Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

The thrill of the open road - it's something that appeals to anyone with more than a drop of testosterone coursing through them; hot black tarmac stretching as far as the eye can see unfurling under a clear blue sky while tall pines and rock faces sculpt miles of automotive pleasure that offer the ultimate in male hedonism. Video games have been treading these tracks since their inception, from OutRun's breezy take on the experience through to the studied autism of Gran Turismo.

 

And it's something that was core to the very first Need for Speed, a game that wowed some 16 years ago and spawned what's become one of gaming's very biggest racing franchises. There have been some interesting detours since, whether that was the Hollywood excess of Undercover or the white-knuckled brilliance of Shift, but the first game was essentially about nothing more complex than the joys of one man and his machine pitted against miles of winding road.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Criterion's much-anticipated spin on the series, takes this basic concept, furnishes it with the Burnout developer's experience of connected play and polishes it to within an inch of its life. The result is a promising and potentially potent mix; a racer that's aware of its heritage while acknowledging the connected nature of its hardware – and it means that Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit could be the most exciting driving game in some time.

 

First the basics; Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit excels on the road, something that's immediately apparent during our first demonstration, a straight-up Time Trial behind the wheel of a Carrera GT. The car itself is heart-stoppingly attractive; this may be the first time that Criterion has been charged with replicating real-life vehicles but you'd be hard-pushed to tell. The in-game models stop-short of the precision offered by the likes of Forza and Gran Turismo but to atone it seems they've been oh-so-delicately caricatured, the curves and bumps bought to the fore and ensuring that the cars are just screaming to be chucked around.

 

Hot Pursuit's handling plays well to this impulse. The cars feel pendulous with a real sense of momentum, and while teasing the rear end out with a dab of the brakes is straightforward, maintaining a powerslide with grace is a rewardingly tough endeavour. They feel alive, making Burnout Paradise's cars feel restrictive in retrospect – and it seems as if Criterion has struck the perfect balance between its arcade heritage and the Need for Speed's more straight-faced demands.

t helps that the roads Criterion have crafted are so spectacular. The first we see, Oakmont Valley, looks every inch the tribute to the 1994 original. A rain-slicked road winds through pines and North Pacific wilderness, swinging around the Eastern-most part of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit's fictional Seacrest County. It's all very handsome, but as it swiftly descends into night-time it reveals itself to be spectacular.

 

Lights dance off the puddles and bounce from the walls of tunnels on the route, red trials streaming from the rear of the car while nitrous bursts paint the road in a phosphorous blue. A downhill run to an illuminated dam feels like it could be ripped straight from OutRun 2, though Hot Pursuit's impressive deferred lighting and handsome visuals makes it clear that this is Criterion pulling the strings. It's not the only time that Criterion's influence is felt. A later event dubbed Sun, Sand and Supercars shows the studio is expertly towing the line between its own philosophy and the series' persona. An 11.4 mile run modelled on the Pacific Coastal Highway takes in some breathtaking sights, from the dust-storms at the course's start to a glimpse of the ocean that's so breathtaking it almost sends us careering off the road.

 

The long stretches and audacious elevation changes bring to mind the very first Need for Speed game, but get the Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560-4 Spyder intimate with its opposition and its clear who's making this game. Grind a rival car into the environment and the action will slow, the camera pulling back for a slow-motion look at the carnage that's been instigated as a million dollars worth of supercar scrapes along the tarmac. It's not the only borrowing from Burnout – there's a familiar nitro bar that's filled by familiar tasks, be that checking traffic or holding a lurid slide.

 

This arcade excess is even taken further than Criterion has ventured before in the previously detailed Hot Pursuit modes, though they're still in keeping with the series' mandate. These are manic affairs, especially in the new Blacklisted mode that we get to try. It's a straight point-to-point run with one twist; the cops are out in force, and their numbers steadily increase as the course's end is reached. What starts off as trading paint with some black and whites – which, in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit's wonderful alternate world, are all supercars themselves, with the stock cop mount being a GTR Spec V – soon escalates as the force starts to implement its arsenal. There are spikes which can be dodged and road blocks that can be threaded through, all done while a helicopter swoops overhead, it's flashing blue and red lights brilliantly strobing around the scenery.

 

Then the big guns come out; in this instance the police decide to roll-out a Pagani Zonda decked out in stealth black paint and complete with some flashing lights of its own. That's when it gets really hectic, and as night quickly descends the scrapes and sparks of the ensuing duel light up the dark. Getting to the finish line without being spun out, spiked or pummeled into oblivion is a herculean task, and it's something that elicits a little scream of delight when we manage to pull it off.

 

The police may put up one hell of a fight, but the player's greatest rival in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit will always be their friends. Autolog, Criterion's own bespoke social networking service, dynamically pulls in recent achievements from friends lists and models events around them. It's presented in a feed that's familiar from the likes of Twitter and Facebook – hot times mix with status updates and photos pulled both from the game world and a own photo studio where dream shots can be posed.

 

What's really impressive is how this informs the on-road action; events are suggested off the back of friend's recent activity, while a 'speedwall' serves as Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit's leaderboard. It's pervasive too, as friends' hot times that are within the player's grasp are displayed on the in-game HUD.

 

This borrowing of social networking traits is something that's been tried before with the likes of Blur, but never has it been so fundamental to a racing game's make-up. But while it's certainly interesting, making for a game that's connected in a much more natural way than Criterion's Burnout: Paradise, it's the other aspects of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit that really excite; the glorious open roads and ferocious supercars alongside all the brawn and dazzle that's become the studio's territory. 16 years on from the original and it looks like Need for Speed has found its perfect partner in Criterion - and the result could well be the best in the series yet.