Nice Graphics and that's all. This game has some gorgeous scenery but the gameplay is so fail that I don't want to play this game anymore. When you brake the car to pass through a corner, it goes drifting like nuts and you don't have any control over the car. Every car feel like trucks because they all so damn heavy, and especially on the straights, it appears to have some kind of delay when you press the button to go to the right or left, if you just slightly press it, the car doesn't turn, and if you just press the button, the car goes too much. And there is no sensitivity to change on the options.
And there's more, all cars have the same way to control, like the guy said before, it has absolutely no difference between a Crown Victoria and a Lamborghini.
I would think two times before buying this game.… Expand

And I thought that NFS Undercover was the worst of the series... man was I wrong... But that's just my opinion. To be realistic: if you liked NFS 1 and 2, and I mean the real NFS 1 and 2, made years ago, you might enjoy this one. This one feels just like those oldies (sure, and goldies), but in this day and age this is just weak. Sure, graphics look great, but that's about it... So, if you want some 80's arcade style gaming with improved graphics and online features, go for this one, but if you want Need for Speed the way it was in Underground or Most Wanted the only thing you can do is pray...… Expand

Pro: "omg shiny"
Con: Everything else.
Every car handles just about the same, the only difference is the top speed, the AI is horrible, power drifting at 300kph is ridiculous, there is no fun, the game just repeats itself time after time.
It's for the 10-12 year old young ones... You don't need to watch your start, the game does it for you, you don't have to change gear, it does it for you. They could have just come out with a 2 hour long cut scene, it wouldn't made any difference.… Expand

Given the history the NFS series has come along with, I found this to be a very disappointing title. All of the previous titles have tried to afford players as much flexibility in their gameplay as possible, within reason, namely in regards to how different cars handled and performed, the differences imposed based on whether the car was front, rear or all-wheel drive and in driving assists such as traction control, ABS and the like.

This game has none of that. In fact, it provides a worse experience by doing some things that will undoubtedly only annoy some gamers, both casual and serious alike.

Examples of this include an incredibly poor acceleration model; sometimes your car will simply fail to speed up reasonably for no apparent reasons, while at other times it will pelt forwards like a rocket taking performance enhancing drugs. Drifting is also an integral part of any race you take part in, irrespective of the track surface you're driving on or car you're using.

You don't get points for your drifting in this game, though, and it serves no purpose other than to get through sharp corners; but that's where things go completely wrong. It's the only way to get through sharp corners. You can't not drift; the game will automatically enter a drift state provided you are on what the game constitutes a turn, and to make matters worse, drifts follow a certain (and by certain I mean very high) degree of autopilot-esque gameplay.

You can almost simply engage a drift, ensure you're going through a turn at the right angle and then hold in your accelerator at full-throttle. Once the turn, that which the game considers to be the turn, is complete, your car will automatically straighten out for you.

To make matters worse, there is no manual transmission in the game; no option for it, either.

Making matters worse is that there appears to be no true variety between the cars. Within a class you're looking at as simple a set of factors as losing some top speed to gain more acceleration, losing some turning for better drift angle (and subsequent speed through a drift) or having greater turning but worse speed retention during a drift, Whether a car is front, rear or all-wheel drive has virtually no true impact on anything besides off-road handling.


Ultimately, I'm left very disappointed in the game. Given Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit's gameplay and then the shift to unmodifiable cars in Hot Pursuit 2 but still the facility to use a manual transmission and cars that actually felt like they differed from eachother, this game leaves everything feeling exactly the same all the time, which makes for a wholly monotonous driving experience.

It doesn't help that you more often than not feel like you're doing exactly the same race all over again in single-player.

Easily one of the worst aspects of the game, to me, is that somehow the developers completely broke the relation of the bumper-camera to the width of the car in comparison to the previous games. This results in far more collisions with things that players of the previous games will be confident they should have passed, which makes true near-misses and proper navigation through streams of cars a headache rather than a fun/exhilarating experience.

The damage in the game is also incredibly lackluster in complexity. You have multiple 'lives' within your damage bar to use to try and stay in the race; this amounts to three crashes. To make matters worse, a bug exists with the physics behind said crashes; you can total your car entirely by ramming into the backside of another car, while you are at full life, even if there is as little as a 20km/h difference between you. On the other hand, if you collide with a traffic vehicle at anything ranging from 40km/h to 300km/h, you again stand a chance to 'crash' instantly. However, if you simply brake for a split-second before colliding with oncoming traffic, often even if you are traveling at 300km/h, you will miraculously survive the experience with minimal damage.
This game has merit in its graphics, but has poor sound and worse race-intro animations that you have to wait to skip. Gameplay wise it feels monotonous and generally boring in single-player.

If you're a teen that just wants a pretty arcade racing game in which smashing other people off the road or into oncoming traffic/obstacles is your thing, then by all means go for this game. On the other hand if you want a serious racing game where you need to be strategic about when you hit other players and when to back off or try and get a lead, avoid it, you'll only leave disappointed; there is no 'realistic' damage in this game, and if you crash your car you have multiple lives of sorts to use before you're completely written off.… Expand

I wish EA did spend all the money they used to buyout all the game reviewers out there for actually developing a quality game.
That's why piracy will endure forever EA.. because it's our only defense against false advertisement! And that's why the corporations hate it so much, because of the "Try before Buy" option..

The NFS series went downhill since Most Wanted and the main reason for me are the unneeded changes in the already perfect driving engine. This one have utterly unresponsive controls, boring arcade features, frustrating time trials, cars in the same class have zero difference in handling, and repetitive gameplay.… Expand

Again, EA and Criterion show how much they care about PC gamers: no DLC, no LAN support, and only another **** facebook clone to show for it.

Sorry, EA, you're the ones making us not buy your games. And don't BS us with the piracy excuse, your support is just abysmal.

Same as Xyz, that's about it. (Only the cars model looks a tat bit better, everything else is crappy.)
No proper driving physics, just slam your break and you drift like 'OUTRUN'.
Soul-less. Most Wanted is far better. Even the lacklusters that came after Most Wanted is better than this. There is nothing to get you engaged.
BORING~ voice over, ESPECIALLY the first Police Intro, she's like yo nanny rushing the scripts.
Take it for a casual ride. Not a worthy buy.

**PS: No settings for graphics, and the graphics looks YUCKS with no reason, unpolished product, and lame Interace/transition design, boo.… Expand

Although I can mostly agree with Xyz, I just need to correct one thing: This Need of Spead Hot Pursuit being already an insult to some of the other incarnations of NFS in the series I hereby wish to clear the name of NFS 1 aka "Road & Track presents the Need for Speed" from a wrong comparison with this piece of arcade console port.
In Road & Track presents the Need for Speed one would use manual gear shifting skills to maximize your control over the vehicle, keep it to the road and help braking. This NFS Hot Pursuit does not even have manual gear shifting options. The reason there for is that it does not have a physics engine that could take advantage of gear shifting. You can't control any option like ABS braking or traction control. You can't adjust any steering parameter besides assigning axes. I have learned how to drive a car better thanks to NFS1 by avoiding any contact with borders and other vehicles and brake and shift in a controlled and synchronized way.
NFS Hot Pursuit will teach you nothing about driving a car, not even avoiding deadly objects. It is a different game than NFS 1, it is not back to the roots, it is arcade to the max, it is a port from consoles to PC, it depicts cars but you can't actually drive them, you make the float through some scenery. The mechanics feel like they were generated by the generic arcade racing game generator program, clearly aimed at those who were still unborn when NFS1 hit the shelves and haven't played many racing games before this.
This is not a classic!
A waste of beautifully rendered scenery!… Expand

I am having a hard time even finding the pros of this game. Graphics, well with no AA option no matter how beautiful the scenery is or how wicked the car is, the jagged edges ruin it. Without any customization options, it just killed over half of my gameplay time. I used to spend over half of my game time cusomizing my ride and admiring its unique looks in the previous versions, and NFS Underground series and mostwanted were simply the best . Gameplay is weak.. the cars turn horribly .. not responsive at all and when i keep the key pressed a little longer the, car just goes out of control. I think it will take time for me as i have been playing DiRT2 a lot lately.… Expand

This game is a total disappointment. I have to admit that the graphics are okay, but the game-play is very bad. I could only play this game for about 2 hours before i got bored. I think EA doesn't afford to pay an extra team to develop a story line.

Oh and did i mention that you can't travel from town to town on the streets by your own ? You can just select on a map to which race you want to participate. Looks like i still have to play my old NFS Most Wanted, it never gets old. NFS Hot Pursuit got old before appearing on the store shelves.… Expand

Dudes who do a racing game with no manual transmission are completely dumb, dude. You're driving a Shelby GT500 @ 70mph, pull the handbrake and the car don't even drift. It completely stops in one second. There's no simulation! Long live NFS Porsche Unleashed.

The graphics are good, but that is the only good thing about it.
The car-control is horrendous, it feels like you're driving a semi-truck on ice, and there is no difference between driving one car and another. There is nearly no difference between driving on tarmac and the dirt-road in the shortcuts. The voice for all the menus is annoying, when you select cars it feels more like a car advert than anything else.

Overall, the game is pretty freaking bad, I regret deeply spending money on it. If I had had a chance to try it out first I would never have bought it.… Expand

It is very rare that I find myself actually angered by a game, but what EA has done with this one has more than earned my ire. Before I could even begin playing, I encountered a several-minutes-long unskippable ad for another game, which prevented me from just getting in and starting playing--a bad sign of worse things to come, but deserves a mention all its own, because when someone pays to play a game, they're NOT paying to watch ads. If a publisher is going to force their customers to watch ads, then the game should be free. So for respect for customers, this game scores a 0. An online login is required for the offline single-player campaign, as if I didn't have enough logins without legitimate uses cluttering up my password wallet, and if you lose your internet connection while playing, the campaign menu will fail to load. This is the most unacceptable variety of DRM, so in this category, the game scores a 0. The gameplay and mechanics are clunky and unintuitive. EA boasts that future NFS games will use the same engine as Battlefield 3. Newsflash: no game engine can possibly be ideal for both racing games, AND FPS games. This is a big part of the problem with EA's approach to game development, and it really shows. Instead of intelligent AI opponents, we have rubber-band racers, which will teleport ahead or behind you if they fall too far behind, run off the road, crash, or otherwise are boxed in and immobilized. Yes, this includes suspects when you're playing hot pursuit mode, so, all you will accomplish by doing the intelligent thing and pinning a suspect to a barrier, is allow them to escape by teleporting back into the middle of the road and speeding off. Contrary to the instructions given right in the game, the ONLY way to stop a suspect is to total their car with full-contact juggling. Spike strips do not damage tires or slow them down, and your opponents can absorb stupid amounts of damage like being struck against a barrier at 200MPH. The teleportation thing gets really out of hand at times, and you can actually watch them jump around in your rear view mirror or ahead of you on the road, or, of course, from between your front bumper and the guardrail you have them pinned against. Hitting the nitro causes your opponents to speed up, and they can go far faster than the top speed of their respective cars in the interest of pissing you off. Drifting is the fastest way to go around a corner... whose idea was this, anyway? FWD, AWD and RWD cars all drift the same.. in fact, all cars handle equally on the road for the most part overall, and the car selection is drab and boring, despite the number of exotics to choose from. In fact, most of the exotic pursuit cars are only available for special "time trial" stages, and not for pursuit at all... there's a distinct shortage of fun and engaging multi-car racing and pursuit stages in this game, so they really should have just called it "Need For Speed: Boring Arcadey Racing Game" So, for game mechanics, AI, and all around fun, this game scores a 0. I'm just going to stop here, because I really have nothing nice to say about this game. Sure, the graphics are passable, but if you really care about that, you should be playing Crysis or some other sandbox tech demo. I'd promised myself in the past I would never buy another EA game again, and I should have kept that promise, as this is just another reminder as to why. I picked this game up for $15 on steam, and I really wish I could just have my money back. Don't buy it. Don't even rent it. It's not worth it.… Expand

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is the latest instalment in this old series of games. Hot Pursuit boasts two separate game modes within the single-player career option, an amazing list of the worldâ

if you're the sort who plays racing games with the arrow keys and never turned on manual shifting (which is not in this game at all), you might think this is a good title, otherwise ignore this sorry waste of code

I have to start by saying this is the worst Need For Speed game I've ever played and I'm a big fan and have played nearly all of them since the first Hot Pursuit coincidentally. The handling is atrocious, no matter what car you choose it's gonna handle like its towing a caravan full of obese hippos. There's a horrible delay whenever you try and turn making avoiding other cars and traffic a nightmare and if you do manage to turn in time your car will wobble all over the place before straightening up again and to get round bends power sliding is a must although, paradoxically, the cars handle best when they're sliding sideways around a bend at 100+ mph. I can't help but feel that the handling could've been fixed somewhat by allowing you to tinker with a few simple settings such as steering sensitivity, ride height/stiffness, aerodynamics etc but there are absolutely no tweakable options whatsoever, you can't even have manual transmission, let alone purchase any upgrades for your car like in nearly every NFS game in the past decade. It really detracts from the sense of achievement and progression as you get handed cars after most races and you know that they're all gonna handle abysmally with no incentive to race them anyway to save up for upgrades. The AI is another serious problem with this game. Extreme case of horrible rubber banding where you can be flying along at top speed after a near perfect run and the AI can still cruise right on past you half a mile from the end, it just makes playing boring and frustrating. The graphics aren't too bad but there's a distinct lack of options for tweaking and no support for AA. Made by Criterion and yet manages to be worse than both NFS and Burnout. Overall extremely disappointing.… Expand

this game should have been rated a 2/10, i cant say one good thign about it besides being able to be the cop but they screwed that up so much its like slapping a lightbar on a gokart from mario kart 64...

Like many others, I bought this because it was supposed to get back to the roots of the NFS games and because the critics gave it good reviews. I was very disappointed however.

Features:
First of all you're basically forced to do the career when playing single player. There is no option to make a custom race. Don't get me wrong, I do want a career mode. I loved the career mode in Need for Speed Porche Unleashed. You started out with slow cars and slowly earned money to buy faster and more powerful cars. In this game you unlock cars by earning points, but most of the time you won't get to chose car before the race.
There is also no option to tune your car before the race. You select a car (if the race allows you to chose of course) and a color and you're off.

Interface:
To put it mildly, the interface is annoying. It is obviously a console port. The menus are flashy and animated instead of being short and to the point. But the major flaws are the unskippable and/or unneccecary animations/cutscenes. Like the introduction to the race after the loading screen (skippable, but annoying and unneccesary) or the unskippable animation when you unlock a new car. What I find most diruptive is the in-race interruptions. When you first encounter a roadblock or when you first wreck a cop car, your driving is interrupted by a short animation which throws your driving off balance. A simple notification on the side of the screen would have been plenty.

TLDR:
Pros: Nice graphics, nice feel of speed
Cons: Severe lack of features, lack of gameplay settings, bad and disruptive user interface, Cars handle the same

The game would have been great if it had more features and fixed the UI.… Expand

After owning this game for a month or so, I've played it for a few hours at best. The basic gameplay is very burnout. Which, when I bought I assumed was a good thing. But if you enjoyed burnout, wait for the next one. The cars all have the same controls, and feel ridiculously heavy. Where crashing into other cars was fun in Burnout Paradise, HP makes it a tedious mistake, slowing you right down.

The completely unresponsive controls mean you will end up barralling into a wall if you don't see it 500meters before or more.

The campaign mode quickly feels like a grind, and the online mode no better. I have no interest in the autolog feature, which failed to suggest friends. Which is humorous, since you cannot communicate with those you are playing with over voice. Completely retarding the point.

The game looks nice and runs well, as much as burnout paradise did.

In short. If you want to buy this game, get burnout paradise instead. Or Hot Pursuit 2 for earlier consoles. This does nothing to afford the price tag, and is an unfortunate purchase.

If only I could return video games.… Expand

What is that? It feels just like 80's Outrun just with better graphics.
The steering is a joke. Keyboard ist simply not possible cause of the latency in fast S-turns (you have to plan 3 seconds ahead!)
No Steering Wheel support.
Free drive is nothing but scenery, no Cop hunt or Chase like in Most Wanted, just nothing.
All in all it is just a "drive from a to b" game that lacks any innovation and open World feeling like in Most Wanted or Burnout Paradise with bad Controls, Cars that feel all the same and great graphics.… Expand

I agree with the people here - bought the game influenced by the good critic reviews, however it is highly questionable why the reviews are so good - personally I do not understand it. This is by all means a poorly designed game, excepting only the visuals - but you tire about them after the first hour of gameplay. Then you are left with ridiculous car handling, ridiculous physics, unresponsive cars, no manual shifting, incoming traffic is just for the sake of it (behaving irrationally, incoming cars are feeling weird when passing them), horrible AI... also, cars cannot be customized, soundtrack is too quiet, awards are received without any sense of achievement, so you are just skipping it and going to the next race - there is no sense of advancing. Crashes are OK, for the first few times you experience them, but they can not be a reason for good rating. I know that the goal was not to deliver a simulation, but the good old Most Wanted (and Shift, for that matter) are so much more enjoyable... Maybe this game is good for your 10-year-old kid, but to anyone above that age I advise to avoid this game and spend the money on something else - you will be doing a favor both to yourself and your wallet.… Expand

Ok let's get the good stuff out of the way first. Graphically it's probably the best game I've ever seen, the environment and especially the cars are almost life-like, it doesn't require a monster PC to run and look good, there are invisible walls only enough to keep you on the road, and the dynamic time / weather are amazing. The car choices are also great even if there aren't any Ferrari's (FYI that's Ferrari's fault, not EA) (their loss as well) and although some cars can't race with each other although they would be able to (ex: The ultra light Zonda vs that brick Bugatti). Music is also great, especially the theme song.

Now on to the bad stuff, and I hope you're sitting comfortably cause you'll be sitting for a while.

First thing that I noticed even before the game was released is the crash / game moments camera. Yes, that anomaly that EA keeps putting in every f***ing NFS and Burnout game that makes you crash and hit spike strips by taking the control of the car away from you. But unlike the previews NFS games, you can't disable it, and unlike in Burnout it only works in your favor 10% of the time, the other 90% you'll be hitting roadblocks, spike strips and pretty much everything else, costing you the race most of the time. And as if that wasn't enough, Criterion did THE DUMBEST THING POSSIBLE: They added the moments camera ON MULTIPLAYER! Can't comment any further on this, it's bad.

The moments camera by itself wouldn't be enough to ruin the game, after all, it backfired in Burnout Paradise sometimes as well. But combine it with one of the worst rubber band / catch up features in history and you'll achieve the highest level of frustration since Contra. Again, the NFS and Burnout series are no stranger to rubber band, but again, old NFS games let you disable it and Burnout does it right.

If the game moments camera and rubber band still aren't enough to make this game the most frustrating racing game ever (nah kidding, 2nd most frustrating after Most Wanted) then the final piece of this painful puzzle will: controls. I don't know how they are on the Ecks Bawks or the Pee Es Three but on PC they are terrible. Steering is way too sensitive and if you try to slow down (or get forced to slow down by the moments camera that refuses to trigger in a crash) and steer you'll end up doing donuts.
And these weapons, they work in every way possible except how you want them to, why the hell does that EMP target helicopters when they are impossible to hit unless you bring your car to a complete stop, or racers if the damn cop is right in front of me??

The absence of a reset feature doesn't help things ether, but taking all of the above in consideration, a reset key wouldn't make a difference.

And now comes the biggest kick in the b*lls (no offense girls) for PC gamers: yeah I'm talking about the DLC's. EA claims they can't bring the DLC's to PC because they lack the resources. It's enough to Google ''EA'' to know they have enough resources to buy Canada and still have enough for the Niagra falls. Proof that they DO NOT WANT to bring the DLC's to PC is that the Crew Edition / SCPD Rebel / Dr Pepper / Etc cars actually exist in the PC version. Ok ok if you don't wanna make new DLC's for PC fine, but why not unlock these since they already exist in the game?

I hope other people don't get tricked into buying this piece of crap.… Expand

I had such high hopes for this game, loved the original on PS, High Stakes, Most Wanted, Carbon and my most favorite of all, that perfect combo of music, gameplay and arcade, Hot Pursuit 2. Then Criterion got a hold of it and just made Burnout Takedown with real cars that handle like crap.

Explain to me how my computer controlled opponent slams into another car, hits a wall and still wins by 10 seconds with me running a nearly flawless drive? Cops dont seem to slow the cpu cars down a bit yet i have three Mustangs treating me like I'm Rodney King. Online mode isnt much better especially with the cop mode because its now just Mario Kart with high speed dump trucks. Instead of a banana peel i drop a spike strip, instead of a turtle an EMP blast. Which by the way does nothing to CPU controlled opponents, they dont slow down, they keep going. You dodged that thar roadblock like the Duke Boys on meth, yet the car in front of you didnt and he respawns ahead of you. Im really disappointed in this pile of poo that bears the NFS brand. I thought about giving it a 4 but even thats too generous. I lump it in with Underground2 and Pro Street. I dare say the NFS brand is dead to me, never again will they get my money.… Expand

Thank you critics for once again giving a game a misleading rating. This piece of crap game shouldn't even have the title of "Need for Speed". No customization, no story, free-roam mode is an after-thought. The introduction when you first play the game is more like an introduction to a driving lesson simulator as opposed to an actual NFS game. Oh, and don't get me started on the selection of songs. I was pleasantly surprised to hear 30 Seconds to Mars' "Edge of the Earth" on the title screen. If they had kept with the hard-rock genre I would've been happy, but sadly I was disappointed to find I was lured in and tricked, as I endured the endless amount of "indie" tracks. I'm not slating the bands or the genre, but who wants to drive to that **** 'Does it offend you yeah', 'MIA', 'Klaxons', etc. Bull****. What happened to Most Wanted's soundtrack? Give me Celldweller anyday. As for the gameplay itself, it's not bad. But then it's not good. Firstly, automatic transmission is mandatory. Yeah. Even the old Outrun game at arcades have manual transmission. Secondly, why can't I turn off the cutscenes every time I crash or take out another race? After the cutscene you're automatically driving again, which has sent me off in the wrong direction in cop mode. Another thing is when NPC cars crash, they do the same. One NPC crashed into one of my roadblocks and then he suddenly disappeared and was placed onto the track a hundred yards ahead at full speed. Was it too hard for the programmers to enable NPCs to back up and turn around?… Expand

I went into this game knowing it was an arcade fest, no sim genes at all, but that's ok, I love both NFS and burnout. When it was on sale on steam I finally snapped it up.
I've played a couple hours and have won everything effortlessly. Nitro (boost) is refilled easily by driving against traffic (which is easy because there's like 1 civilian car per KM), you can use it nearly all the time reducing any strategy to not wasting it when you're at top speed. The way to play this game is not like NFS at all, you play it like a burnout, so pedal to the metal and any corner can be taken at top speed. The moment I went into a corner too fast I played with the boost and just pull through it easily (instead of just sliding of the track which it should do). Later I decided I should try what the handbrake button does and discovered it's mislabeled, it's really the instant drift button making cornering even easier, which saves your boost (really it's boost from burnout, has nothing to do with nitro) and even gives extra for drifting. If you hit something, the worst that can happen is you crash, which costs you about a second or so because you're instantly respawned on the road and already driving and going pretty fast, you still have your boost so just rocket off and you'll overtake your opponents soon enough again.
When you finish a race and you were any good, odds are you will unlock something, either a new car or a level. For everything you unlock, you are tortured with an uninteresting flashy sequence that is unskippable and takes about 15 seconds. So, gain a new level and raise in rank and I'll just put down my controller and look outside for a bit. If this wait was a loading screen the game would get totally trashed for it. I guess if you stick with the game long enough to unlock everything this will go away, but it's just totally retarded not to let the player skip these loads of crap. In the same vein, while you're driving, if something happens like a crash or a cop pulls onto the road as you drive past, the camera switches to the action and no longer shows you what you're doing. In other games, this was an option to be switched off asap by myself as I want to keep my eyes on the road, but no such option is to be found here.
Now then, you do unlock a lot of cars, so that should be good right? Honestly, so far I tend to just stick with the same car because the new cars don't seem to be any better actually. Also most cars feel like they weigh 5 tons (steering barely does anything at high speed, but still you can take a hairpin turn at 200 kph by drifting), so I tend to just stick with the same light agile cars all the time. Also, if you have a race where only one or two cars are allowed, you'll still get the whole list to choose from but all the other cars will have some message over them saying you can't pick them. Was it really that hard to only show the elligible cars?
Ok, so maybe it's better if I drive as a cop, maybe I can do some more of those lovely pit manouvers I loved in NFS MW... NOPE! Taking down a car is just as moronic as in NFS Undercover, just bump into the cars until their health bar is all the way down. The only thing that seems to matter is how hard you hit them too, not where. Ramming them a couple times from the back is an excellent way to make them stop, taking the effort to try and spin them out just makes you slower at catching the bad guys. You do also get weapons, but the spike strip seemed to me to be of more use to the racers (yes, the racers get the same on vehicle weapons as the cops...) than to the cops, because as a cop you'll be chasing. You can try to overtake the racer and hit them with the spikes, but again, it's easier to just ram them a couple times from behind (especially because cops automatically gain boost at a pretty high rate). Then there's a targettable EMP, you can call for roadblocks and I believe later on you can call in a chopper? Not sure because before I got there I had to stop because I felt my braincells committing hara kiri... Anyway, it all comes down to gimmicks and no race skill required whatsoever.
Cops also gain bounty, just like racers... Couldn't you have come up with some other term for cops? Really, why would a cop rack up bounty? It's silly.

So, am I just ranting because it's more burnout than NFS? No, because if it actually was burnout I would LOVE that, there hasn't been a decent burnout for too long. But it's not burnout, it's way too tame compared to burnout. Burnout is exhilerating, so bleeding fast that you feel like crawling into your screen, totally focussed on what is appearing at the horizon because you're going to be there in half a second. This... this is just, boring, way too easy, and... well, seems to have been made for some kind of braindead gamer that cares more about social network features than a decent challenging racing game, wether realistic or arcade.… Expand

Bought it recently at a super nice price, i expected an arcade just to have some fun, but tbh i really didnt expect a game tard like it is.
I play with a wheel and cars handling is really unnatural, the feeling of driving a Pagani Zonda is the same as driving a Mitsubishi Lancer, and still it seems not realistic at all, not that i tried a Zonda... but c'mon.
There is not much sense of speed, its too easy to drift, to recover, in most occasions its possible to drive the entire race without using brakes at all, just hand brake at full speed :P
There are no options to raise a bit the difficulty or to make the game a bit more realistic.
Damage system reminds me to OUTRUN the coin op, and also something incredible, there is no way to drive with manual shifting.
Other issues are about the fact there is no logic in what you doing, why you are competing, and even if the idea of the Island and the free roaming is cool, i really miss championships or something to give some more sense then just beat the best track time.
The unlock system is lame, the port is quite bad, no AA, no effects, it seems more an hard port.
Cant really understand what kind of customer they designed the game for tbh.… Expand

CON: I am going to be completely honest about this game based on what I saw myself, and building on what others have said. Everything you see here in these reviews is mostly completely true for the negative parts of the game. The graphics are a complete disaster, the game play is dull and boring, and the cars are hard to drive and the AI will beat you most of the time even if you are going as fast as you possibly can. I have yet to even get 3rd place in the first race because the AI just keeps on passing me like nothing, I haven't even played beyond the first race. PRO:That's all I have to say about this game, as far as the good parts well, I have yet to see one. Good thing I burned a copy from my friend and then got a crack, otherwise I would have gotten screwed = )… Collapse

I give this game a 1 simply because it's graphics are average. They're not fantastic as previously implied (lack of AA) but they're not horrible either. That is where the positives end, however. Upon starting the game, you are greeted by a screen showing you all the car manufacturers who have products featured in the game. This game is filled to the brim with many cars to choose from and unlock for use. Sadly, each car handles exactly the same with the exception of top speed. A Nissan 350z has the exact same handling as a Ford GT. Cars can seamlessly enter a extreme drift going around any corner while doing 300+ kph. This is the only way to take corners since all the vehicles (when not drifting) turn roughly the same as a semi-truck.This is OK though since drifting can literally be imitated with the touch of a button. At least it is consistent. Any player of the Hot Pursuit's of old will immediately recognize the way things work up until the point they experience the SERIOUS rubber-banding issues and the downright cheating AI. Then they will find out that you cannot change anything. You cannot change the colour, settings, tuning, parts, or (!!!!!!!!!!!)even the type of gearbox (!!!!!!!!!!!!!). The tracks are supposedly set routes along a open-world but it does not feel like this. Tracks are very dull and boring with no uniqueness between them, broken up with occasional shortcut which just gives the rubber-banding AI a chance to catch up. I did not get the chance to play online, but I can't say I particularly want to. Once you've had one scoop of feces you don't typically want more… Expand

Just registered this account for this review. I just don't get it that how could IGN give it a goddamned 9. SP is bland and empty, MP is uninteresting, the city is empty, very poorly featured, and don't even get me started at the controls. This game successfully broke the negative record of NFS undercover in my opinion. Congratulations EA.

Driving in this NFS totally sucks. Cars feel like heavy vans or trucks, every turning makes drift. Career mode is boring, near every race you get a new car, races are not satisfying.

After having not played a NFS for some time, I figured I'd give Hot Pursuit a chance. My mistake. Maybe I miss the old NFS: HS days, or back when the AI wouldn't block you from working your way up the pack in a race. Maybe I liked it better when I could pick what weather I wanted, or what time of day, because with Hot Pursuit you can't. Maybe it's because I could pick my competition and actually have a fair race, unlike in this title. Maybe it's being able to use whatever car I wanted to in a race, not what they tell me I have to use. If this game changed the above, stripped the NOS, spike strips, EMPs, and all the other gadgets from the cars(including the racers), they might have something here, but so far, this game is going on my "won't play after a few days" pile. A shame.
Perhaps I'm just old school, but I really hoped for more from this title, and I'm still waiting for it to be delivered.… Expand

I Bought This Game Because I Thought This Was Going To Be Like Most Wanted ... How Wrong Was I Graphics Are Outstanding ... Gameplay Has No Real Goal .. After Playing This It Seems To Be So
Much Like Burnout Paradise .... No Car Modifying At All .. I Used To Love Tweaking My Car With Performance And Visual Mods But Thats Not Possible .... You Cant Use The Same Car For All Events You Have To Use Group Based Cars For Events .... All In All If You Loved Most Wanted Like I Did You Wont Like This Game .... As Far As Im Concerned The Best Game Ive Played From
The Need For Speed Series Was Most Wanted And It Still Is ...............… Expand

This game is repetitive to the point of boring. The physics sucks and the adjustments are non-existant. I can't emphasize enough what a waste of money it is. DONT BUY THIS GAME.

Very disappointing. Great potential completely wasted- just another boring console driving game ported to PC. All cars feel the same with mushy handling and silly drifting. Not even an option for manual gears. Courses are generally pretty boring, wide straight roads doing almost top speed the whole time, no decent corners which is frustrating even with the drifting and poor handling. Can get very sluggish even on a way overspec machine, sometimes to the point of being unplayable. The police element is embarrassingly cheesy and over-the-top. Progress scenes are unskippable and transition frustratingly slowly. Avoid.… Expand

FAIL! GARBAGE! This is what happens when you join forces with losers like Criterion! I regret buying this piece of garbage, shame on you EA for allowing this trash to have your name on it! Great graphics? Is everyone on crack? Graphics are shameful for a game this new, it causes hardlocks in xfire/sli, No, AA settings, constant FPS stutters, this is definitly designed for weak consoles. It is a weak game, so it's fitting. I love the police chasing and running from the pigs, but this is embarrassing! I thought Undercover was weak, but OMG! I guess Crtierion needed EA funding to use actual cars this time instead of fake made -up rides, I don't know what happened here, but it's embarrassing, I'm half tempted to make a new steam account just so I won't have to look at this POS on my screen anylonger. Physics? Where are you? Holy Pixelation Batman! Get my drift here? Don't waste your time or precious money on this junk! If you rate this a 10 for whatever reason you defintily need your head checked, even the good features suck. I'm a die hard NFS fan, and I really wish I was dreaming when I bought this, or seen the NFS logo on it. It's reincarnated Burnout. There's absolutely no NFS identity here whatsoever, I really hope and pray to everything holy in the universe that Criterion is never allowed to touch another NFS title again! Actually they shouldn't be allowed to touch anything that runs on a PC.… Expand

At its best Need for Speed Hot Pursuit is an average arcade-racer. The visuals are nice, there is no shortage of tracks and there is a decent amount of cars The cars handle for the most part fine though very arcady which might put some people off) and most cars handles quite similar to each other. The game is also playable with keyboard which is always nice. The game do sadly have lot of flaws that ruined my time with the game. The camera in the game is awful and it constantly switches to crashes, new police cars etc when it really should follow the car i am driving. Another problem in the game is the rubberbanding. I can accept a certain usage if rubberbanding but its extremely noticeable in this game and it takes away any kind of immersion in the game not to mention the fact that the result of the race can be determined by those hidden calculations. Those two are my biggest problem with the core gameplay but there is also quite a lot of minor problem. Minimal graphical options, menus without mouse-support, forced on social unskippable cutscenes, too much nonsense between races and an uneven difficulty-curve. I might sound really negative but the game is not all bad. I had a couple of hours of fun with it but i would describe it as a below average arcade racing game. There is definitely worse games to pick up for a cheap price but the are certainly better as well.… Expand

No real tuning like were in Underground times .Real NFS like Underground is dead sad. Sorry, EA, you're the ones making us not buy your games. I wish EA did spend all the money they used to buyout all the game reviewers out there for actually developing a quality game. This game is a total disappointment. I have to admit that the graphics are okay, but the game-play is very bad.