As you wrap your hands on the steering wheel, you can feel the metal beast trembling. Suddenly the other racers around you come to life and you slam your foot on the pedal, making your own racer dart out into the open road at top speed. From behind you comes the police in their equally fast and sophisticated vehicles, their only intent is to stop this illegal race no matter what. In Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, all you can do is strap on your seat belt and gun it--this is one wild race.
Like in the first Need for Speed, you have a slew of fast cars at your disposal from the sleek and sexy Dodge Viper GTS to the fast and furious Ferrari 360 Spider. And again, the basic objective is to elude police cars that are trying to put an end to the race or you can do the chasing as the police (complete with spike strips, road blocks and helicopter support). The emphasis is on speed and quick reflexes as you race to win while trying not to get rammed off the road.
There are five different ways of playing the game: Hot Pursuit, Championship, Single Challenge, Quick Race and Multiplayer. Quick Race takes gamers directly into the racing action whole Hot Pursuit is a more orderly game mode that takes you through a list of thirty-three challenges while eluding the police to gain the Ultimate Road Racer title. Championship is similar, only here there is no police interference. Single Challenge is a customizable game mode where you can design the race with or with police interference and the number of racing opponents. And Multiplayer is an Internet or LAN multiplayer mode where there are no computer-controlled opponents, just players either friends or just fellow gamers from all over.
First of all it should be noted to those gamers that have played either the Xbox or PS2 version that the controls are not as smooth or as gratifyingly responsive in this version of the game. The PC version skips and occasionally freezes for fractions of a few seconds even on fast machines so don’t expect such a smooth ride all the way through a race, especially when you find yourself smashing up against three or four racers during the race. Secondly, this game was definitely not meant to be played with a keyboard so it is a good idea to play this one with a controller.
