What happens when an otherwise straight-laced racer gets the car chase treatment, with slo-mo stunts and spin-outs everywhere? When police choppers drop toxic barrels and the cops lay spike strips, but your flashy ride barely takes a lick? It’s Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, the 2002 PS2/Xbox/Gamecube offshoot of EA’s long-running Need for Speed series that adopted wailing sirens, exotic sports cars, and the ability to use both as you either play the cop or the speed demon. Whether you throw everything you’ve got at some hapless speeder and bust them in ‘Be the Cop’ mode, or opt to test your memory of how to recover from a spin in the many Career modes, you’ll bank points towards the purchase fo specially-tweaked NFS edition cars and have a pretty damn good time of it, too. NFS HP2 omits the customization (read: ‘Pimp my Ride’) modes popularized in more recent games in favour of the real challenge of working with what you’re given and actually, y’know, racing. A good selection of original musical accompaniment and European-inspired tracks also encourage hitting the pavement, and probably help explain the game’s Greatest Hits status (which also makes it a steal.) Definitely a racing game worth owning.

Posted on June 30th, 2008 by katie