
	Platform Xbox 360 Genre Racing Publisher Electronic Arts Developer Criterion Games ESRB E +!0 (Everyone) Released November 16, 2010

- Awesome sense of speed - Giant roster of "real world" cars - Autolog feature - Looks awesome

- I miss the cars exploding like egg shells - I could have done without the "power-ups"

Review: Burnout Paradise (360) Review: Gran Turismo 4 (PS2) Review: Need for Speed: Most Wanted (360)
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Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

Score: 9.0 / 10

I was one of those people that instantly re-titled Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit as Need for Speed: Burnout thanks to developer Criterion's past efforts with the crazy car racing Burnout games, where egg shell cars exploding and disintegrating at incredible speed were a matter of course and, in fact, encouraged.

Hot Pursuit doesn't quite reach the same levels of insanity as a Burnout game, but

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there's still an emphasis on going really, really fast either on the side of the law or as a over-compensating street racer in "real world" cars.

The game is jammed full of licensed cars, which likely accounts for the lack of spectacular wrecks and "bouncing" off walls, and they all have one thing in common: speed.

Hot Pursuit is at its absolute best when a

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simple goal is provided and I'm given a rolling start, practically flying into oncoming traffic to build up my nitro so I can go even faster. As more challenges and stretches of road are unlocked, there are offensive/defensive actions that become available, like a spike belt and police roadblocks, which muddied the experience for me. Those extra abilities started to irritate me (and not just when they were used on me) because I enjoyed the racing so much. Split/Second provided the simple to use Power Play system that required some timing but that was about it. Hot Pursuit requires timing, accuracy and a little luck to successfully deploy these power-ups and after the brief novelty factor wore off, they just frustrated me. Seeing these power-ups actually work can be satisfying but becoming proficient enough to do that regularly might take a long time.

What really makes Hot Pursuit stand out for me is the Autolog feature. Connected through Live, Autolog tracks all your times and progress and constantly updates the best times of the competition on your Friends list. It's all about the leaderboards! Notcing a buddy has eclipsed your best time by five seconds on a particular race ups the ante and beating him becomes a goal rather than some preset that the developers created.

At it's core Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is an arcade racer. It smacks all the right targets, my personal preferences regarding power-ups notwithstanding.

- Aaron Simmer

(December 31, 2010)