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dkirschner's Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit (360)
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| [June 3, 2013 10:27:23 PM]
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I quit Need for Speed last night. Just couldn't play it anymore for several reasons.
(1) No story. I get that it's a racing game, but nothing ties it together. I mean okay, you either play the cops or the racers. If you're a cop, you bust racers. If you're a racer, you evade cops or race other racers. That's the extent of the story, just a single role relationship. I have no purpose in doing what I'm doing.
(2) Incessant branding. Again, I get that it's a racing game and people want to drive Porsches or whatever fancy cars I don't care about. I am simply not the target audience. The game isn't really about cops and robbers. It's really about driving real branded cars and unlocking real branded cars and leveling up so that you can unlock more real branded cars. You are forced into watching unskippable videos every time you unlock a new car. Oh, and you can change the color and read little advertising promo blurbs about the cars and blah blah blah. This part really got on my nerves. I like Burnout with its fake cars.
(3) No variation. Regardless of whether you're playing cop or racer missions, you do the exact same thing. You try to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. Every race either has a target time or a target number of other cars to take out. Actually the reason I never played this for so long is because the beginning of the game is so front-loaded with time trials that I thought to myself, "Is this 90% of the game or what?!" I have to make a comparison to Burnout. The genius of Burnout it that it's not a racing game about beating times. It's also about taking out other cars (with no time limit I might add!) and it's also about crashing. Hot Pursuit is like, ok, let's take Burnout and remove the best thing about it. Also, what about some more innovative modes like Burnout's eliminator mode? There's nothing like that here and there really should be.
Anyway, like I said I realize after playing the game that I am not the target audience, but the above complaints still stand.
There are of course plenty of cool things. It's generally fun, it looks amazing, the controls are excellent and the cars handle way more realistically than Burnout's more arcade-y scheme. The weather is a cool addition. Rain slicks the roads and makes drifting a challenge. Different cars handle very differently so there is some good skill-based learning there. The "shortcuts" on every track are pretty cool, and I like that they aren't always actually shortcuts. They may just be off-road sections that don't actually save time. Also shortcuts were tricky to see until I learned to see them and tricky to get to until I learned how to transition from the main road to the dirt or the alley or whatever. Then lots of shortcuts were filled with obstacles. Learning the shortest route through a map was very rewarding.
The best thing about the game are the weapons. You can lay down spike strips to blow out other cars' tires, use EMP which temporarily shuts a car down, and call ahead for road blocks and helicopters if you're the cops, and use turbo and a radar jammer if you're the racers. It's always fun to destroy other cars, no matter how it's done. I have to say though, the road blocks are especially dangerous. I needed more practice avoiding things apparently because when I'd call one in as a cop, I'd usually smash right into it! Enemy AI is sometimes really dumb. Racers especially will just slam the handbrake at times, then attempt to turn around, run into a wall, back up, run into a wall, get stuck on a barricade...other times they will do this terribly annoying thing where as soon as you catch up to them, they pull a 180. You turn around and chase. Soon as you catch up again, they pull a 180. It's like, OMG stop doing that! It's just annoying because you can't necessarily predict that they'll pull a 180 and when they do it's just, bam, handbrake, 180, gone the other direction. And they will drive back and forth like this indefinitely. Until they screw up at least. Sometimes I caught enemy AI weaving insanely left to right across the road. This doesn't accomplish anything for them except make me think they are drunk. When they use EMPs though they are too predictable. They will be beside you or in front of you, then suddenly slow down to get behind you, and it's like ok, you are targeting me for an EMP burst. I will slow down too and you will never ever hit me...Yeah, so a weird shift back and forth between unpredictable and predictable AI, stupid and smart AI, not very consistent or logical all the time.
I think NfS is a game to sit on the couch with some friends and trade the controller back and forth. I've done this a few times and it has been much more enjoyable than playing by myself. By myself, I feel no motivation, no overarching goal. With friends, we can compete with one another, ooh and aah at what happens on screen, and hang out. Since there's no story, you can't miss anything by talking over it or whatever. Also, you can use your own soundtrack (the one in-game is atrocious), which makes it an even better hangout game. They integrated some social stuff into the game anyway, but I never used it because I've got no friends who own the game. It's got its own facebook-type wall thing. Which has apparently stopped updating since the more recent NfS game. Anyway, if people are ever at my house and want to play a racing game, I've got one waiting.
Best to trade controller with a friend.
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dkirschner's Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit (360)
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Current Status: Stopped playing - Got Bored
GameLog started on: Sunday 9 December, 2012
GameLog closed on: Monday 3 June, 2013 |
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