Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered - A Nostalgia Trip for the Ages

Available On: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows.

By Oliver Giles

Need for Speed is arguably Electronic Arts' most iconic franchise, certainly up there with the company's other big franchises such as Battlefield. However, it's important to note that Need for Speed games have changed a lot over the years and were not always the way we know them now.

The early years of the franchise, in the 1990s  2000s, saw games primarily based around arcade-style racing. However, they did get progressively more realistic. 2012 saw a shift towards open-world gameplay with the incredible Need For Speed: Most Wanted, a game with a decently sized open world and plenty to do. Although the subsequent two attempts, Need for Speed Rivals and Need for Speed (2016), were swings and misses for the franchise, it's safe to say that 2017's Need for Speed Payback and the brilliant Need for Speed Heat in 2019 has put the series back in the spotlight.

In the middle of all of this was Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. The penultimate mainline NFS game is not open world, Hot Pursuit, launched in 2010 to pretty good reviews for both critics and fans. In 2020, the game received a full remaster.

This begs the question, how well has Hot Pursuit held up over the years?

The answer to that question is a bit more complicated than a simple yes or no, as the game itself is a bit of a mixed bag.

Just to make things clear, this is a remaster, not a remake or reboot. Although a few things have been updated, it's still fundamentally the same game. This means that the cars present in the remastered version are the exact same as in the original, so don't expect to be driving anything newer than 2010.

The graphical and sound engine overhaul was a nice touch, to be sure, putting the graphics on about the same level as NFS Payback (2017). The framerate is much smoother when compared to the original due to the game being made for newer consoles, something I think all remasters should strive to do.

While this is all well and good, this is still just a remaster, not a remake, meaning the gameplay is essentially identical to the original, and that's where the problems begin.

I'm not saying that the gameplay of Hot Pursuit is bad, far from it in fact, nor am I saying they should have made the remaster some kind of open-world experience. What I am saying, however, is that some aspects of the game haven't held up all too well.

If you never played the Need for Speed titles from the mid-to-late 2000s era, or you've simply become used to how the cars handle in newer NFS installments, you may be in for a rude awakening. Braking and turning can be hard to get used to if you're accustomed to the more fluid driv9ing controls of modern racing games. You'll probably either end up overshooting a turn or braking too harshly and either causing oversteer or simply spinning out. The controls are alright once you get used to them, but you may have to restart a few races because of missed turns until that happens.

Another aspect of the game that hasn't held up all that well is the events.

While events in NFS games practically always come down to some kind of race, the modern games offer plenty of open-world exploration to spice things up; Hot Pursuit doesn't have that option. While the races and takedown missions are usually pretty fun, you may get tired of repeating the same types of missions over and over again, only with different locations and vehicles.

We are also mainly in the pre-customization era of NFS games, so don't expect to be able to make some of the crazy cars builds you can achieve in more recent titles.

Achievement-wise, for Xbox users, at least, there are a lot of them. Some Achievements are super easy to obtain (win a race, take down a racer, complete a race with a Bounty level of 2, etc.), while some will take quite a bit more effort to unlock.

Overall, Hot Pursuit Remastered is a rather fun game, although it's certainly different to the Need for Speed games we typically see nowadays.

Most digital storefronts, such as the Xbox and PlayStation stores, have the game for about $40. However, it is also included with EA Play/Gamepass Ultimate on Xbox.

If you like arcade-style racing games, were fans of the original Hot Pursuit, or simply want to find out why so many NFS fans talk about the game with such nostalgia, Hot Pursuit Remastered is the game for you.

It also has the distinction of being one of the best, if not the best, realistic-style/real-car-based racing games on the Nintendo Switch, so there's that.