Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.0.3 Update

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered Experience the adrenaline-fueled excitement of pursuit and escape in this game for Nintendo Switch. Take the wheel of the world’s most powerful high-performance cars and unleash your need for speed, whether you’re a law-abiding cop or a daring outlaw This is a 2010 racing video game developed by Criterion Games and published by Electronic Arts for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Microsoft Windows, iOS, Android, webOS, and Windows Phone. The Wii version was developed by Exient Entertainment. Hot Pursuit is the sixteenth Need for Speed title and was released in November 2010, with digital distribution versions released within December 2010. This version is a reboot of Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit (1998). A remastered version, titled Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered, was released on November 6, 2020, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and on November 13, 2020, for Nintendo Switch.

GAMEPLAY

Hot Pursuit goes back to the Need for Speed series’ roots and takes on the gameplay style of earlier Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 titles in the Need for Speed franchise with exotic cars and high-speed police chases. Hot Pursuit lets players be either a racer or a police driver, and features a full career mode for both roles.

The relationship between the cops and racers is described as “a dog chasing down a rabbit”; the police are more powerful while the racers are faster. Each side has several power-ups including calling for roadblocks and radar jamming. According to Criterion, the single-player section is somewhere between 12 and 15 hours long, but with much replay value.

The game takes place in a fictional location known as Seacrest County based on the West Coast subregion of the Western United States. It’s an open world and features over 100 miles (160 km) of open road, four times larger than that of Burnout Paradise, Criterion’s previous title. Hot Pursuit features a new social interaction system called “Autolog” which is described as “Facebook for the game”.

The game features both single-player and multiplayer game modes with up to eight players; as an option for live multiplayer racing, players can post records and achievements on the Autolog feed for friends to see, which they then can try to beat. Autolog also contains an experience system called “Bounty”. As of July 2012, the Web Dashboard for Autolog was shut down for all games, except Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

The driving mode of the game is described as “fun, accessible, okay”, however not as arcade-styled as Burnout Paradise, but far from a simulator. All vehicles in Hot Pursuit are licensed real-world cars and SUVs, described as “all the cars you dreamed of driving, in the way you dreamed of driving them”. Most vehicles are available in both racer and police variants, but a few cars are exclusive to each side.

Also exclusively featured in the Hot Pursuit is the Porsche 918 Spyder concept. Ferrari automobiles, however, last seen in a Shift DLC-pack but notably absent from all other Need for Speed games since Hot Pursuit 2, are also absent from Hot Pursuit. There is no car customization or tuning, other than color changing, “just because the game focuses on the Hot Pursuit element.” Unlike previous Need for Speed games which use unbranded, fictional models, real cars like the Audi A4, Chevrolet Cobalt, Porsche Cayenne, Nissan Frontier, and Ram 1500 are used as traffic cars.

THE WII VERSION

The Wii version of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit has very little in common with its Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Windows counterparts. This version was designed by a different company (Exient Entertainment) and was a completely different game in nearly every virtual aspect: graphics, soundtrack, racing modes, gameplay, and customization. Some reviewers cited that the Wii version showed stark similarities to a previous Need for Speed installment, Nitro.

This version takes place in four real-life cities across the world, as opposed to the fictional Seacrest County in the other versions. The four cities, each set in a different time of day — Chongqing, China, set in the morning; Dubai, UAE, set in the afternoon; Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, set in the early evening; and Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, which is set in the late evening.

In Career mode, there are 4 super-tournaments (each city) and a Grand Prix Tournament. Each super-tournament consists of four smaller tournaments, which consist of Hot Pursuit (circuit race with cops), Eliminator (knockout), Time Marker (solo timed circuit run), and Rush Hour (100 to 1) races. Each super tournament concludes with a Boss Race, which is a free-roam race (with GPS) to capture more of the checkpoint flags than the Boss (2 out of 3, etc.).

Besides Career, the game offers Quick Race mode, which allows up to four players on split screens, each with their map, and the four race types from Career plus a fifth, “Interceptor” (be a cop & bust a speeder). The cars, purchased with Bounty, improve in speed, acceleration, and strength (D, C, B, A, and S Class cars, plus police vehicles in the Quick Race’s “Interceptor” race).

Racers do not have names, just Career/Profile names. During the race, players can accumulate and use regular nitro and super nitro (more powerful but shorter), similar to Need for Speed: Nitro. Power-ups/”Supes” are acquired while driving: Boost (extra nitro), Drain (others’ nitro), Cruise Control (brief auto-steering), Deflect The Heat (send the police after opponents), Jammer (invisibility to police), Tank (resistance to crash damage), Soundwave (circular explosion), and Repair (immediate car restoration).

Repair is the most important, as players’ cars must be in good condition to accumulate Nitro and be immune from being busted by the cops. A complex yet extensive range of visual customization options is available, including body kits, wheels, and a full range of colors & vinyl, including freehand drawing ability. The most obvious difference is that the graphics and racing physics in this version are completely different from the other versions, giving it a retro look and feel reminiscent of much older pre-GameCube or Mario Kart-type games.