Can Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Return The Franchise To Its Glory Days?

Go through all of those videos. There is a reason EA is looking to Need for Speed’s past to make the series relevant again. Even today, the original Hot Pursuit- a 1998 game- looks the most exciting and the most fun of the three. Make no mistake, Hot Pursuit  was simply awesome, and the upcoming Hot Pursuit looks simply stunning, but if if Criterion can make the upcoming title even half the game that the original Hot Pursuit was at the time of its release, then they shall have done their jobs, and Need for Speed will be restored to instant glory.

BE WARY: NEED FOR SPEED HAS DISAPPOINTED WAY TOO MANY TIMES ALREADY

WTF? The videos above show a gradual degeneration of the franchise we all loved, a slow de-evolution of the games into- what? Need for Speed: Gran Turismo Edition? Is this what it has come to? Where are the cops, where are the wacky tracks, the tuner cars, the arcade style racing, that sense of speed? Above all, where is the fun?

Every single Need for Speed game in the past few years has looked promising, but then gone on to disappoint. On my part, I’ve burnt my fingers one too many times. Hot Pursuit looms promising, and hey, it’s Criterion, right? No way they’d do this wrong. But hey, I’m not being the guinea pig again. I’m not saying I’ll sit this one out, but I’ll wait. This game looks so awesome, but what if it goes wrong? Again?

Need for Speed represents a large portion of my childhood. Over the past few years, I have seen that childhood being mutilated and treated with the utmost of cavalier. However, I am very sure that Criterion, who are yet to make a bad game, will handle this one well. All that I say is, I won’t let my expectations go up again. I’m not getting caught in the hype. I’ll wait and watch, and presumably, this game will be awesome, when I’ll gloat at the return of the one franchise that, perhaps more than any other, reminds me of those days when me and my friends would race split screen with our FZR-2000s across the wackiest of all tracks, simply soaking in the fun and the rush of racing. Something that the later games lost.

Will Hot Pursuit be good. It sure looks like it. Criterion have done an excellent job, and the game looks exciting enough. Hopefully, come November, and we shall see the resurrection of the king, the return of a colossus of gaming- a franchise that perhaps deserve more respect than any other in its genre, but due to mishandling, simply doesn’t get it. I hope Criterion gets it right.