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Review

Cutting to the chase

by Nathan Grayson (November 30th, 2010 at 8:32 am)

Car chases are a universal language. Regardless of age, ethnicity, background, or how much your car looks like a shoe (if you squint, you’ll see that mine actually leaves footprints), there’s not a person on this planet who can’t appreciate the ludicrously expensive chaos of a high-octane chase. Granted, most of the time, some Hollywood big-shot’s behind the camera and Vin Diesel or Jason Statham (who, until a few days ago, I was sure were the same person) is behind the wheel.

So, what happens when you take all those big screen explosions and camera angles that glint off Diesel’s bulging biceps just right and cram them into a tiny iThing? Well, you get Need For Speed Hot Pursuit (£2.99/€3,99/$4.99). Forget any semblance of plot or context; this one’s all car chases all the time. Which is great, for the most part. Unfortunately, Hot Pursuit’s like a sports car with a flat tire. Sure, it looks really pretty and it’s probably even still drivable, but a couple small problems hold it back from being everything it could.

First off, Hot Pursuit’s iThing version only allows you to play as good ol’ Johnny Law. For whatever reason, Adolf McEvilson’s not playable, so you only get to be the chaser – never the chasee. Granted, it’s hardly game-breaking and there’s plenty of content for the boys in blue, but I’d still have enjoyed screaming “you’ll never take me alive!” while careening around at two miles over the speed limit in my shoe-car.

What is there, however, is pretty darn enjoyable. Sure, mission types consist of slight variations on “chase this dude,” “race against these other dudes,” or “time trial (dudes optional),” but Hot Pursuit’s about simple, no-frills thrills, so billions of complicated rulesets would only roadblock you from getting straight to the action. The highlight, of course, is going fast enough to break the laws of space and time in order to catch some no-good lawbreaker. Make no mistake: Hot Pursuit is fast. Too fast, occasionally, for its own good, resulting in moments where iThing tilt controls don’t feel quite responsive or precise enough to keep you from bouncing around like a bumper car. You can alter the sensitivity, but I was never able to find a setting that felt “just right.”

Fortunately, you have three powers at your disposal to help even the odds, even if they are sort of underwhelming. First up, you’ve got a roadblock, which seems handy in theory, but impedes you just as much as it does your opponent in practice. There are also tire spikes, which can only be used when you’re directly in front of your opponent. Practically speaking, they’re probably the most useful thing in your arsenal, but also the least exciting, seeing as they’re an indirect form of victory. Lastly, the EMP turns your opponent’s vehicle into a useless heap of steel and rubber for a few seconds, allowing you to pass them by in races or – employing one of my favorite tactics – strike an immensely satisfying, full-speed finishing blow to cap off a chase.

Due to iDevices’ limitations in both the control and horsepower departments, however, the whole production still feels a bit empty. The streets are hardly what I’d call swimming with traffic, with other cars instead timidly venturing out one at a time as though they were fragile baby birds taking their first steps out of the nest. As a result, the only time you deal with more than one car for a sustained period of time is during races, which leaves car chases feeling decidedly less chaotic than their big screen counterparts. Tracks, too, aren’t really conducive to over-the-top arcade action, languidly snaking about instead of throwing in any abrupt curves for you to slam on the breaks and swerve around.

Meanwhile, in the “infuriatingly mystifying” category is the game’s complete lack of online multiplayer. Hot Pursuit’s perfectly suited to it and appears woefully lacking compared to its console counterpart, whose “Autolog” online stat system turned it into one of the most compulsively addictive racers of the year.

All told, then, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit is a pretty decent race/chase game that’s occasionally capable of transcending its limitations and becoming something truly special. By and large, though, it’s a good-but-not-great experience that’s truly worthy of the phrase “your mileage may vary.”

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