Breaking the law
The Need for Speed franchise has gone through countless iterations over the years. Plenty have hit and just as many have missed. When EA announced they were remastering Hot Pursuit the first question that has to be asked is, which one? The answer turned out to be 2010’s highly-regarded entry and like a lot of remasters this one feels like I remember it. Of course, this being one of EA’s first entries in remastering its NFS games the real question is, does it truly receive a worthy update?
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit was a great game. The remaster is still a great game just with a new coat of paint. There really isn’t a whole lot changed here outside of frame rates and speed. The game feels just how I remember it. Blistering by at 60 fps, though now with a higher resolution. This is not a bad thing mind you. The old adage still works that if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. Still I would have liked to see a few new additions to warrant my hard-earned dollars.
MSRP: $39.99
Platforms: XB1 (reviewed), PS4, PC
Price I’d Pay: $29.99
The game does feature some new roadside additions and performance options depending on the console. Both the incremental consoles come with their own options. On Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro the games offer a performance and fidelity modes. Much to the standard the performance modes are 60fps at 1080p, while the fidelity modes jump up to 4K at 30 fps. No word yet whether that cap will be unlocked with the PS5 and XSX versions as those consoles become available in November.
What makes Hot Pursuit so good was that it focused on what was fun and stuck to it. There isn’t a host of unnecessary features here. The game has races and police chases on long stretches of track. The cop chasing is fun thanks to the host of abilities the game provides. The cars all feel great and wrecks are satisfying at high speed. The core fundamentals of the game still work today, and this is where I hope the series someday returns to. It is almost like the end of this generation is remembering how good the PS3/360 era was, and that we didn’t need all this extra fluff to our games.
The career mode is still where the bulk of the game is most enjoyable. The races are quick and the progression of unlocking new cars is satisfying. The on-road action is blistering fast and I was always just hitting that ‘one more race’ mentality.
The Autolog also returns with a nice leaderboard feature that keeps players chasing their friends’ times. This is a nice carrot-on-a-stick that had me hitting that retry button more than I care to admit. The multiplayer also returns with 8-player races that also support cross-play between systems. This is a cool feature to have right out of the box and should be the norm going forward.
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered is the perfect game to bring back. It harkens back to a time when racing games were simple and fun. I hope the Criterion team manages to get back to this formula. This was the last NFS game I enjoyed all around and have somewhat forgotten about the series since its release. It seems EA knows this considering this is the title they chose to remaster. For those that thirst for the classic days of the Need for Speed series, this is a solid title to add to your collection.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
