|
There is on very nice touch in Hot Pursuit
2 that lets you play on the side of the law, you can call
in roadblocks and the helicopters whenever you wish. In contract
the World Championship mode does not have any police involved
at any time. This is just down to racing against you opponents
and trying to come first. There are 33 races to take part
in just like the Hot Pursuit mode but they are laid out in
a family tree like manner and you will have to win a race
for unlocking the next one or two.
This may all sound quite hectic and difficult
to deal with, but in actual fact Hot Pursuit 2 starts off
pretty easy on you. You will start off in the smaller cars
like the Lotus Elise or the Vauxhall Speedster, as will your
competition and the cops will go easy on you for the most
part. As you work your way through the 33 events the competition
will gradually get stiffer but never to the point of frustration.
The other cars like to mix things up a bit so you can expect
to have some not so friendly shunts on your rear bumper. The
computer-controller cars are by no means perfect either, you
will often see them recovering from a crash with the police
or oncoming traffic. Unfortunately you will do that too, especially
when you're driving the faster cars. The physics in the game
are not realistic but they do serve a purpose. The performance
of cars is like those of their real life counterparts but
the handling is much more exaggerated. This said you can usually
take part in every race without taking your thumb of the gas,
well judged and timed use of the handbrake makes cornering
a much easier task.
Hot Pursuit 2 has four different driving perspectives, three
third person and one first person, all of which relay a decent
sense of speed. The car models aren't as detailed as they
could have been they lack quite a lot of polygons. The damage
does work if you hit a tree or building really hard but you
can't really see what has happened to your car as the damage
always seems to be at the front end of the car. The tracks
seem to have a fuzzy edge to them but its not very noticeable.
Otherwise Hot Pursuit 2 for the PC is a pretty good-looking
game especially when viewed on higher resolutions. When you
scrape walls and barriers sparks bounce off the car and when
you flaw the gas pedal you will leave some nice black tyre
marks on the road behind you that will stay on the track surface
for the duration of the race. If you hit road signs, they
will also remain in the track or roadside for the rest of
the race. Water on the side of the road will reflect the surroundings
very nicely and fogging produced from volcanoes and forest
fires looks very convincing. All of this comes at a cost though,
occasionally when playing it feels like a couple of frames
get missed out not and again when things get busy on the screen.
The frame rate itself doesn't seem like its running at full
whack at any point either.
Hot Pursuits sound is all pretty good, the
engine sounds from the various cars sound noticeable different
as do the exhaust notes. The engine noises all seem a little
high pitched for some reason. The cops voices are pretty good
but there isn't too much dialogue to be heard between the
cops and the dispatcher. The sounds track is good and it features
a dozen or so licensed songs which are all pretty heavy, this
lends to the high-speed nature of the game.
Hot Pursuit 2 for the PC is a very good
and enjoyable game. The game play mechanics have been well
executed and with loads and loads of different missions, a
multiplayer mode and a great selection of fantastic motor
cars, Hot Pursuit is worthwhile purchase for anyone interested
in an arcade racer.
7 out
of 10
|
