The Greatest NFS Game which was never finished
Hot Pursuit is a curious beast. It is an amazing game at its core. Its mechanics are amazing. It is an arcade racer which avoids being too simplistic while retaining its casual nature. Everything would be amazing if only for one small, little thing. Developers forgot to develop an actual game out of it!
Where is the game?
This is the core issue with this product. On its own it is damn good racing game. However, you are buying a game which has no campaign. No challenges. No game modes. Its campaign is just glorified custom maps. It is same missions over and over again in different parts of a map, using progressively better cars. It is more proof of concept type of game which would become a lot better when radically expanded and improved upon. I believe that Need for Speed and racing games can be better and we should expect better if we are ought to pay full asking price for such games.The Cancer
It is an EA launcher which everyone talks about. Yes, it is just as bad as everyone talks and offers absolutely nothing in return by going through its pains. I will go in detail why exactly it is so terrible. The Pains of Log in
- It is endless forgotten passwords. Endless resets. I had just the worst experience in trying to log in into the old account.
It Haunts You
It is not enough for launcher to frustrate you with log ins, but it constantly runs in the background. Constantly pop ups with computer launch. It is intrusive, persistent horror.
Pointless - Ultimately it is always online game and it is always useless. It provides no benefit, no leaderbords. You go through all of this only to handicap yourself.
Dangerously Broken - It can crash, wiping progress and preventing game from launching up until you re-validate game and wait for quite a bit for it to synchronise data. Cancer launcher at the very last play session refused to launch my game. I had to fully re-log, because it somehow lost my info. Then it had no saves or meta data about game. Eventually after synchronising for a long time without telling me about it, it allowed me to continue playing my campaign.
The Dirty Console Peasants
Indeed, those stinking peasants struck again and ruined yet another game. Game is made with consoles in mind and it shows. Game has terrible controls and interface. You always get lost where things are supposed to be. Interface layout does not make any sense. It is designed for neanderthalands who are still are afraid of fire and fine mouse controls.Flawed Gameplay
Some of the issues stem from broken gameplay. Being teleported into crashes, a light brush causing you to stop in cinematics, everyone cheating in this game. There are plenty of issues which might take you from an experience. Cinematics
Calicifer’s Reviews
- Slow down, respawns tend to give back control only for you to run straight into the wall. It is good that game is easy, but it can easily lose you a game if it happens at a wrong time. I talk more about it a video review.
Simplistic gameplay - There isn’t any complexity in cars besides top speed and acceleration. There is much room for improvement. What does rear wheel drive does exactly? Why I should not drive exotics over rough ground? Give me details! I want to have more depth in driving, because as it stands now we have countless amazing car models and they all play basically the same.
Police - Terrible police mechanics. Police vehicles are always cheating and they will catch up to you for ramming at certain points in the match. They can outpace 310 km/h supercar on a straight road. They are extremely annoying to play against and ironically, the best gameplay against the cops in the gauntlet is just ramming any police car on sight. They always be on the side of a road. When you spot an interceptor, you engage nitro for an extra damage and just ram stationary police car. It will instantly take them out. This way you trivialise gauntlet into a solo drive joke.
Racers - You are constantly handicapped by racers slowing down or speeding impossibly fast. However in some races this mechanic breaks down and racers do not slow down for you to catch up. It is annoying to know that everyone in this game cheats or does not take it seriously. When you understand that, the grand illusion is shattered and your victories always feel hollow and empty.
Progression system - Game is handing out cars like candy only to lock last two of them behind considerable grind wall. It just frustrates me that I cannot get the best without being obsessed over this game. This also results in a broken curve where game constantly gives you out a new car almost for every race and in the end game you will be driving your favourite over and over again, because last two exotic cars are never unlocked.
In addition, during level 16’th and above it suddenly starts giving you out starter cars which you will never have a reason to drive again. Progression is a mess in this game.
Lack of content
There is also a distinct lack of content. Game seemingly spent all of its big bucks on licensing truly astounding number of real life cars. However, they drag their gameplay over little content they managed to create. You will memorise entire map to this game way before you are going to finish campaign. There is very little variety to what you do throughout this game. Ultimately, game doesn’t even do anything with its awesome car models. They all play pretty much the same. Game lacks meaningful customisation and what is in this game is trivial. Conclusion
It is a game which worked out its core gameplay well, got car models right, but is lacking in all the other areas. Its consoles routes are showing with a lot of basics missing like sensible menus, wonders of mouse control. In addition, this game feels like made by a corporation. It is focused on producing minimal viable product and all of the budget went to marketing. Game lacks a lot of polish and is rough around the edges. Its systems are primitive and developers took a lot of shortcuts where they shouldn’t had taken them. All of this translates in an experience which feels underwhelming and I was left craving for more of the same, but done better.Calicifer’s Reviews
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