[game 658]

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered
Racing
Playstation 5
Electronic Arts (2020)
If you like this page, you can support the site for as little as $1.
I think I don't know how to play racing games anymore?
I never really got into the Need For Speed series, only having played a couple of the "open world" ones. I liked those well enough so getting an old-school "do a race then do another race", no story, arcade-style racer should have been a hit for me. However, I cannot get into the feel of this NFS entry and I'm not sure if it is because I'm bad at racing games or the game itself is bad? It looks fine and the premise of the races is straightforward enough. However, there are a number of problems that add frustration to the experience and it isn't just that the devs and the testers don't know the difference between 12AM and 12PM.
Call me old, but this game is too damn loud. I have to turn down everything before I start it up for fear of waking the neighbors. Annoyingly, all of the engine sounds during racing appear to be exactly the same? Also, if you listen to the voiceover crew long enough you'll find they have the gall to pronounce things like Gallardo like the type of American that goes to another country and only eats at McDonald's. Ugh. So, the sounds are all bad and I played for a couple hours on mute.
Not only are the times wrong and the sounds bad, this game might have the worst car control/feeling or maybe I have forgotten what old-school games were like? If the car isn't oversteering massively at slow speeds it is understeering massively at every other speed. It desperately needs some kind of options for changing how the car is controlled, but there are none. On top of this, nitrous and turbo make the screen seem faster but if another car is in front of you they magically keep pace. Most frustratingly, it seems difficult to predict what the car will do and trying to correct around a surprise oncoming car usually leads the car to do absolutely nothing and smash into it anyhow. You know, maybe this is designed to be a PSA for future street racers by causing the game car to crash so much and aggravating potential future racers so much that they're just like, "forget it, street racing is too dangerous." I mean, the NFS cars are impossible to control, the cops all want to murder everyone (even citizens), and random events occur that are unavoidable and lead to you losing the race in the last mile anyways. So, don't street race, kids. Oh, and as you can tell, I never played as a cop because everyone knows that the system turns you into a monster when you enter that line of work.
So, if you've never played a racing game and you need to be reminded that street racing is bad for you, give this one a go. Otherwise, there are better sim and arcade style racers out there, I think.

I never really got into the Need For Speed series, only having played a couple of the "open world" ones. I liked those well enough so getting an old-school "do a race then do another race", no story, arcade-style racer should have been a hit for me. However, I cannot get into the feel of this NFS entry and I'm not sure if it is because I'm bad at racing games or the game itself is bad? It looks fine and the premise of the races is straightforward enough. However, there are a number of problems that add frustration to the experience and it isn't just that the devs and the testers don't know the difference between 12AM and 12PM.
Call me old, but this game is too damn loud. I have to turn down everything before I start it up for fear of waking the neighbors. Annoyingly, all of the engine sounds during racing appear to be exactly the same? Also, if you listen to the voiceover crew long enough you'll find they have the gall to pronounce things like Gallardo like the type of American that goes to another country and only eats at McDonald's. Ugh. So, the sounds are all bad and I played for a couple hours on mute.
Not only are the times wrong and the sounds bad, this game might have the worst car control/feeling or maybe I have forgotten what old-school games were like? If the car isn't oversteering massively at slow speeds it is understeering massively at every other speed. It desperately needs some kind of options for changing how the car is controlled, but there are none. On top of this, nitrous and turbo make the screen seem faster but if another car is in front of you they magically keep pace. Most frustratingly, it seems difficult to predict what the car will do and trying to correct around a surprise oncoming car usually leads the car to do absolutely nothing and smash into it anyhow. You know, maybe this is designed to be a PSA for future street racers by causing the game car to crash so much and aggravating potential future racers so much that they're just like, "forget it, street racing is too dangerous." I mean, the NFS cars are impossible to control, the cops all want to murder everyone (even citizens), and random events occur that are unavoidable and lead to you losing the race in the last mile anyways. So, don't street race, kids. Oh, and as you can tell, I never played as a cop because everyone knows that the system turns you into a monster when you enter that line of work.
So, if you've never played a racing game and you need to be reminded that street racing is bad for you, give this one a go. Otherwise, there are better sim and arcade style racers out there, I think.