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Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 for PlayStation 2 Videos >>
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 for PlayStation 2
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Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 for PlayStation 2
43 reviews   4.53 of 5

Product Description

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Sound

This could be better. Most of the cars sound weak and underpowered, and the music just isn't my cup of tea. The announcer can grate after awhile, but the cop chatter is top notch.

Gameplay

First, lets talk about the cars. There are lots of them, and they are all awesome. From supercars like the Ferrari F50 and Lamborghini Murciealago, to racing beasts like the Mercedes CLK-GTR and McLaren F1 to everything else in between, this game has it covered. Of course, the car selection can't even begin to compete with Gran Turismo's massive lineup, but all of the cars in here are awesome, and there are even some limited edition "NFS" model cars to unlock.

The cars drive good for the most part. The handling takes some getting used to. The Classic control scheme is horrible. Here, all of the cars, even the most nimble sports cars like the Porsche 911, control like tugboats on wheels. Switch to Extreme, and you'll be in powersliding heaven, where tight control and mad drifts are the name of the game. Much more preferable.

The tracks are well designed, and packed full of shortcuts to discover, allowing you to gain an upper hand on your competition. (Don't get too cocky though, your opponents will use the shortcuts too!) However, some of them are too long, making a 2-lap race seem to take an eternity to complete.

As far as modes are concerned, NFS:HP2 is great. There are Single Race, World Racing, and Championship modes where you can unlock cars and compete for bragging rights. Each race has different stipulations, which makes them fun and increases replay value. The Hot Pursuit mode is fun as hell...more on that later. It should also be said that the 2-player mode is great, and will keep you and your friends entertained every time.

The AI of your opposition is pretty lame. They are smart enough to use shortcuts, but if you ram them around enough they will get scared of you and let you pass them. However, the cop AI in Hot Pursuit is nasty. They ram you off the road, set up roadblocks and spike strips, and even call in a helicopter to drop bombs and shoot missles at you!
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Summary

The Need for Speed is, in my opinion, the best arcade-style racing game series. No NFS game released had technical and realistic features like, for example, those contained in Gran Turismo series. The main aspect of NFS series, as its name says for itself, is the feeling of speed when you drive a four-wheeled machine, and here the NFS games do their homework very well. And with Need for Speed : Hot Pursuit 2, the brand-new title of the series, there's no exception. It's the first appearence of a NFS game on a 128-bit console, and on the Playstation 2 it's really awesome. The most important features of the previous games are here, and were improved: graphics, sound, gameplay, fun factor... There are two major game modes, one that matches the subtitle "Hot Pursuit", where you face the cops and even play as a cop, and a classical mode, where there's "only" you and the other racers. Both major modes have some sub-modes, like sigle-race, two player games and a very interesting career-like mode, when you race through 30 solo events and unlock new cars and tracks while doing this. Actually, NFS:HP2 has a very high replay value due to the non-stop-playing-to-unlock-several-items feature. There are about 50 cars to drive, a record-number on the series, but only 7 are avaiable at the beginning. The same thing could be said about the tracks. Finally, Need for Speed : Hot Pursuit 2 is a game that will make you play for several hours providing anything but fun. You don't get tired, the more you play, the more your desire for continue playing increases. Its outstanding graphics, sound and gameplay will make hands and joystick, eyes and screen always together.

Sound

Everything works pretty fine here. You can hear engine and tires noises, birds singing and fire and water noises. The great point here is the soundtrack, that contains many different songs from different rock bands. They are all good, and you may even select which ones you want to listen when racing on the different kinds of game modes.

Gameplay

The game controls were changed a little,regarding the previous games of the series, due to new features on the gameplay. The game brings some Matrix-effects to the races, like the air-jumps you perform (that earns you some NFS points, a kind of experience points found in many games), when a slow-motion occurs ; it's a very nice effect. There's another type of slow-motion effect, this time done when you press a button, that the camera perform a 360º spin around your car, when you can see the opponents behind you. Also introduced in this game, there's a kind of fire-projectile thrown by your car that hasn't any other purpose but giving the racer a foward view of the track while you can notice how far your next opponent is from you as well as in which points of the tracks the police cars are located. Of course, this new feature is very useful. The sliding brake is used pressing the R1 button now, instead of the O button, that now goes for horning. The rest of the commands remains the same. The analog function of all buttons of the Dual Shock 2 are very welcome here; the buttons answer well to the pressure and motion of the fingers and, depending on the car, it'll be easier or harder to control it during the turns. The colisions still lack realism, but we're talking about an arcade-style game, so that's alright.
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