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Have you seen the commercials for Hot Pursuit 2? I mean, specifically the one where the Lamborghini Diablo pulls up beside the cop car waiting along a highway to catch speeders. A kid gets out, runs up to the nearby 65Mhp speed limit sign, spray paints a 1 in front of the 65, hops back in the Lamborghini and takes off, while the cops sat and watched the whole thing, then suddenly realize they should go after the guy. That about sums of Hot Pursuit 2 adequately, so there’s no need for a review – class dismissed! Heh… Ok so I won’t quit my day job and take up comedy anytime soon, but I digress. I played my first Need for Speed game on the Playstation. I was impressed with the gameplay and style of the game, but it never captivated me enough to make me a huge fan of the series. That is until I picked up The Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (or HS2). I was at the mall, shopping for some new titles for my Xbox… my review mailbox had been rather dry lately and I needed something to play. My friend picked up the Hot Pursuit 2 box and practically begged me on his hands and knees to buy it. I already had Gotham Racing and RalliSport – two racing games I thoroughly enjoyed. After he pleaded some more, I finally gave in. I’m glad I did.

There are three modes in HS2. Hot Pursuit, Championship and Single Race. In Hot Pursuit mode, you can race a series of events in two different ‘trees’, which include the same type of races, just with different names and locations. There are several different race types. Some are standard races, while others are more interesting, like ‘Knock-out’, where the last place car at each lap completion is disqualified while the rest continue to race. In some events you’ll even get to play the cop and chase down the racers. Then there are ‘Deliveries’ where you have to deliver the car (read: finish the race) within a certain time limit. Another event type is the Tournaments, which is a series of races that can be painstakingly aggravating if you’re trying to finish first place in every race. Some of the races are manufacturer based, such as all Mercedes or GM cars. The higher you place in each, the more points you’ll get. Championship mode is essentially the exact same thing but without the cops. There are a lot of races to complete. 66 events in all that can span multiple races in each event. There's no shortage of gameplay hours in HS2.

The selection of cars is very diverse. Your “low end cars” (and I use that term loosely) range from a Lotus Elise to the BMW M5. From there, you have the usual suspects, such as the Porsche 911, various Ferrari’s like the F50 and 550, Mercedes, Aston Martin, Dodge, Chevy, Ford, Jag, Lamborghini and even the F1 McLaren. There are also some concept cars included, such as the Mercedes CLK GTR. There isn’t a huge selection of cars, but at least it’s a diverse selection. The included tracks aren’t specific, exotic locales but they work. Costal mountains, rural forest roads, mountain passes plus more. Cars and tracks must be purchased with points that you’ll win while playing through Hot Pursuit and Championship modes. It’s a very simple, yet strangely addicting. You don’t have to worry about damaging your cars either, as there is no real damage model. This is definitely an arcade racer, folks.

The most aggravating thing about HS2 is the lack of D-Pad functionality for driving the cars. I don’t like to use the goddamn analog stick to drive - I want to use the D-Pad! I can’t help it if I’m old school. When my friend and I first loaded the game and discovered that we couldn’t use the D-Pad to drive, we couldn’t believe it. After a quick discussion about returning the game (yeh, we’re really a couple of picky bastards!) we bitched a little more then finally started to race. It took us a bit to get use to the analog stick for controlling the car, since we both exclusively used the D-Pad in Gotham Racing and RalliSport, but we eventually got used to it. I still find myself starting a race with my thumb on the D-Pad, instead of the analog stick. We soon discovered the camera views were a bit lacking as well. You had the normal driver seat view, which works fine. Then you have a birds eye view that is totally worthless due to the fact that you can only see about 20 feet of the road in front of you. Then you have two ‘over the shoulder views’ that are barely different from each other! One of them sits you a HAIR lower than the other, with no real useful purpose when compared to the other. The great thing about the over the shoulder view is you can see when the pesky cops are trying to ram you or pull a pit maneuver on you. Although the inside view is noticeably more forgiving with the control versus the outside views. I’m just not sure why they even included the second over the shoulder view or the birds eye view. The bird’s eye view would work if you were driving about 60Mph, but that defeats the whole purpose of the game!

Ok, so enough complaining. How does it handle? I’m glad you asked. It reminds me a lot like Gotham Racing but without the power slides. It’s very arcade-ish and easy to learn. Of course some of the cheaper cars handle like ass, while the expensive cars speed along near 200Mph and turn on a dime. There are a few different configurations that switch the buttons around but they’re all predefined, no customization allowed. -blech- If you’re used to racing with the analog stick, you’ll have no problem. There’s a bit more to handle than a normal racing game. You have your standard buttons for horn, acceleration, break, e-break, rear view, shifting (for Manuals), camera and car reset. If you are driving as a cop, you’ll also use the D-Pad to call for backup, roadblocks, spike strips and air strikes (how I refer to them). The right analog stick hits your lights and siren. As a racer, you can bust through the roadblocks, dodge around the spike strips, take shortcuts or outrun the cops in chase and nimbly dodge the incoming smoke bombs from the choppers that will send you sprawling if you tag one. If you come to a complete stop for more than a second or two (which can easily happen), then you’re arrested and it’s game over; it’s the same deal if you hit a spike strip. If you run into one of the smoke/fire bombs that the choppers drop on the road, your car will flip end over end and roll wildly, as the squad cars box you in and often end your race with an arrest.

Graphically, HS2 for the Xbox looks exactly the same (to me) as the PS2 version. It doesn’t appear as though it was spiffed up to take advantage of the Xbox’s superior graphics engine. It still looks impressive, however. There are some great details like the rubber marks on the road, and the smoke from peeling out. The soundtrack is awesome. Very fitting, although I can’t even name half the bands that contributed. The sound effects definitely make the grade. You can easily tell the different between the 4-bangers and the larger engines. You’d also think the constant police sirens would get annoying, but strangely enough they don’t. Of course every car comes equipped with a police scanner so you can hear what the cops are plotting against you, clear as day. Although some of the sounds sometimes come out rather hollow, overall they did an excellent job in this department.

Online play isn’t included, unfortunately. It would have been a blast to play online as cops vs. racers. On top of it, there’s only two players max in multiplayer. Ah well. Other than that, there isn’t really a whole lot more to this game. As I mentioned earlier, it’s pretty simple.