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.
