Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Demo High speed chases, crashes guaranteed

Ever since GTA IV introduced its Cops and Robbers multiplayer mode I’ve wanted another game where you get to pursue the bad guys as a kick ass cop. Takes me back to the good old Chase HQ days down the pub (still love that game) and of course Lucky & Wild.

After teasing us with videos and screenshots for the last few months, finally a demo of Need for Speed Hot Pursuit appeared on the PS3 and Xbox 360 stores this week. You get to demo two levels – one as a cop and one as a racer, although to unlock the racer level you cunningly have to have at least one of your mates also download the demo – nice marketing ploy EA.

The presentation is as expected from an EA-Hollywood-esque title, with the opening intro playing like an HD movie trailer for Fast & The Furious 5. You get a nice map overview of the available levels, some for cops and some for racers, pick your car and then begin your pursuit/race.

For the cop level, which sees you putting a stop to an illegal race, you get to choose from two cars – I took the slower but more kick-ass Ford Crown Victoria for a spin. You get a nice lady telling you all about the car before you start your patrol.

The cop level throws you straight into the action at night, suitably dramatic music building up as you pursue the boy racer punks to throw a spanner (or a spike trap) into their evening’s plans. Despite effectively being a racing game, it builds the drama nicely as you chase the racers whilst dodging traffic and flicking through your various police sirens and looks beautiful in HD with some nice traffic lighting effects. Would have like to see a cockpit view as a viewing option though – hey, may be in the final version.

When you catch up with the little rascals, you have a couple of choices, ram them Chase HQ-style until they’re off the road, overtake them and lay a spike trap to screw their tyres, or if they’re getting away, call in a police blockade further down the road to slow them – although you need to make sure you avoid this blockade yourself – that’d be embarrassing.

The track offers multiple routes for you to drive and the racers will also take advantage of these too so its up to you to keep and eye on your map to see which way they’ve gone and then plan your next move.

The cops level is great fun and really adds another layer to the game. Can’t wait to take it online. Talking of online, EA have added a great Autolog feature which is likely to become part of more games – it effectively blogs your game progress and compares it with your mates so there’s always news about how your friend has just whipped your best score or race time, effectively always adding new challenge to the game, even in single player mode.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is on my buy list based on this demo. I’ve never owned a Need for Speed game in my personal collection as have always preferred other racing games. This one however offers something new and exciting to the series – will be interesting to see how much more to the game there is when we get the final version.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is out in the UK November 19th on PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii

You can pre-order now from Play.com - they're exclusively offering a free bonus car pack with all pre-orders

Click here to Pre-order your copy

Welcome to BuzzHut!

BuzzHut is a totally independent site offering news, views and features on the greatest gaming, gadgets, music and movies.

Useful content by real people with a genuine love of all this stuff because we buy it too!

We also personally hunt down the best deals on all this cool stuff so you don't have to.

LAUNCHING FULLY IN NOV 2010