Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (demo)

[PeteJ]

Demo was launched today on 360 (and I assume PS3), was looking forward to it being from the Burnout guys, but from the demo this is one to avoid.

First of all, the big feature of 'Autolog', where it tracks your progress against your friends, is broken in the demo. Sure to be fixed in the final release (or before) but its a bit dumb to advertise the feature just before reaching the main menu and then not letting you use it. I can forgive that, and it isn't particularly surprising to have an EA release broken at launch.

The demo features two events, one as the Cops and one as a Racer. The Cop event is open, the Racer event is locked until a friend has played the demo...which also seems to be broken. Not a good start.

Onto the main bit then, the actual racing:
The game looks much worse than Burnout Paradise for starters.
The handling massively understeers to the point of it being unplayable, I couldn't find a way of tweaking the settings and both available cars felt the same.
As feared, ramming AI cars off the road when driving for the Police is completely unengaging. The central mechanic is just plain dull. Criteron did a much better job way back in Burnout 3 so not sure what has happened here.

Dull, sluggish and ugly. Three words I didn't expect to describe this title, but from the demo at least this game looks to be very average indeed.

[merf]

Agree with all of that, seems to me to be a terrible demo of a really very average game

Its just dull, as I feared the vids looked

Already cancelled my pre-order

[Prototype]

Wow, thought this would be atleast an improvement over Shift with Criterion developing it. What is it with the influx of overhyped games that turn out to be rubbish? Had quite a few games on pre-orders, but have been cancelling them due to bad reviews.

[kernow]

oh man, it sounds as I expected. The series died to me after HP2.

[nakamura]

oh man, it sounds as I expected. The series died to me after HP2.

I loved Underground also, the first one without all the crappy open roads and poor circuit design. The series died after that for me.

Anyway downloading now but not expecting much. EA seem to be back to their old selves lately.

[kernow]

meh underground, let's see - a lamborghini or a vw golf with body kit.. hmmh

[J0e Musashi]

Why don't they just make Most Wanted 2 already?

[englishbob]

After only playing one event it would be foolish to rule it out just yet.

OK so the demo hasn't done itself much favours (at least 2 or 3 events would of been better) but I am sure it will get better. It has to, right?

[Uli]

Pete did already sum it up pretty well. disappointing for me as i had some expectations about this. most of all due to Shift, which, even though it was broken at release and never fully fixed, remains a fantastic racing experience and placed itself well between arcade and sim racers.

[nakamura]

meh underground, let's see - a lamborghini or a vw golf with body kit.. hmmh

First underground had no supercars. Best motor was a Skyline and despite the horrific bodykits I love it. Turn all the driving assists off and it was a superb arcade racer.


Anyway the demo was pretty poor. It had no wow factor at all which is surprising as Burnout still impresses me on the PS2. Handling was decent, nothing amazing but certainly good fun.

It has a little potential but I am sick of the americanised settings that come with every EA racing game.

[Team Andromeda]

This is shocking The gameplay is beyond dull, the handling a compete joke, and the graphics look like some PS2 game . I hope this demo is mega early code.

[kernow]

First underground had no supercars.

That was my point!

[Neon Ignition]

I didn't mind it. I got used to the controls and once I got recent NFS/Burnout out my head it started to remind me of the old NFS's which is at least better than the Underground era trash EA churned out. Nowhere near Criterions finest but it seems decent enough.

[nakamura]

That was my point!

It appeared to go a few miles over my head then!

[kernow]

It still amazes me just how many NFS games there are, and what small percentage are actually good