Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 is one of those games that perfectly embodies the essence of arcade racing, delivering players an unforgettable experience full of speed, excitement, and intense competition. In the world of video games, the Need for Speed franchise has long earned its cult status thanks to its thrilling races, and Hot Pursuit 2 maintains the same high level of quality and action that fans have come to expect from the series.

One of the game's key advantages is the vast selection of tracks on which you can test your driving skills. Each track is unique, with its own obstacles, twists, and picturesque landscapes. You'll race through dense forests, along coastlines, and through city streets, all while enjoying the variety of environments and opportunities for maneuvering. The diverse locations allow you to feel like a real racer, with each track presenting new challenges. This variety ensures that every race feels fresh and exciting, even after hours of gameplay.

The game also impresses with its wide assortment of famous cars that become available to players. If you've ever dreamed of getting behind the wheel of legendary supercars like Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, and other iconic brands, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 gives you that opportunity. Each car in the game is meticulously crafted with unique characteristics. You'll feel the difference between powerful engines, handling, and top speeds, giving you a true sense of the power of each vehicle. This allows players to not only participate in races but also enjoy different driving styles, adding depth and variety to the game.

In addition to classic races, the game offers a unique feature that sets it apart from other titles in the series. Here, you have the opportunity to not only play as a racer but also step into the shoes of law enforcement. This creates an interesting contrast in gameplay, as when you choose the role of a cop, your task changes drastically. Now, you need to chase down offenders, using various tactics and available resources to catch them. You can drive special police cars, lay down spike strips, and even call in helicopters for support - all of which adds elements of strategy and makes the gameplay even more thrilling. Switching between the two roles allows players to get double the fun from the game: enjoying the speed and danger as a racer and feeling the thrill of enforcing the law when pursuing violators as a cop.

The arcade style of the game makes Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 perfect for those looking for a fun and engaging way to pass the time. You won't be bogged down by overly complex physics or realism, as in some racing simulators. Here, everything is designed to give the player pure enjoyment and emotion. The gameplay is fast, packed with action, and exhilarating - every race delivers a rush of adrenaline, especially when you're speeding at full throttle, dodging police cars or chasing racers yourself.

Visually, the game also looks fantastic. Despite being released quite a while ago, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 boasts beautiful graphics that perfectly capture the atmosphere of high-speed racing. The cars are detailed, and the surrounding environments are pleasing to the eye with their beauty and diversity. The speed and dynamics are so well rendered that you can almost feel the wind whipping past as you race down the track.

Overall, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 is an exemplary arcade racing game that keeps players on the edge of their seat from the first race to the last. It offers a wide selection of cars, tracks, and gameplay options, making it appealing to a broad audience of gamers. The ability to play both as a racer and a cop adds variety to the game and makes it even more interesting. If you're looking for a game that will deliver tons of adrenaline and the joy of speed, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 is the perfect choice.

Rated E.

I'm surprised at the fairly low IMDb score.Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 is a very fun and good racing game.The graphics are good and the cars are good as well.Its fun being a cop and chasing baddies.Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 is a fun little game.Like most racing games there is no real story.You basically race cars to get money to buy new cars to use in a free mode.Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 is a fun game and I recommend it for racing fans.Although I don't know how it compares to the newer ones.

8/10

It is with "Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2" that my favorite games in the series begin. The graphics are already good here, and the races are pleasant, and this part of the game remains in memory as a harbinger of a masterpiece that will become a legend.

The main highlight of this game is the opportunity to take part not only in classic races, but also in intense police chases, where you either hide from law enforcement officers or find yourself on the other side of the law, that is, you try on the uniform of a law enforcement officer yourself. Dynamic gameplay, a combination of speed and driving strategy, make every race or chase exciting.

The game offers several modes: from single races and tournaments to the actual "Hot Pursuit" mode. Now, driving with rivals, you will not just have to compete with them, but also avoid collisions with the police. Although let's be honest - it will not be possible to avoid them, and such "meetings" themselves are a pleasure.

The locations deserve special mention. Sandy beaches, winding forest trails, mountain passes with waterfalls, bright city streets and even races near a volcano - each track looks like a postcard. The bright colors and atmospheric soundtrack create a complete immersion. These tracks are not just roads - it's a whole world that you want to explore again and again. It doesn't matter that there is no open world here. This is a matter for future projects. But already in this game there is a sufficient variety of places for races. The developers did their best.

Hot Pursuit 2 offers an impressive-sized "garage" full of licensed cars from well-known brands such as BMW, Jaguar, Ford, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Aston Martin. Each car differs not only in appearance, but also in its characteristics, which seems to allow you to adjust your driving style to specific tracks. It's not a bad idea, but I remember that I didn't notice a serious difference in driving.

The game encourages the player's success: new tracks and cars are opened for winning races and completing tasks. The player will have to move through the "tree" of tasks with a lot of branches and go through the game as if he is in the "Career" mode.

The soundtrack of the game sets the right mood for each race. Energetic tracks are perfectly combined with adrenaline-fueled gameplay, and the roar of engines and screeching tires sound impressive - you feel yourself in the center of events.

The arcade style of control makes the game accessible to everyone, regardless of their level of training. The driving physics maintains a pleasant balance between realistic car behavior and true driving pleasure. This allows you to effortlessly race along the track at high speed, enjoying every turn and skid.

"Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2" is a game that not only sets a furious pace, but also pleases the eye. Exciting races, diverse modes and stunning locations make it one of the best parts of the series for me personally. This is the case when every race is fun, whether you are a racer or a chaser. I always remember this part with warmth. She sends her somewhere in her youth, when the graphics reached an acceptable level and pleased the eye, and the set of features in the game became self-sufficient, filling the world of the game with depth and elaboration.

8 out of 10.

Oh man... Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 is considered one of the best games in the series. How would i make a review of this game without sounding hysterical and have all fanboys chase me? Dont worry, i got you cover.

For a long time i always though if this game was really made by Black Box or if EA Canada had also something to do with this game. You see, the first five NFS games despite being technically the same game between platforms, with the same tracks, game modes and cars, were significantly different between consoles and PC. This is something common between old games because consoles were like a potato compared to PCs at the time (well... always). But this is probably one of the very very few cases were subtle changes to the formula changed the entire experience both for creative differences or maybe also time crunches. Opinions may vary about whether the PC or the Playstation version is the best one for all of these games (personally, the Playstation versions of all but Porsche may go to trash, and all of you who thinks otherwise are wrong, but i dont care). But returning to the topic, multiple pages tell me that EA Canada made this game, others was Blackbox.... who the hell made this game? So the game says Blackbox at the beginning but the credits screen says EA Canada? Maybe EA Canada was merged into Blackbox? Maybe both worked together? Idk... i tried to look at the credits screen of all games both on PC and PS1, but only High Stakes on PS1 and PU on PC shared the same programmers. So i said, whatever, i would play the game.

I couldnt stop thinking about what version to play first. Obviously most people recommend the PS2 version, but wasnt sure after the previous entries, but since those entries were the last ones i played i said: "Whatever, lets see how they upgrade the trash", plus i really was curious about how they would aproach the series. So i played the PS2 version... and.... yeah.... nope, this didnt really convince me. I can see some genuinely effort here and there and i can see "EA Canada" (assumming they work on the game, which may be the case considering some things are shared from High Stakes) to solve previous issues, but still isnt enough. First lets talk about the positives, like the graphics which are so beautiful for being made on 2002 on early PS2. They really aged very well, and they look still fine even on modern display. Every enviroment is so highly detailed, full of colour, insane lightning and special effects like particles and with an impressive draw distance. Cars are also well modeled and im also impress by the fact that now the power of the PS2 can allow up to 4 racers on a police chase while maintaining stable fps, while the PS1 NFS games seem to struggle a lot with this even when racing alone. And speaking about the framerate... yeah... this game may been one of the few earlier PS2 games capped at 30 fps, but im fine with it, and considering how good it looks it was a sacrifice that needed to be made.

Lets talk about the cars now. This has to be one of the best car selections in the entire series, arguably the best, as most of the cars present would become iconic in later games and some of the other ones were in previous entries, so this game feels like a love letter from the series in that regard; all time fan favorites like the Diablo SV, the Mclaren and Mercedes CLK GTR, Porsche Carrera GT, hell, they even managed to put australian cars on the America version, like the HSV, which was previously introduced in High Stakes in Australia. I honestly though it was always dumb in previous games to lock ingame content depending on the game region, and it unfortunately wouldnt remain forever (cough Underground 2), so i really appreciate it. But the reason may not been clear to me (maybe Australian people are racist? Just joking, is just to promote the game better as those cars were in the boxart in High Stakes). I also really like how they restored the upgraded CLK GTR and the upgraded Mclaren, both of which were unfinished in the PS1 version of High Stakes.

Changing a bit the topic... is it just me or the devs really loved ferraris? Nevermind.

And for last the soundtrack... just so epic, nothing more to say. It matches with the intense racing. Though if i have a minor complain about the soundtrack is that there is only one song from Rom Di Prisco, which is sad considering that after this game he wouldnt work again in the series (and also RIP). His song in this game was okay i guess, it captures the classic relaxing esence of the classic games in the series but idk, is just isnt as good, probably because its mostly a generic tecno loop that i heard countless of times. And why he didnt compose more songs? Maybe EA didnt want to pay him more or Blackbox was just convince to make this game as arcadey as possible which i would talk about that later.

Unfortunately we have to talk about the bad, and oh man... this game has a lot of bad.... First of all, where the hell is the damn career mode?! Instead we have a challenge mode with specific cars, which is nowhere near as exciting or fun. If this was like the Factory Driver mode of Porsche Unleashed it would be fine but its not. Challenges often repeats a lot, and it doesnt help that tracks are so damn long, another reason why i think EA Canada made this game, but even in those games it could be at max like 5 or 6 minutes but here a track can be as long as 10 or more! And this is something common in the game!

Later we have the rubberbanding which is funny how people this days criticize Underground 1 when in this game its literally impossible to have the AI 3 meters far from you.

The handling its an improvement of previous NFS on PS1 but it is still a bit stiff. It sometimes feels like a mix between High Stakes with Underground 1 handling but it is still not as satisfying as something like Underground 2 or Most Wanted. I also dont know whats the point of extreme handling since its almost the same. Maybe they didnt want to make the tracks to feel unbalanced, but idk.

Police chases may seen like great, and in fact, i admit i had a lot of fun in some tracks, even thougj they are really over the top, which wasnt the point in previous games and the missiles from the chopper arent telegraphed easily, but at least they are automatically an improvement when you can get arrested up to 3 times no matter how far you survived which was so unfair in the PS1 NFS games but also not like the PC version where you could get up to 8 tickets which you would never come close to it. It was a nice balanced and im glad EA Canada learned about it. Unfortunately, even this mode gets tedious and repetitive quickly due to how boring tracks are, and speaking of it... i think it doesnt help that tracks repeats themes. In previous games each track differ significantly from each other making it feel more like an adventure from start to finish and they were based on real places. Here is just pure arcadey, and this NFS game really feels arcadey, the score points (which is also somehow poorly designed and the thing that gives the most points is activating the 360 degree camera when you touch the finish line for some reason), real info of cars being extremely simplified (so lazy to include the same descriptions for all of the NFS special edition cars btw), limited weather effects and so on. Basically this was the game that started the arcadey aspect of NFS even though it seem like a remake of previous entries but it lost its touch and it would lost it even further with newer games (for better or for worse, depending on each one).

But what i think it was the worst sin about this game was the insane amount of camera freezes the game had. If you crash with a roadblock, your car is destroyed by a missile or just with the push of a button, the race freezes, it does a 360 degree in the car and then continues... Is so akward! Not only because it stops the flow of the race but also because it removes my depth of perception in a hard moment. I think it can be disabled but what ot cannot be disable is that 360 degree camera with the push of a button, basically be what breaks this game. If it had a limit, like a 3 uses per race or something it would be fine, but it is unlimited. And also the fireball with the other button is broken as well.

After all of that, i would probably say the most controversial thing about this review. For years i read that people generally consider the PC version of Hot Pursuit 2 to be the equivalent of an ovarian cyst, but honestly, i consider it to be on par with the PS2 version... if not slighty better.... i give you a moment to read it again if you want........

It has its issues? Yeah, that goes without saying and i overall think it was dissappointing coming from EA Seattle after NFS3 and High Stakes on PC.... but what is so bad about it that people hate it? They managed to put it an actual career mode this time... and im really want it, and they got rid of the desert tracks which were honestly pretty terrible.... the PC version has its issues.... but whats so bad about it? This is obviously coming from someone who didnt enjoy the PS2 version so.... take it how you want and remember to enjoy whatever you want to like it. Peace.

performance wise, this game just doesn't seem to run well on any computer i've ever had. first i had a p3 with 512mb and a geforce fx 5200. performance was pretty poor. and i put it down to the hardware i had at the time. since then, i have also had the opportunity to play this game on an Intel Pentium d with 1 gig of ram and a radeon x300. i'm at a loss, as there wouldn't be that many PCs up to this spec in 2002, yet still the performance is not good. no, there's just something not quite right about this at all.

aside from being extremely sluggish in the graphics department, the same can be said for the controls etc. in a big way. this is one of the most unresponsive racing games i have ever seen. people talk about this being 'realistic', but i'm sorry real cars just do not behave like this. you try to turn the wheel all the way round, and yet the car just seems to slowly veer off to one side. very slow acceleration which is highly frustrating. if this is truly realistic, then i'd much rather play super Mario kart, thank you very much.

the tracks are highly boring and mostly just look like any old unremarkable American highway. too much space, to open, not enough sharp bends. oh, i forgot, you couldn't put any sharper bends in, because the car simply wouldn't be able to manoeuvre round them. no, i'm not kidding, you'd probably have to do a 3 point turn. how do these people get off their drives, i wonder?

nope, this game sucks, IMO. if you want a really good racing game, then buy v-rally 2. though, nobody seems to have played it much. and looking around on the net, it's almost as if it never really existed. much the same with a lot of other things in this world, great things get swept under the carpet, while sucky things get high praise