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As a racing fan, I’ve
been anxiously awaiting top flight titles to grace the Gamecube. The
good news is that a few racers have come out, unfortunately with a
couple exceptions, they have been very weak games. Does Need For
Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 deliver an exciting, high-octane console
racing experience? Yes, if you own a PS2.
GAME MODES
The first option in the main menu is the games namesake, Hot
Pursuit. The mode is essentially a large “tree” of races,
meaning you start with the first race, and it progresses into two,
and then each of those opens two distinct brackets. You have to
successfully complete the race’s requirements in order to open the
next bracket. In addition to the brackets, you’ll be unlocking cars
and tracks throughout. There are various types of races, some simply
require you to place a certain spot or higher to advance, others are
lap knockouts in which each lap the last place car is eliminated,
and in later stages you’ll have multi-race challenges, and you’ll
have to accumulate points to win. The common thread in HP
mode are the cops, who are constantly trying to take you out.
Championship mode follows the same “race tree” setup as HP
mode, though without the police interference. The race options are
virtually the same, with the emphasis on your competitors. You are
also awarded medals based on performance (bronze, silver, gold). In
later stages you will be required to get higher medal rankings to
advance.
The Single Challenge loses the “race tree” setup, and simply
allows you to pick a car, a track, and go racing. You can also turn
cops and traffic on and off, and change the number of laps. There is
also an option for you to “be the cop”, though I didn’t find it too
entertaining. Most of the cars and tracks are locked. Since there
are no brackets to progress through, the only way to unlock items in
this mode is via you “credits”. You accumulate credits throughout
all modes by winning races, ditching cops, and getting “air”.
Speaking of air, if you’ve seen the commercials you’ve seen the cool
looking slow-motion jumps. Throughout the game, whenever you get
air-born, the game goes into a brief cut scene and allows you to see
your car complete the jump from a front/side view movie camera
setup. The last option is Quick Race, and its just that. It
puts you right into a race, and randomly selects the car and track
for you (only from those that are unlocked though).
CONTROL/GAMEPLAY (5)
The controller setup is very straight forward, following that of
most racers. Steering is handled via the main stick, acceleration by
the green “A” button, and brakes by the red “B” button. The “X”
button applies the hand-brake, which is essential for taking tight
corners, and the “Y” button will change the camera’s view. If you
prefer to shift manually, the “R” trigger shifts up, and the “L”
trigger downshifts. The purple “Z” button will reset your car if you
have a major crash, this can save you a couple seconds of tumbling
uncontrollably. The yellow stick allows you to look behind. Being
similar to that of most console racers, I went with the default
settings, but there are other control-sets available.
The gameplay is one of the major issues that keeps this game from
being a must buy, and in fact makes it down right not fun at times.
The first issue is the steering controls, they are very sluggish.
Most of the tracks are very winding, and the lack of tight steering
response basically insures you’ll spend more time scraping the rails
and walls then turning clean fast laps. The slower cars are easier
to control, because they are sooo slow. Basically, you are caught
between decent control with no sensation of speed, or decent speed
with pinball-like car dynamics. The other thing that really gets
annoying if you happen to get out front and have a bit of a bobble
(and I guarantee you will!) the oncoming cars will blast you
viciously and you’ll promptly find yourself in last place. Oh, and
if the cops do “bust” you, its game-over. Fortunately this is rare,
as they are quite easy to avoid (much easier than the brutal PS2
version)
As I mentioned above the game features a brief cinematic cut-scene
each time you get major air. I found it to be totally disrupting to
the races, and often upon landing you are so disoriented by the
camera change you’ll promptly find yourself tumbling uncontrollably.
Some tracks are also packed with hills, so the constant cuts can
really drag out the races. The good news is you can turn off this
option, and I promptly did so.
There is a wide variety in the tracks, some are good, some not so
good. All the tracks are winding, and long straights are few and far
between. Like previous NFS versions there are numerous shortcuts
throughout, and some are essential for winning races against you
competition, so look for ‘em!
GRAPHICS (6)
 Lets start with the good, the car models are solid, and generally
better than the PS2 versions. They are overall more refined, and
offer some nice reflections, which the PS2 lacks. Some look better
than others, with the Lambo’s and McClaren’s looking the best. The
bad news is virtually everything else is lacking. The background
environments are noticeably muddy and unrefined, and the lighting is
average at best. Aliasing is apparent throughout the tracks and some
car models, but I’ve seen worse. My biggest complaint is the
frame-rate. It constantly chugs and stutters, no matter how fast or
how many cars. While brutal slow-down isn’t a problem, the constant
skips in the frame-rate make for a jerky racing experience. An
overall disappointment.
SOUND (7)
Fortunately the sound is one area where the game comes off strong.
The engine sounds are fairly accurate, and always sound powerful, no
mosquito buzzing here. The collision sounds are pretty good, and
they better be ‘cause you’ll hear a lot of them. All other effects
(like tire squeals and changing road surfaces) are solid. The game
runs in Dolby Surround, which makes for a crisp overall production.
The soundtrack is you basic mix of rock/rap rock, and you get about
15 tracks total. Bush, Rush, and Uncle Kracker are the big names
here, though there are others I’m not familiar with. Unlike the PS2
version, you don’t have the option for a jukebox to select your
tracks, so you are stuck with what the game chooses.
REPLAY (6)
Between the Championship and Hot Pursuit modes you have plenty to
work on, after completing those you can work on burning your credits
to open more cars and tracks in the single player challenges. If
that wasn’t enough there is a solid two player mode, which runs
about the same as the single player races. If you can get past the
control/frame-rate issues then I can see many hours of gameplay, if
you exhaust all modes. The question is, will you want to play
this?
OVERALL (6)
Not a terrible game, but certainly it’s full of flaws which make in
no more than a decent rental. Apparently the Gamecube and Xbox
versions were an afterthought, which is why they are inferior to the
PS2 version. Instead of pushing for the simultaneous release, I
would have rather they took a couple more months to polish the
control/frame-rate issues and in doing so offer a strong game. You
do get a nice selection of licensed cars and a strong line-up of
tracks to unlock, unfortunately the performance issues make it
unfulfilling in the end. If you own a PS2, buy that version!
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