Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Preview
I was worried at E3. I’ll admit it, Need for Speed hasn’t been my cup of tea for a long time (first article and I’m stereotyping myself as the British one already, fantastic), specifically since it went underground, over ground, and wherever else it decided to womble free since about 2003. But I always loved Burnout, so it is with respect for Criterion’s lineage that I have tentatively looked forward to Hot Pursuit since it was unveiled at this year’s E3 conference. Until I got my hands on it that is.
Now it can’t get here soon enough; what a difference a developer makes.
Burned Out
Important note first – This is not Burnout Hot Pursuit. Regardless of some hungover mechanics (boost is earning from drifting and driving in oncoming traffic) the handling is too heavy for comparison and the game isn’t obsessed with scenes of vehicular destruction, they’re just a side effect more like Burnout 1 & 2. While it may seem similar to the naked eye, to play the game feels as different as a pepper is to a chilli.
So is Burnout over now that Criterion have got their mitts on EA’s premier racing franchise? Not so according to lead designer Craig Sullivan, who unhelpfully ‘revealed’ that Criterion’s next game could be a new Burnout, Black 2, or even a game about Jelly. Ho hum.
But it wasn’t a day to mourn a lack of Burnout, it was a day to celebrate a worthwhile Need for Speed with a dabble in some single player, complete with ‘autolog’ social networking elements, and a large amount of knuckle whitening, toe curling multiplayer action with other journos and a few of the game’s developers.
It’s the game’s Racer vs Cop set up that sets it apart from numerous other titles, in a way returning to the classic titles in the franchise, however Criterion have done more than merely update the old set up as, for starters, you can play as the cop properly this time.
Good Cop Bad Cop
Racers and Cops each have an independent progression system, sixty single player ‘missions’ each, and a big list of challenges much in the fashion of Call of Duty’s weapon challenges or Halo Reach’s commendations, meaning that aside from earning Gold ranks in all the missions and beating your friends online and offline in the leaderboards, the game has a lot of content to keep the completionist ticking boxes for months to come, and when you get bored playing as one side you can swap to the other at the click of a button, and they’re surprisingly different sides to play.
Being a racer is about cunning, guile, and avoidance. It’s all well and good trying to ram a cop off the road but you want to take as little damage as a racer as possible because you want to see the checkered flag and not be cut short. As with Cops, Racers wield rear deployed spike strips and a front launched EMP device, think a car-sized taser, but their two unique weapons suit their style of play.
A ‘don’t push the red button’ nitro boost that puts the Men in Black to shame as it breaks the sound barrier several times in its duration, this speed rush is difficult to control and while it can be the climax of a perfect escape plan it can just as easily end up introducing you to the wall ten times faster than your bonnet would appreciate. The other weapon unique to the Racer is the Jammer, a proximity device that shuts down any nearby Cops weapon systems and map, a sure fire way to mess with a cops best laid plans.
The cops, on the other wheel, are about raw aggression. About getting up alongside a Racer, giving him a toothy grin as you tweak your shades before sending them headfirst into an oncoming van. The cops you face in single player are likely to be compared with Hollywood in terms of their inept behaviour, but when you play a cop you’re the baddest mutha who ever got behind a wheel, and Criterions engine makes the vehicular struggles feel incredibly heavy and satisfying, with those patented Burnout crashes making your work feel incredibly gratifying.
As for weapons the Cops can also use the spike strips and EMP, while their unique weapons are a lot less subtle than the Racers. ‘Block’ does just what it says, radioing ahead for a roadblock to be erected in front of the race leader, there is always a gap but will almost always cause the Racer some mischief. The second Cop weapon is a helicopter, which flies out to the race leader and plonks a couple of Spike strips in front of them, this weapon varied from utter shite to ‘how the hell do I avoid them!’
Also worth highlighting is that weapons improve as you level up alongside the obvious perk of unlocking cars, however I was assured that these simply give more opportunities and do not make for any kind of imbalance. The example given was that upgrading a spike strip lets the player place two in succession, meaning a skilled player could lay them in a serve to make life more difficult for anyone on their tail.
Crucially however, weapons are strictly limited. In order to stop potentially ridiculous degrees of weapon abuse each side only has access to a couple of each item in any one event meaning that conservative, well deployed items win the day over thoughtless random blunders.
Of course if it were a game of strictly Cops vs Racers it might be a tad one sided, with Racers sacrificing themselves for the greater good, however Criterion are a little smarter than that and this really shows when you dive into multiplayer.
Multiplayer
Hot Pursuit’s multiplayer is split into three modes, Race, Hot Pursuit, and Interceptor. Race is the most bread and butter of the lot, up to eight Racers battle to get from point A to point B (all of Hot Pursuit’s races seem to be straight dashes as opposed to circuits) with no weapons available. Simple, fast, skill favouring fun.
That game’s titular mode, Hot Pursuit, is where the game starts to come into its own. This mode sees a team of Cops trying to stop a race between a group of Racers. This is important to understand – cops are a team, racers are playing for themselves, if all Racers are eliminated the Cops win, if a Racer crosses the line first then they win. This is what keeps it fun, Racers will try and skirmish amoungst themselves while cops get stuck into the mix, but do the cops chase the Racer who just dashed into first or stay for an easy takedown near the back? It’s remarkable just how your play and the experience changes dramatically simply by swapping sides.
What more you can play with any mix of eight players, a fair weighted four on four is fun enough, with players swerving to avoid pedestrian traffic while cops slam racers into turns, designating and teaming up to herd their slippery foes, racers using judicious brake application and ample amounts of swerving to slide around their aggressive law enforcers. But how about one terminator cop trying to tackle seven lone wolves, or a solitary James Bond like racer trying to avoid the one hundred tonne weight of seven angry law enforcers, there’s a lot of scope here for a varied amount of entertainment.
The game opens itself up to numerous situations, and is an absolute joy to experience with a gaggle of humans, taunting players as you send their car into a mid air pirouette of broken dreams and windscreen confetti.
But as fun as Hot Pursuit mode is, it’s the game’s third mode that took the crown as mode of choice, the surprisingly brilliant Interceptor mode. Played only in a one on one situation, Interceptor forgets about the racing malarkey and gives both players free reign to take whatever route, or indeed non route, they feel like. The game ends if the cop takes the racer down or if the racer leaves the cops radius and stays outside it for a certain amount of time.
Interceptor completely changes the feel of the game; shortcuts become avenues for last second turns that send tailing cops into swear filled swerves of rage, straights can see racers pulling some stunning reverse emp Stig like driving panache, and trackside decorations become frantic cerebral jousting fields.
Indeed one Criterion developer took me for a dance around an abandoned airfield before jamming my radar and flying off into the sunset, it was only through a lucky mental leap, skid mark interpretation, and fortunate roadblock deployment that got me back on his tail.
The intense mental combat two players go through in an interceptor match is on an altogether different level to the other more direct, forward driven modes, and one sure to craft many memorable pub tales amongst its players.
This isn’t the only form of multiplayer of course, Criterion are intent on the genius of their autolog system, the idea of essentially ripping Facebook’s key elements and having them within Hot Pursuit. Regardless of how original the concept is, having friend’s scores taunt you Geometry Wars 2 style, and being prompted that a friend has taken a new screenshot or beaten your prize time is sure to ignite endless competition even when your friends aren’t online for some true multiplayer.
Closing Comments
Criterion has done good. Need for Speed Hot Pursuit continues the studio’s lineage of solid, chunky, approachable racing titles without stomping all over their Burnout toes or taking the Need for Speed franchise away from what makes it, it. Hot Pursuit may share some DNA with Criterion’s previous work but it’s to their credit that I left the studio wanting to play more Hot Pursuit, knowing that loading up a prior Burnout title wouldn’t quell the desire; it’s a completely unique title.
And it’s built to last, even after you’ve gold ranked all the challenges, levelled up as a cop and racer, and gone some way to completing the exhaustive wall of challenges then the social network inspired autolog will ensure asynchronous competition thrives for months in the games myriad of intense, kinetic single player thrills while those times you can gather friends for some Hot Pursuit or an intimate session of Interceptor ensures a riotous road rage infused experience that has rooms of grown men constantly making monkey impressions as players swerve, collide and crash, all the while oogling the pretty cars and locales.
Oh and also, considering the studio supported their previous game with over a year’s worth of DLC, we’ve been tantalizingly teased that a similar degree of support will be delivered for this title. Even if, call me cynical, I anticipate Hot Pursuit 2 is already lined up for 2012…
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit is released for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 on 19th November in rainy old Britain, November 16th for the lucky Americans, and will likely be far more entertaining than GT 5 because you don’t have to drive a Ford KA for five hours before you can upgrade to a Mondeo.
8 Responses to “Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Preview”
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Nice Article.
Glad you finally managed to get the site going and good luck!
High quality info here! Keep up the great work. I love the feelings being expressed.
Thanks a bunch Jordan. It’s what we’re aiming for!
Thanks Tom!
can you play single player on hot pursuit
Oh yes indeed brandon, you can play single player as either a Cop or Racer, with each side bringing 60 unique missions and a whole host of progression challenges to the table.
What’s more the single player is constantly tracking your own and online friends scores to give you new challenge prompts in relation to leaderboards through its autolog feature.
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