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View Full Version : NFS: Hot Pursuit 2 gets a 7.1 overall by IGN



mrmp3
10-01-2002, 08:24 PM
September 30, 2002 - If the Xbox has one thing, it's quality racing games. You've got sim-heavy racing (Sega GT 2002), your rally racing (Rallisport Challenge), arcade racers (Burnout), and even racing games that don't really fit in a traditional category (Project Gotham Racing). EA's Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 is an arcade racer that needs little introduction. The Need for Speed has spawned a number of racing titles, including High Stakes, Porsche Unleashed, and, of course, Hot Pursuit. The games, Hot Pursuit 2 included, typically involve driving at unhealthy speeds in exotic sports cars while being pursued by the police. Is Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 worth your time and money, or should you avoid like the new O-town single? Well, that probably depends on what you're looking for.

Gameplay
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 has several game modes, including Hot Pursuit, Championship, and Single Challenge. Within the Single Challenge mode, there are other sub-modes such as Free Run, Tournament, and Be the Cop. Hot Pursuit and Championship are almost identical, and consist of thirty-three races divided into two tree structures each. Receiving a medal in a race will unlock the branch/races below it, and so on and so on. Each race is set in a controlled environment where the cars, number of laps, and track are all predetermined. Examples of the kinds of races you'll face in these modes are Convertible Cruise Race, where you and five opponents will all race different types of convertible sports cars, or Ferrari 360 Spider Delivery, in which you will have to complete the race under a specified amount of time. Receiving medals will also award you NFS points, which can then be used to unlock cars and tracks for the Single Challenge mode.

The fact that all racing factors in the Hot Pursuit and Championship modes are chosen for you leads to my first complaint. You always have to choose one of the up to four or five cars that have been pre-selected for the event. Now I know each race has it's own theme choosing any car would defeat the whole purpose, but this results in some very unrealistic races. For example, two of the cars you can choose from in the previously mentioned Convertible Cruise Race are a BMW Z8 and a Ferrari 550 Barchetta Pinifarina. I don't know much about cars, but there's no way the BMW has a chance against a high-end Ferrari. Yet in the game, I won the race using the Z8 without any problems, first try.

Also thrown into the mix of races will be events where you are the police, and must give out a certain number of tickets within a time limit. To give out a ticket, you must first find target and turn on your siren by pushing in on the right stick. The car in question will then have an energy bar appear above them. To empty this bar, all you have to do is continuously ram them, very much like in Wreckless. Once their energy has depleted, you will have given them a ticket. You typically have a five-minute time limit to give out as many tickets as you can, the greater the number resulting in a better medal.

My main complaint about this mode is how shallow it is. Every time you are the cops you will do exactly the same things. While fun the first few times, it grows old fast. You start out racing down the road for a speeder. The first car you see will always be the one you target. You can't risk passing them up for any reason due to your time limit. You don't even know if they were really speeding. You then proceed to ram them until you have given them a ticket. Repeat as necessary. Granted, you can call for backup (more police, helicopters that drop bombs, or road-blocks with spike strips) using the directional pad, but you won't need to most of time, and sometimes they just get in your way.

Controlling the cars in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 is, thankfully, not a chore. While the control is not perfect, the cars have a decent sense of weight and handling, albeit a hair floaty. Most of the cars feel similar, with only minute differences in handling characteristics. When selecting your car, you can press the Y button to hear a showcase on the car, which is pretty much a cheesy announcer reciting a few specs about the car. Unfortunately, it is not very helpful in the decision making. I would've liked it more if there were bars or numbers displayed for each of the cars stats, as this helps when comparing which car you want to drive. I pretty much went into each race blindly, picking the car I thought looked coolest. It didn't seem to matter much anyways, as each car feels very similar, and I got first place in almost every race on the first try.

.http://xboxmedia.ign.com/xbox/image/hotpursuit2_EASummer_1.jpg

The AI in the game is decent most of the time. The police use different tactics to try and stop your bad driving habits. They will call for backup, setup roadblocks, and even call in helicopters to drop explosives to slow you down. And that's all that they will really do. Slow you down. To actually get busted, they must stop you dead in your tracks for what seems like a few seconds. You can almost always avoid this. Want to drive right through the roadblock? Go for it. If you crash or spin, just press the black button to reset the car and speed away.

When the police are chasing you, there is meter that slowly starts draining. As long as the police are not right on your tail, the meter will continue to drain until empty, at which point they will say over the radio that you are too dangerous to chase, so they're going to stop following you. Imagine if that's what real-life policemen did...

On a side note, even if you are not speeding, the police will chase you. I went a casual 35 mph down the track until I saw a copper, only to have him call for backup and bust me. Silly police.

A feature included in the game, which I wish you could turn off, occurs whenever you hit a roadblock, catch some air, or hit an explosive. When catching air, the camera will switch to a slow-mo side-view of your car making the jump. Not only do the graphics look horrible during this cut, but it's also very disorienting and can disrupt the flow of the game. It is also problematic because you cannot steer while this is going on, so whatever direction you were facing when making the jump at is the direction you will land in. This sucks when you didn't mean to catch air and by the time you regain control of the car, you're an inch away from a head on collision with a tree. Hitting a roadblock or explosive results in a Matrix-style 360 degree pan of the camera which is also disorienting, and nothing sucks more than having your flow broken, especially in the heat of a race.

The physics in the game definitely lean heavily on the arcade side, almost to the point of absurdity. While driving a BMW M5, I hit a full-sized bus head on. This caused the bus to spin in circles at light speed for what seemed like forever. It's a lot like those old kung-fu movies where someone gets hit and they spin in the air like a top. There were also times where I would hit a road sign and it would remain hovering in the air for the remainder of the race.

The overall sense of speed in the game leaves a bit to be desired. Even when driving a McLaren F1 at over 150 mph, it still felt like I was only going around 75 mph. Switching to first-person mode helps, but if you like seeing the car when driving, you'll either have to make a sacrifice or be out of luck.

mrmp3
10-01-2002, 08:25 PM
Graphics
Depending on what you're looking at in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, the graphics can range from good to just plain ugly. The car models generally look great. While not quite as good as say Sega GT 2002's, they are nothing to scoff at either, and can hold their own in the arena of Xbox racing games. The driver in the car is also animated. You can see him turning, shifting, and giving the birdie to the 5-0. Well, maybe I just made that last part up, but with a big emphasis on police rebellion, I'm surprised the feature wasn't thrown in. I mean, if you're gonna thrown in little features like being able to honk your horn, give us some of the little features we'll really have fun with. The framerate tends to stay above 30 fps, but there are dips and moments of slowdown, though it doesn't really affect gameplay.

The lighting in the game is also admirable. Instead of giving us the tried-and-true lens flare effect, the developers have implemented a soft lighting algorithm where light bleeds over the edges of objects, not unlike Halo 2 and Splinter Cell. The brake lights, siren lights, and sunlight all use this and the effect is eerily realistic. There are also real-time reflections on the cars and water puddles, although subtle, and basic water and smoke effects that more or less get the job done. Actually the water can go both ways: The waterfalls look adequate, but when you look at a body of water, like a lake, it is just another blurry blue texture. Not even a transparent texture. Actually very comparable to a blue conveyor belt in a N64 game. Yuck.

The tracks all have a soft feel to them, a lot like daytime soap operas. Muted colors are the key words here. Minus the cars and the autumn tracks, the colors all seem very neutral with very little intensity. Strangely, it gives it somewhat of a painterly quality. The road and environment textures are blurry, and the trees suck, but you don't really notice it while speeding past them with three cops and a helicopter chasing you. When you do notice it is when you first start a race, and more notably, when get busted. The game will go into what must be one of the worst cutscenes I've ever seen in a game. The character models and textures are simply horrendous. I think the only way I knew what was going on was out of context. The animation is also revolting, with the character movement resembling disabled insects trying to cross a valley of PB&J. There were first generation PS1 games that looked better, and this is supposed to be an Xbox game. There's simply no excuse.

http://xboxmedia.ign.com/xbox/image/hotpursuit2_EASummer_2.jpg

Sound
The engine sounds are to have been recorded from the real things, and that is almost always a good thing. Each car has it's own distinct engine sound, though I found them to be relatively high in pitch. Not high for the car (I don't really know what a McLaren F1 sounds like), just high in general. Honestly, I would've preferred a meatier engine sound that gave me a better sense of power, even if that meant unauthentic engine sounds. This game is by no means a sim, and the physics are already on the arcade side of things...

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 supports Dolby Digital 5.1, and the results are excellent. With accurate positioning, you really do feel the cars whizzing by you on either side. If you drive in circles near a sound source, the spinning effect of the sound is almost dizzying. There are also some small details that I was glad to see thrown in, like the way the sound echoes when driving through a tunnel, or how you can hear the ocean waves if you stop on the side of the road by the beach (though only in certain spots).

The soundtrack to the game consists mainly of rock and techno songs. Besides Bush, Rush, and Uncle Kracker, I have not heard of the other bands, though I can't say I benefited from hearing them either. Generic radio-rock and dance songs that don't really go anywhere are not really not my cup of tea, though I admit I do have a soft place in my heart for Rush (don't ask). The good news is that you can listen to your own soundtracks ripped onto your Xbox hard drive. The only problem with this is that you have to make sure you either have a pre-made driving music soundtrack made, or you don't mind listening to one album at a time, as you cannot pick and choose the specific songs you want to hear from your hard drive like in Project Gotham Racing. It's either pick an album/soundtrack and wait until you finish the track, exit to the main menu, and choose another soundtrack, or nothing at all. Best to pre-make your soundtrack before, especially considering the length of some of the races.

Presentation: 6.0

Graphics: 6.0

Sound: 8.0

Gameplay: 7.0

Sound: 7.0

Now for some reason as I was reading it the Insider icon popped up all over the place but I could still view it. So i thought the review had become IGNInsider only and decided to post it here. If the review gets pulled from the board PM me and I'll send yah the review. Signing off...

melon
10-02-2002, 12:26 AM
i'm still going to get it, i have a lot of fun with these types of games, and it looks pretty good.