Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit for PlayStation 3 Reviews by Gamers

This entry into the Need for Speed franchise is brought to us by the people responsible for the widely popular Burnout: Paradise. Let's look at both sides of this.

The Good:
- Cool Cars
- Decent Music
- Interesting Weapons
- Decent Graphics (a few jaggies)
- Nice Environments
- Great Wrecks
- A Reward System
- Weather
- Photo Mode
- Vehicle Specs
- Wreck AI racer

The Bad:

- NPC vehicles stop instead of pulling to the shoulder when a cop nears them.
- Insane catch up system for AI, none for player
- AI can turn on a dime
- Unlimited weapons loadout for AI
- AI cars respawn when cornered by cop
- AI cars take serious amount of punishment not given to player
- Driving the same model car, AI is always faster
- No modifications to cars
- No manual shift
- Road Blocks are unbalanced (When you're a racer, cars cover both sides of the road. When you are a cop, cars cover one side of the road with a wooden barricade in the middle of the road.)
- Helicopters are stupid (Usually drops spikes behind racer if you are a cop)
- Spikes are unbalanced. (They stay where you drop them, AI's track your movement)
- AI has unlimited weapons, you do not.
- Not all unlocked cars usuable after they are unlocked (They are stage dependant)
- Past stage cars are not available
- Forced to watch wrecks and crashes
- Cop time trial (called Rapid Response) has penalty time for hitting, scraping, touching anything.
- Road block cars don't pursue racers after the pass the road block if you are a cop.

This title leaves, not only the Fast and Furious style, but the original style of racing that came before it.

In all they left give the AI too much superiority. You shouldn't have to stop the chase just because a racer finishes his race. You are chasing a suspect until they evade you or they are caught. The cop is not a part of the race. In NFS: HP2 for PS2 you had to evade the cop after the race. I am still waiting for a great non-sim NFS title.

EA, you're losing it. The need for speed concept is absolutely fun. Speeding from cops, crashing and the thrill of beating your friend's best record is just great fun. However, all of your petty rules surrounding this fun, simply squashes it. Unskippable commercials, long introductions, lack of local multiplayer and the lame attempt to squeeze more money from us gamers to play online robs this game of great fun. Replayability mainly comes from competition, therefore, interactivity should have been a top factor when making this game. What's next, a single player MADDEN 12? "It's in the game" will have to change to "It's not in the game (unless you pay)". Your cutting out standard components of the game in order to receive premiums. My guess is that this may work for the short term, but long term? Nah ah. If you were or are in financial trouble, this is yet another step in the wrong direction.