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I am one of those people who have looked down upon racing games on the PC since the very beginning. I have always preferred to play racing games at the arcades where I can get the full experience. In my opinion, PC racing games have always lacked the authentic feel of what a true racing game should be like: custom seats, force feedback, realistic steering wheel, and gear shifts and pedals that can take a huge beating. When a friend of mine brought Hot Pursuit over and insisted that I install it, I did so reluctantly just to get him off my back. However, after it was installed and I played it for about 10 minutes, I became USD$105 poorer and lost the use of my home system for 2 days. You are probably thinking the game caused something in my home system to break down. Actually Hot Pursuit made me go buy a gaming wheel and when my sister and her boyfriend saw me playing the game, they were so impressed by it that they threw me out of my room and took over my computer for about 2 days to play the game.

Hot Pursuit would be, by definition, an arcade type racing game with a little simulation elements added. There are basically four types of gameplay: single race, hot pursuit, knockout, and tournament. There are also eight tracks, and a plethora of cars to choose from. What attracted me to Hot Pursuit the most is really the types of cars that the game features- the amazing Benz CLK-GTR, the always alluring Lamborghini Diablo SV, and the beautiful Jaguar XJR-15, just to name a few. Most of the cars featured in Hot Pursuit are really top of the line racing cars with a price tag to match. For example, the estimated price for the CLK-GTR (provided, of course, you have the connections to convince Benz to sell you one) is about USD$1,000,000. The CLK-GTR is not street-legal over here in the United States, but then, if you can afford one, then you probably can do what Bill Gates did (he bought a Porsche 959, enclosed it in a glass casing and put it in his front yard) or you can do what most of us regular chaps do, play games like Hot Pursuit and dream that one day you will be able to afford something like that just to put it in your front yard and show off to your neighbors.

Hot Pursuit includes in-depth information on each and every car featured. It even has a short history of how the car came to be, narrated verbally while you browse around the particular car's statistics. There is also a slide show for most of the cars showing off the car in various photographs and also a section which allows you to navigate within the interior of the car. Each of the eight featured tracks are quite nice and have lots of cornering. Another very interesting feature is that Electronic Arts will release new cars for downloading on the Need for Speed website periodically, thus enhancing the replayability of the game. The multiplayer portion is also extremely fun, you can either play through the Internet or on a LAN, or have two players playing at the same computer. All I can say is that although some may complain that the gameplay might either be not arcade enough nor realistic enough, this game is just plain fun to play. Hot Pursuit might not do everything right, but it does what every game sets out to do-- to give the gamer a fun time. In this regard, Hot Pursuit hits right on the mark. Gameplay:

There are so many options available to configure the gameplay to your liking that I don't really know where to begin. I guess I shall start by giving a brief run through of how each of the four game type option play like.

• Single Race - You choose a car, pick a track and race.
• Hot Pursuit - Choose a car and pick a track. Depending on whether it's a regular car or pursuit car, you do one of 2 things. If you chose a regular car, then you race around the track avoiding getting caught by the cops and trying to finish the track ahead of everyone else. If you chose a pursuit car, then you need to chase down other cars as a cop and ticket them before they finish racing through the track.
• Knockout - Choose a car and race, going through each of the eight tracks one by one. As you go through the tracks, the slowest car in each track gets eliminated.
• Tournament - Choose a car and race through all eight tracks

You can either jump right into each of the sections or you can add a little more flavor to the experience by configuring the type of setup you want. The tracks can be configured for number of laps, day or night time, and weather conditions. You can also see information on the track records. You can customize the color of every car. There are many options to configure your car display, for example, setting your meters to either analog display or digital, arranging the positions of where you want the displays to show on the screen, the type of track map, opponent data, etc. In the single race mode, you can also tune different parts of the car to suit the track or driving conditions.

Controlling your car is just like any other car game. However, if you do not have a gaming wheel or gamepad, I would suggestion not using the manual transmission option. It is extremely difficult to use the manual shift with a joystick or keyboard. Depending on the car you are driving the experience would be slightly different, this is what gives Hot Pursuit it's simulation element. I found the Benz CLK-GTR to be the best car in the game so far (I could be biased since I'm a big Benz fan). If you successfully complete Hot Pursuit, Knockout, or Tournament modes, you would get either the bonus track or the bonus cars, depending on which game mode you completed. As with all racing games, memorize the tracks and know your car.

Longevity:

With multiplayer over the internet, two players at the same computer, new downloadable cars, and the tons of different options to configure the game, Hot Pursuit is a game that you can play over and over again. Never has a PC game so engrossed anyone living with me before, and most of the people that I live with are strictly console gamers which could be why they related to Hot Pursuit so easily. However if Hot Pursuit has such a pull on casual gamers, I think that even hardcore gamers would enjoy it a lot for a long time as well. Learning the different capabilities of each and every car and memorizing the tracks will probably take most people about 40-50 hours of game time.

Controls:

Every control is customizable, even the graphical layout of the game screen. Hot Pursuit has so many things customizable that it might take awhile for you to explore all the options.

Graphics:

Definitely one of the best looking racing games ever made, and this includes all gaming platforms. Glide and Direct3D support is flawless, and I did not have any problem with the game graphically in any mode. The cars are beautifully modeled and the textures are detailed. The environment is also beautifully crafted. However, the cars have a feature which I thought was a cute gimmick but makes them look unrealistic as hell. Every car has reflections on their body from the environment. Personally, I have never seen any car shiny to the point where you were able to see reflections from the environment on the car body to the extent you can in this game.

Hot Pursuit also has some nice touches graphically. Skid marks, smoke, knocked down road signs, sparks when you hit stuff, etc. are all included. This adds a nice touch to making the game even more ecstatically pleasing. EA did a great job at making the menu interface for Hot Pursuit.

Sound:

The music is typical racing game fare. Nothing really impressed me. The sound effects are typical as well. Although there is a lot of variety of tunes in Hot Pursuit, nothing really grabs me. The voice narrative for the Car showcase section sounds very professional and I think is probably the best part of the game in terms of this category.

Installation:

Very painless and quick. The install options gives you control over how much of the game you want to put on your hard drive. However I would suggest the full install, since even with the full install it takes quite a while for the game to load up the tracks on a Pentium2-400 system.

Overall:

A fun game that everyone can enjoy if you can overlook the fact that it is neither an arcade nor a simulation racer. The amount of exotic cars that you can drive in Hot Pursuit more than makes up for its shortcomings. The amount of options available to configure the gameplay is amazing. This game will make you think differently about racing games on the PC.