Need for speed looking better than ever

User Rating: 7.8 | Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 GC
Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 is the 6th instalment in the Need for Speed series. Game design: The jump to the Gamecube has improved the graphics in the franchise. The cars now look a lot more realistic rather than pure polygons. There are also real affects added to it, for example if you crash too much the car will get badly smashed up (eg. Broken glass, leaning bumpers). Backgrounds also look really amazing, from the nice city layouts to the beautiful sun set. Game play: Hot Pursuit 2 has all the basic elements of racing games, you will have a single player mode, multi-player mode and free play. On the single player mode you will be taken to this huge board of events and completing each race will take you to another event, the futher you progress the higher the difficulty gets.
Each race will have different settings, such as finishing in a certain time or condition and during the race you will come across the police. Once the police detect you, you will be going through an intense chase; the police will do anything to try to stop you, from bumping you hard to placing spikes on the road. You can monitor the police action by listening through their radio, where you will always know what’s coming to you, however if they do manage to stop you, you will be arrested and will lose the race by default. You will also have pursuit missions where YOU are the police and will be chasing after people.

There are a various selection of exotic and sport cars such as Lamborghini Diablo and Mercelago to McLaren F1. Each car will have their own strength and weakness, you can also later unlock NFS versions of each cars and mirrored tracks.

Sound: There are a handful of new EA soundtracks added to the game. The sound effects of the cars are a lot more realistic than before and there are also voice castings, but most will only be from police radio.

Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 demonstrate to us what we can expect from future Need for Speed titles. The graphics looks incredible and the controls are very simple, especially on the Gamecube.
But its still a standard game and nothing really revolutionary was added to the game play. The game still has a lot of content to it and can provide you with exciting hours of racing, the multi-player mode is especially interesting. But otherwise it might end up getting a bit too repetitive.