Hot Pursuit Preview - E3 2010

E3 2010: We get to see, and play, the newest Need for Speed title

Posted by Alex V on June 24, 2010 - 8:01pm EST

Finally getting down to some core gameplay, the first thing to notice is the game looks great. Running on what we presume is an updated Burnout Paradise engine, the cars look fantastic and the environments are varied. The game is finally back to the great outdoors, so expect to see a lot of open maps full of vegetation and civilian traffic. Once the race starts, the racers must escape the police by losing visual contact and then attempting to hide. The goal for the cops is to take the racers down with enough damage – no longer are you required to box in the enemy driver, making the cops’ job much more reasonable. Each racer has a health meter, and as the race wears on the damage on the cars becomes more visible, though it doesn’t seem to affect the gameplay.

Both racers and cops have four different special abilities at their disposal. For example, the cops have the ability to deploy roadblocks, call in aerial support, and set up spike strips. Racers meanwhile can use a jammer to break the cop’s navigation and abilities system, use a decoy on the minimap, and boost using overdrive. There are more abilities promised, such as upgradable aerial support. Cops can call in a helicopter that prevents the player from hiding even if they lose line of sight with the police, and later models can follow the racer into tunnels to continue the chase. The abilities recharge during the race, and the longer the race, the more bounty is earned – the bigger the payout for those who can escape, and bigger prize for the cops if they catch them.

After the presentation, we had a chance to get our hands on the game. Playing as a racer, the car handled well, with a predominantly arcade style of driving physics. That’s not a complaint by any means, as the original game was a fun and easy race title, and with Burnout the developer already has a proven track record of making very fun and easy to control titles. Using the various abilities to escape the human opponent was very entertaining, and since the world is open, making hard corners or even driving the opposite way makes for great fun. After escaping successfully by losing our pursuers, we had a go at the cop side of things. The gameplay for the cops is definitely more strategic – rather than desperately using up abilities as soon as possible and hope to escape, the cops must carefully string their driving and abilities together to make a successful catch or destroy the opponent’s car.

After watching the live demo and then trying the game, it is clear that Criterion are ready to return the franchise to its glory. Slick visuals combined with still simple yet refined and ultimately fun gameplay, Hot Pursuit looks to be a real contender for this holiday season. With the game ready to ship this November for PC, 360 and PS3, the development is nearly complete. And if what we saw was close to the final product, then there is a ton to look forward to, for both fans and general racing enthusiasts alike.