Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit (PS3, 360, PC)

[ItsThere]

Put this on today as I have nothing else to play, got it for christmas, its terrible, one of the worst racing games I have ever played. Theres no feel to the cars, it shoves autolog down your face and the store every 60 seconds. Absolutely awful. Managed two and a half races before ejecting the disc and deleting all the files, this is getting traded tomorrow. So poor it's unreal.

Unskippable NFS2 Shift video at the start, 15 mins later I'm in a race, **** you EA.

I thought EXACTLY that when I first started this.

However, after a few hours (which was a slog) I really started to like it. The drifting in the more powerful cars is a little like Outrun (but weightier) and the police chase / escapes are really very good.

I would say stick with it for a few hours and see if it clicks with you.

[QualityChimp]

I've recently started playing this after dabbling with a couple of races earlier in the year.

I'm struggling to get into it.

I'm not the best at racers, but I've played my fair share over the years, and I can't get to grips with this. I love the presentation, the cars, the music, the autolog wall, the graphics and levelling up, but the handling makes me look like I'm drunk.

If I'm driving into oncoming traffic to get nitro and see a car coming in the distance, I'll nudge the controller to move into the correct lane. It'll then steer too far and I'll start heading into the kerb. So then I'll adjust left again, but too far and end up square-on with the oncoming car I'd made the effort to avoid!

I'm swerving up the road like my wheels are made of butter most of the time. I'm also finding hard to judge gaps in road blocks. I can see them up ahead, but can't see the gap between them - it just all seems dark with flashing lights on top.

I'd love to use the 1st person camera as it's so thrilling, but my car always seems to be as wide as a bus and I never get a "near miss", I always seem to clip the other traffic.

I never had this trouble with Burnout 2 - it always felt like my fault if I crashed. I played Forza 3 loads and never had the frustration I've gotten from just a few races.

Anybody else have these issues too?!

[Skull Commander]

I'm finding it pretty hard to get my car aimed into a lot of the shortcuts. My problem sounds similar in that I steer towards a slip road and end up going too far over. When I adjust back the other way I often end up crashing into the bit that separates the road from the shortcut. It's worse with some cars than others, but I don't always feel like i'm fully in control.

Like you I have just started playing it, and apart from the odd niggle (like the above) I'm really enjoying it. I had my first couple of online games last night and thought it was good fun, although there were some lag issues with one of the other players.

[Mayhem]

The steering is a bit sensitive, you really do only have to nudge it gently at times. Not so good if you've beaten up your 360 pad. You do get used to it in time though, especially when you get higher up the car grades. As for the road blocks, yes they can be a little hit or miss at times...

[nonny]

I cant say I had any problems with the steering in this but it definitely falls somewhere between burnout style drifts and arcade style PGR-esque cornering. The cars in this can be either heavy or light depending on what vehicles you prefer and so you have to get used to each car and it's weight more than anything else in the driving mechanic.

I've got every achievement for this now and maxed the game out. Playing with friends is an absolute blast and if you have a few mates with the game yourself I urge you to pick up the Armed & Dangerous DLC packs for online play because the two modes they add are pure gold. The first one called Arms Race is a standard race event but with all weapons thrown in for usage. The AI will throw cops at you at the same time and what you end up with is pure mayhem from start to finish.

Likewise the second mode Most Wanted is basically a multiplayer expansion of the 1on1 Interceptor mode. You can pick any number of cops/racers but one racer will be chosen as Most Wanted and is the person you need to bust to win. All routes are open and it's a major team even to co-ordinate police chases and not let them get out of range.

With road blocks at speed they're very, very hard to navigate but generally the gap is going to be slightly left or right of centre so always look there first. Then randomly depending on road width you'll get the odd rare one which requires going wide. If in doubt... slow down and check as quite often braking slightly will result in you merely clipping the road block without initiating an actual crash.

My best advice is just stick with it... the handling soon becomes second nature. With drifting you really dont need to steer that much at all unless it's a major hairpin. Most slight bends can be taken without drifting to maintain top speed and if you do need to drift only a fraction try not to steer much at all. You'll feel the controller begin to vibrate and thats pretty much when you should stop steering and let the drift do the rest. Takes some practice but I've found I've gone back to autolog times I thought were excellent and completely wiped them off the leaderboards.

[Mayhem]

I got the first DLC, but the others seemed a bit expensive for what they offered, and they've never packaged all three up together for a reduced price. Probably too late now though. I might still get them, have to see. Are there still enough people playing online for it to be worthwhile?

[nonny]

The number of players online has diminshed quite a bit but there are still quite a few people playing it. I generally play in private matches with friends at this stage as we can mix/match the modes as we please. If you can get some mates interested in playing it then definitely get the armed and dangerous DLC... I've got all DLC at this stage but it's that pack that adds the two new game modes.

[ItsThere]

I really didn't enjoy the NFS: Heat that was free on the PSN recently but now this is on sale for £3.50 and it is still a blast.

The Remastered version has me starting again racing against the times of Forum users past and present. I see Teddy, J0e and others on my autolog and man does it make me want to do better in those races.

If the new NFS is like this then it will be great but it looks like it won't be. Another youth culture nonsene open world effort is not what I want. I like fast, simple arcade racing.

[wakka]

£3.50 is a bargain, I just scored a copy too. I missed this back on PS3 and 360 for some reason.