Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Critic Reviews

It's the most enjoyable experience to be found in arcade racing this year, and it provides that feel through fantastic courses that allow for deep strategic moves, especially when your team works together.

With so many modes and diverse rewards to uncover in Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, it almost feels like 2.5 games in one package. Plus, the fact that the online component works so incredibly, and we still can't pick a favorite between playing as a cop or racer speaks volumes to the game's quality. Quite simply, there is no better, more accessible racing game out there.

Hot Pursuit, like the high-end vehicles it fetishises, has been crafted with genuine care, with great insight, with technical brilliance. Gran Turismo 5 will grab the headlines and the purist vote, but it surely won't live like this game does; it will be an austere cathedral to Criterion's joyous modernist structure.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit may have been a late entrant into the race, but it both grabs the checkered flag for this year and may set a land speed record for this entire class of racer.

Criterion Games' arcade racing expertise has certainly paid dividends here, combined with DICE's input, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is an absolute essential purchase on both the single-player and multiplayer front.

It delivers a near-perfect competitive experience, in a way that few games -- racing or otherwise -- can. Hot Pursuit is not only a defining moment for the series, but for arcade-style racing, period.

Criterion produced the best racing game of the year coupling great gameplay, stunning visuals and innovatinve and very compelling social features. A must buy for every arcade racing lover.

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit is one of the generation's best racing games.

I had high hopes for Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit when I saw it at E3, but I never dreamed it would be this amazing, and certainly not good enough to unseat my reigning favorite, Split/Second, but with gorgeous virtual-real-world graphics, license cars, and awesome competitive action, online and off, Hot Pursuit is in a league of its own and quite possibly the best racing game of 2010.

With the exception of some overly long load screens and a bit of snapback computer AI, there's not much about Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit that's hard to recommend.

If you loved the Burnout series, than Need for Speed Hot Pursuit is a must have title and best of all, it pays homage to the original Need for Speed game.

And thanks to Autolog, you'll definitely be attempting events over and over. Autolog tracks your friend's achievements and lets you know what times they've set. They can even add pictures and text to your in-game wall, cajoling you into beating them by setting challenges.

Approachable yet challenging: a perfect balance for a console-based racing game. Being able to play on both sides of the law adds to the fun, as does an easy-to-use online multiplayer mode.

When the online modes work, they really sing, allowing for hours to slip away into tons of entertaining crashes and near-misses. Unfortunately, they can also be extremely broken.

The game looks great, handles fantastically, is fast as hell, and has a large amount of licensed cars.

An incredibly slick, enjoyable game and one that places the franchise right back at the peak of the genre. If you like arcade style racers you're going to love this.

Criterion Games not only reinvented one of my favorite and unforgettable franchises but created the best "near perfect" arcade racer while setting the bar high for any upcoming arcade racer currently in the works.

That I still loved the majority of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit despite those notable qualms should speak highly of Criterion's vision for this reboot, and coupled with last year's very sharp Need for Speed: Shift, EA's once-fading franchise has returned to a position of power.

With its electrifying blend of raw speed, intense pursuits, wince worthy crashes and revolutionary Autolog system, Hot Pursuit is an adrenaline-fueled rush that's a sure contender for racing game of the year and the best Need for Speed in all too long.

It's a game built round a single mode, in effect, but with its hefty community presence, asymmetrical flex and raw kinesis, it offers more entertainment value than racers many times its size on paper.