuit.

Sure it looks great, the environments and cars are top notch, I’ll give it that. Where this game really faltered for me was the main driving. The handling felt slow and the drifts were uncontrollable and over steered so much. For a game that poses its self as an arcade racer I was disappointed as I was expected fast and responsive steering and unrealistic and crazy drifts…It just wasn’t there. Other than that I had a large issue with the short cuts because they were actually long cuts, every time I ventured down one I would lose a place in the race!

For our final review of the week we turn to Kevling who manages to switch from positivity to negativity within the same sentence. I also like the concept of a disposable game.

I loved this game when it first came out, but if you’ll pardon the pun, it didn’t take long to ‘burnout’. Despite the innovations like Autolog, and the gorgeous graphics, birlliant sense of speed, and rock-solid frame rate, I think it’s ultimately disposable – it’s one of those games that you can love dearly for a couple of weeks, and then just cast it aside.

Now, as per usual, it’s time for the verdict. Although there were eight reviews this week, teflon felt unable to rate the game so we only have seven verdicts. Of those seven we had one for Avoid It, and one for Rent It.  In second place was Rent It with two votes, so that makes this week’s winner Buy It with three votes. So there you have it, worth a buy according to the community. I’m enjoying it myself.

Check back tomorrow for a new game, and get ready for more racing.