https://www.cybersport.ru/games/articles/obzor-need-for-speed-hot-pursuit-remastered-neplokhoi-no-absolyutno-nenuzhnyi-remaster

Not Need for Speed, but Burnout

Despite the fact that there is no plot as such in Hot Pursuit, there are some rudiments of lore in the game. The action takes place in Seacrest County – a fictional territory that combines all possible types of landscape – snow-capped mountains, rocky and flat deserts, green fields, meadows planted with grain, and the seaside. A plush road network with perfect asphalt makes Seacrest County a haven for street racers of all stripes – from regular, charged sedan and coupe owners to the fastest exclusive hypercars.

But at the same time, the law and traffic rules have not been canceled, and the police in Seacrest County are doing their best to stop the endless street races. The law enforcement officers do not spare resources – it is not a problem for the authorities to send Bugatti or Lamborghini in pursuit, while using them for ramming, or to build a barrage of Shelby GT500 or Porsche Cayenne. Not without additional equipment – spikes that pierce tires, helicopters that open “hedgehogs” in the path of racers, and generators of electromagnetic impulses are used to help the police. The riders respond in the same way, only instead of a helicopter they have a turbo accelerator, and instead of a barrier – a police communications suppressor.

As a result, the confrontation between the authorities and the violators turns into a brutal carnage on the road, which the local showdown is only happy about. Expensive cars crash without any remorse, because thanks to the gaming convention, there is no need to buy a car and already on the next race the driver will have a completely new and whole car! This is why Burnout fans will find Hot Pursuit a lot more familiar than NFS fans. This is not surprising, because the game was developed by the authors of the Burnout series – Criterion Games.

In HP there is no collective farm tuning with hefty “benches” on the trunk and body kits that turn a sports car into a racing bulldozer. In this game, you can’t shove a V8 with a compressor under the hood of an Audi TT and turn it into the fastest cramps on the planet. NFS Hot Pursuit is ruled by clean stock, and thanks to it all the beauty and grandeur of the elite car industry can be felt without the questionable modifications to the body, power plant and chassis.

But there is the most arcade physics in which absolutely any, even the sharpest turn is easily passed on drift at a speed of 150-200 km / h. At the same time, keeping the angle is not difficult: just release the gas and immediately press it, turning the steering wheel in parallel. And even a child can continue to control the skid. A powerful blow to the side of the enemy, policeman or intruder, leads to the fact that the car is sent into the obstacle, and any accident is accompanied by a short cut-scene in the manner of Burnout.

Need for speed versus need for law

Unlike most other parts of NFS, Hot Pursuit invites the user to play not only for the racers, but also for the cops. The campaigns do not overlap in any way and are completely independent of each other – that is, you can go through them both simultaneously and separately. Both sides have significant differences in many aspects of the gameplay. For example, consider the mechanics of nitro. For riders, it is restored for dangerous driving – driving on cuts or the oncoming lane, drifting or when passing close by near traffic. For policemen, only drift affects the filling rate of nitro. At the same time, it is consumed much faster than that of the racers, but at the same time it gives the car much more acceleration.

Some game modes also differ. In a racer’s career there are standard races without police, where you just need to come to the finish line first, “Chases”, in which the guardians of the law will constantly interfere with you and your opponents, “Race against the clock”, where you need to get to the finish line alone in the allotted time , and “Preview” – in fact, the same “Race against the clock”, only on cars that are not yet available, but will be opened as the campaign progresses.

Some of the coping career modes are very similar, but have their own nuances. For example, “React” is analogous to “Race against the clock” or “Preview”, in which collisions with fences and traffic add a penalty time. The police have their own “Pursuit”, but this time the task is not to finish first, but to stop all the riders before they reach the finish line. A special police campaign mode – “Interception”. It’s like a boss fight – you need to stop one but very tough and well trained intruder within the allotted time.

It makes no sense to describe each mode in detail: races – they are races in Africa too. Particular attention should be paid only to the “Chase” mode for the police – this is a real killer feature of Hot Pursuit. There is nothing more fun than wiping out the cars of the EMP racers with spiked stripes and daring side punches. And as you progress, you want to go through races in other modes as quickly as possible in order to get to the next “Chase”. Fortunately, there is no need to win all races to advance through the plot – it is enough to enter the top 3. The only thing that affects the final position is the number of points for which vehicle upgrades and new cars are unlocked. But it is completely unnecessary to force the set of points, because it will not complicate the further passage in any way.

Cars are divided into several classes – from sports cars like the Mazda RX-8 or Nissan 370Z to hypercars like the Bugatti Veyron and Koenigsegg Agera. Within the framework of one class, cars practically do not differ in dynamic characteristics – the acceleration and maximum speed parameters noted when choosing an auto are purely cosmetic in nature. Significant differences lie in handling and strength: some cars are much easier to control while drifting, but at the same time, their strength is much lower. Others will be stronger, but when entering a turn they are too skid. There are also models in which these indicators are balanced. But not a single type of car can be called cheating – the game can be played in absolutely any car, and it all depends solely on the user’s driving style. Except that in the final pursuits without a solid Bugatti it will be difficult: the police will throw too many spikes and put up so many obstacles that to successfully complete the race in a less strong car, you simply cannot reach the finish line, despite a good pace.

The original Need for Speed ​​Hot Pursuit featured nice graphics and design. The industrial landscapes of the previous parts were replaced by country roads with smooth curves and a horizon that is not obscured by skyscrapers and other city buildings. The career of a policeman also brought some variety – the last time fans of the series could play as cops in Need for Speed ​​Hot Pursuit 2, but in HP 2010 this campaign has become much more elaborated in terms of detail and perception. The game received the highest Metacritic score of any Need for Speed ​​title, which is very controversial given the presence of Underground and Most Wanted. However, it will not turn out to be a bad or even average language – for fans of arcade racing, she just went with a bang, especially against the background of the conveyor that EA arranged after Most Wanted.

Ten years – no noticeable changes

When EA announced the Hot Pursuit 2010 remaster, the question immediately arose – why is it needed? Not to say that the graphics of the original are hopelessly outdated or that modern systems run this game crookedly. Not at all – everything works well, and because those who have not got tired of HP in ten years, and those who accidentally ran into it relatively recently, would not have encountered any problems with its launch.

The only caveat is that additional content for HP was released only on consoles. In the remaster, all DLCs are already included in the game, including on PC, so on this platform users will get several new cars at once, as well as races with them – the Porsche 911 Turbo in the 930 body, Porsche 959, Lamborghini Countach, Lamborghini Diablo and a few other cars. At the same time, for some reason, the developers removed the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss, Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren 722 Edition and the Carbon Motors E7 police officer from the game. In addition, most cars can now be repainted in any color – previously only factory colors were available.

But the main change in Need for Speed ​​Hot Pursuit Remastered is the graphics. Despite the fact that the original still looks good, there was practically no anti-aliasing in it – even turning on anisotropic filtering did not greatly affect the picture. Now graphics settings have become more flexible: the user can change many parameters, and at the maximum preset the image becomes really high quality. But only those who peer into each polygon will notice this, and even then either in photo mode or in the screensavers before the races. The fact is that at a speed of 200-400 km / h there is no time to look at the car or the surrounding landscapes – the gaze is focused on a small square in the center of the screen, where the horizon intersects with the road surface. For this reason, you won’t be able to get a new feel from the game in HP Remastered – you simply won’t notice the difference in graphics.

What fans of the original will really appreciate is that you can now skip information about new cars, increased levels of pursuit, new equipment, and so on. Previously, these skips and animations took a lot of time and frankly infuriated. The Russian-speaking audience will be upset by the lack of localized voice acting, which was in HP in 2010. What this is connected with and what prevented the developers from simply transferring it from the old version is difficult to explain. The fact is that in the original, when choosing a car, a pleasant female voice read the description, but the PC version lacked more than a dozen cars from the DLC. Apparently, the localizers decided that it makes no sense to supplement the voice acting with their descriptions in Russian. And then either all, or nothing – to leave the Russian voices and simply add an English description to the missing cars, they considered it irrational and in the end they simply removed the Russian voice acting completely.