The Need For Speed series has been a consistent presence in the gaming world for about three decades now, and some of the most fondly remembered entries are the Hot Pursuit games going back to 1998 on the original PlayStation. Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered is a remaster of the 2010 game, which was a reboot of the Hot Pursuit games from 1998 and 2002. So this is a remaster of a reboot. The basic gist is driving exotic cars at high speeds, while outpacing your opponents and any law enforcement that gets in your way – and also running down nefarious street racers in your equally impressive exotic law enforcement vehicles.
What kind of exotic cars? Lamborghini, Porsche, McLaren, Corvette, Dodge Viper, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Bugatti, and others all make an appearance. As you start out, the presentation hypes up the cars you get to drive. In the garage, it gives you all the sexy and seductive camera angles with beautiful lighting and colors while a woman’s voice confidently tells you the history and the make of the vehicle and why it’s special. You can choose from several colors (which can make a difference if you’re driving at night, brighter colors make you more visible), and off you go.
All this takes place in the fictional world of Seacrest County, where they take bringing street racers to justice very, very seriously. In fact, they take it so seriously that Seacrest County law enforcement spends millions of dollars of taxpayer money on the fastest and rarest exotic sports cars in the world for their cops to drive at dangerously high speeds to bust these street racers. Whether these very expensive cars are functional, or in one piece, when they’re through with them is inconsequential. All that matters is the bust. You get access to fun tools like spike strips, EMP charges, and the ability to call for blockades and choppers to help. Racing a Lamborghini decked out in police colors with lights flashing on top makes you feel intimidating and cool. Like you’re RoboCop of the road.
Although a big part of the Hot Pursuit games is racing against the cops and avoiding getting busted, most of the first missions just involve standard racing. It acts as a tutorial, but isn’t typical of what the rest of the game is like. The chase missions do open up after some play time, and there are plenty of them. There are standard races, time trials, missions where you have to avoid the cops, and missions where you are the cops and have to run speeders down. There’s also a free-drive mode if you just want to drive and not worry about having to run away from the police or run anyone down, plus it’s useful for getting to know the ins and outs of a course, including the shortcuts, of which there are many.
An experience system allows the player to unlock new cars and events. You have different experience meters that measure your Most Wanted level as a racer, and another experience meter that measures your prowess as a cop. It makes for a more fulfilling and less frustrating experience since you always get experience and/or unlocks out of every race no matter how you finish.
On top of the experience meters, a simple medal system is used for each event: bronze, silver, and gold. The difficulty is pretty forgiving if all you’re shooting for is at least a bronze medal before moving on, but a gold medal will put your driving skills to the test, and sometimes a little luck can help as well. The controls are simple. Right trigger for gas, left for brake, X/Y-button for emergency brake for powersliding, and A/B button for boost.
That being said, when you’re racing along trying to steer away from the cops, sometimes a short cutscene will trigger to let you know another cop is joining the chase, taking you out of the gameplay. The same thing happens when you take out a cop or rival car. The cutscenes themselves are dramatic and stylish, but it can cause you to drive erratically, having the gameplay suddenly stop, and then start again when you’re trying to focus on not crashing.
My racing drastically improved once I started doing two things: the first was learning how to powerslide well. The second is not taking my eyes off the road. Too often, I would get distracted looking at my UI to see how much boost I had, how many street spikes and EMPs I had left, etc. Once I cut down on doing that, there was a noticeable improvement in my racing. It’s not as easy as it looks avoiding civilian vehicles while going 175 MPH. You get going very fast, sometimes exceeding 200 mph, and taking your eyes off the road, even for a split-second can spell disaster. This is a Need For Speed game and it lives up to its moniker.
Overall, the game runs well. Since this is a remaster of a 16-year old game, I was expecting to be able to run it at 1080p/60 FPS at highest settings on my older PC, but alas, I couldn’t. Even at medium settings, it chugged at 1080p. Not badly, but it wasn’t consistent. However, my new PC ran it like a dream. It’s capped at 60 FPS, but it never dipped no matter what was happening on-screen.
However, there were a few annoying quirks. There were times when the car I was chasing would disappear right in front of me. I’d hit the car and cause it to crash, or it would spin-out and crash on its own. I would quickly turn around to try and ram the car before it could take off again, and it would disappear and respawn, usually going in a different direction. It was frustrating when I thought I had it dead to rights and it would literally vanish in front of my eyes.
I was also noticing some audio skipping in the music when playing on my old rig. I wasn’t 100% sure, but I was about 75% sure. I believe the game has already gotten one patch, but it might need a second if I was hearing what I thought I was hearing. Reading the Steam reviews, others experienced this as well. It’s doubtful EA would roll out another patch at this point, but if it happens to you, it’s the game, not your PC. However, I had no audio issues playing on my new rig.
The soundtrack is a solid mix of rock and hip-hop. During chase sequences, you’ll hear a dramatic classical score more akin to what you would hear in an action film. You might find you need to turn the engine noise down in the options to hear the music at all. Overall, I didn’t like much of the licensed music I was hearing. It sounded like a lot of hipster rock that didn’t fit well with the premise and aesthetic of the game. Some of it was downright annoying. I remember the soundtrack for Hot Pursuit II being a lot better, but you hear the classical score more often than you do the licensed music in Remastered. Or you can turn the music off entirely if you don’t like any of it.
VERDICT
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered is a simple premise done well: cops and robbers – or more accurately, cops and street racers. It’s fast, it’s violent, it’s cool and stylish, it has lots of rare licensed exotic sports cars that exist in the real world, and most importantly, it’s a lot of fun. You can get it for $30 full price on Steam, or $40 on consoles. If you like arcade racers, I’d almost consider it a must-play title, especially considering the price.
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