Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2

by Electronic Arts

Product Features

• Over 20 of the most coveted licensed exotics
• Be victorious in over 60 different racing events to become the "Champion Road Racer"
• Dynamic lighting and real world reflections bring the cars and tracks to life
• Realistic, detailed environments bring to life elements from the real world - rain, brush fires, sunbeams and dust storms

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00006CRVH
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: October 21, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (80 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,388 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PC

From Children's Software Revue® -- "Subscribe Now!"

Ever sat behind the wheel of a Lamborghini, Porsche, or Dodge Viper? Well, now you can. Like the first Hot Pursuit game, you take part in a series of races in which you must not only beat your opponents to the finish line but avoid the Police Force. Police are incredibly intelligent, tracking you down with cruisers, choppers, road blocks, and more. Every course is highly detailed with scenery like river crossings, waterfalls, beaches, volcanoes, and brush fires. Courses can be as long as fifteen heart-pounding miles. Rewards for completing courses include new tracks and cars. A new "Be the Cop" mode lets players drive a police car and attempt to pull over the speeder who, in two- player mode, could be a friend. The Windows version allows for up to eight players via LAN or online. All in all, games like this one shouldn't be overlooked. Copyright © 2001 Children's Software Revue

Product Description

Need for Speed (NFS) is back and faster than ever in Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2! Engage in the next generation thrill of arcade racing with the spiritual successor to the highly acclaimed, award winning Need For Speed III Hot Pursuit. Drafting on its award-winning legacy, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 stays true to the heritage of housing a stable of exclusive and exotic cars from the world's most coveted licensors including Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini... to name a few. Become the "Champ

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tons of fun, but it coulda been great, October 23, 2002

By 

croll (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (CD-ROM)

...This game is a lot of fun, you'll get a kick out of it for a variety of reasons, but it really does seem like a step-down from previous incarnations of Need for Speed in many respects. Well, let's get to it...

PROS: Incredible graphics, stunning sound and intense music, hot pursuit mode will get your heart pumping, beautiful cars.

CONS: Poorly implemented "point" system for unlocking new cars and tracks, not enough tracks, no nighttime racing or inclement weather racing as in previous versions, not terribly challenging.

First thing I noticed were the graphics. After playing around with the demo for awhile, I loaded up Need for Speed: High Stakes and was absolutely floored at how far the graphics have come. It made the beauty in Hot Pursuit 2 that much more striking. Beautiful tracks, gorgeous surroundings, and beautiful cars. Second thing I noticed was the music. You don't get a feel for this in the demo, but as soon as you load up the full retail version and get to the main menu, this incredible music starts to play. Not instrumental [garbage], but full band stuff, a bit between techno and alternative. Hard and fast. I've got the game loaded and playing even when I'm in the other room just so the music will play. Wow! I don't know how EA got all this music, but what a great job! The sound effects are equally well done. Nice job on immersion, EA!!!

As for the cons... You don't have nearly as much choice in what car you get to race as you did in previous versions, at least in the tournament and hot pursuit modes. The game structures these as tournament tree events; when you win one event, one or two more events "unlock" for you to race them. Each event offers only a select number of cars (between 1-4 on average). So, if you love the Porshe 911, you're out of luck, because you may not be able to get it. This is seriously disappointing, and takes away an element of realism. (High Stakes did this nicely, where you "bought" a number of cars, got to paint them, modify them, and race them. If you wanted to race your favorite Pontiac Trans Am against a Ferrari, you could--you'd lose, but you could, and more importantly you had the option. Not so in HP2.)

Also, far too few tracks. There are only four tracks. They're beuatiful, stunning, gorgeous... EA did a great job on designing them. But only four!?!? God. I can see this is going to get repetitive very quickly. Hopefully we'll have the option to download new tracks, but I doubt it. Again, High Stakes had this -nailed-, with nearly 20 different tracks to race on. You can, of course, race the tracks in reverse, or on a mirror image (or in reverse on a mirror image) but it's still the same track.

And no, it's not all that challenging in comparison with past versions. Still, if you're just looking for some fun and fast cars, or you just want a decent racing game for the PC (for which there are too few), HP2 is worth a look.

(BTW--Download the demo!!! The demo is very representative of the actual game, minus the music. If you like the demo, you'll like the game. If you hate the demo, you'll hate the game. So, download the demo and give it a run or two.)

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, November 4, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (CD-ROM)

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit has been criticized for lack of realistic physics, lack of good gameplay, and bad replay. After playing the game over the weekend heres my take on the game:

*Game Play* With the option of being a cop (you can call for backup, a roadblock, spike strip, and a helicopter) and running away from the cops as well as the regular racing mode this game offers non stop fun. 5/5.

*Graphics, Sound Effects* The graphics are nice but the graphics are not much better than need for speed prosche unleashed, same thing for the sound effects. 4/5.

*Music* The music choice was great offering a good selection of songs. 5/5.

*Cars* Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 not only has a nice selection of exotic and regular cars but also has over 24. 5/5.

*Tracks* There are a lot of tracks in NFS Hot Pursuit 2 which all have a good number of shortcuts and alternative routes but are also nicely detailed. This being said the tracks lack creativity. There are about 13 tracks but it seems like theres only 4. The tracks can be grouped in 4 catogories, Island, Mediterranean, Foreset, and Alpine. The tracks in these catogories look like copies of these 4 tracks. 3/5.

I will add one point for the great install feature (it takes virtually no time to install becuase of the new tecnology EA is working with).

Overall 23/25. 92% A-
Great Edition to the NFS series with some notable faults.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars So many things wrong, still fun, but shallow, October 19, 2002

By 

"tommylight" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (CD-ROM)

After finishing all 32 events in both event trees, single challenges, and two player races, I feel it is a good time for this review.

The Good: Nice graphics, great look-ahead, and the best feature is the sheer speed. Everything blazes by. That is the only saving grace of the game. The Hot pursuit mode is fast and furious and worth playing.

The Bad: Frame rate drops and choppy action. Not much skill required. The only delicate touch is barely clipping traffic to lead the cops into them. The opponents [are lousy] and the program starts cheating to slow you down, i.e. get pushed into a helicopter mine/canister just to hit another one, and then get hit by a missile. The dashboard view only becomes available in events 31 in HP and WR respectively. The dashboard view has always been a staple of previous NFS games.

The Ugly: The game is completely shallow. It is just an arcade racer. There are no car upgrades, and this is another step down from previous installments. After finishing the event trees, there just seems to be no point in going on. There was not much of a challenge, you can't improve the cars, and there is no reason to replay this game. The game is just a pedal to the metal, or gas on gas off racer that requires little skill. Additionally half the cars are the "Need for Speed Edition" of the first half, but with ugly paint jobs. The cheesy blue viper with cheesier blue flames was probably created by a Kindergartner, and takes this years award for extreme bad taste. And the game is so short. One weekend and it's over.

This game could have been great if it had car upgrade/tuning features, maybe a money system, and anything new. Frankly the format of the PC version of NFS High stakes would have been good, or the format of NFS Porsche unleashed, where you can accumalte cars in your garage and set them up for different races. The days of shallow racing games are gone. Arcade style is not retro, it's just plain boring, and it's actually an insult to gamers. At best offer options for both style of play. EA should have learned that from their previous games and customer reactions. Their marketing department needs a good slap in the head to jar their brains back into action. Unless they are just trying to duplicate the marginal sales on Hot puruist one, followed by the high selling High Stakes. So we probably will soon see High Stakes 2.

With this piece of work EA has earned themselves a place in the "try before you buy" category with me. And I recommend you rent this game, since finishing it in 5 days is not hard, and you definitely want to try before you buy this one.

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