NFS: Hot Pursuit 2010 - First impression

[sixshot]

Since Criterion Games did not bother with a PC demo, I had to resort to... *ahem* other... means... to get a quick look at how the game is. I tried the Xbox 360 demo but it was mediocre.

I spent about half-hour to 45 minutes doing quick runs and quick glances. Eyefinity resolution works. And at first glance, it looks to be hor+. But I will dissect that part later on. Performance-wise, it looks to be underutilized. Meaning, I was able to run the game at 5040x1050 w/ high res texture on. However, I had blur turned off as I strangely hate blurring in driving games. This is all on a Radeon 5850 as indicated in my sig specs.

Used the Xbox 360 controller for driving. Works as usual. Oddly enough, I had to use the d-pad in order to navigate the menus. Using the left analog stick to navigate doesn't work. Must be a quirk. Again, I'll go into details later once I start poking around the different aspects of it.

Anyone else have this game? Gameplay feels solid at first but it's the UI and flexibility aspects that's putting me off.

[Hydralisk_X]

Criterion made burnout paradise which even had UI options for triple monitors, so it's not surprising that eyefinity works for hot pursuit. I was a big fan of burnout paradise, so if it's got any resemblance, chances are I'll like hot pursuit.

[sixshot]

I know 'bout Burnout Paradise, which is partly why I was interested to see how they do on this one.

I fired up the game again and started taking screenshots for comparison purposes. I took a screencap for 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1680x1050, and 5040x1050. I then took the first 3 and laid them on top of each other, applied some color overlay effect, added an image border, and a simple descriptive text. This is the result:



The baseline image is, of course, 1680x1050. It is hor+ but I didn't test 16:9 resolution. I completely forgot about it (oops).

As for Eyefinity, Surround, or TripleHead2Go, it does work out of the box as you might expect, which is wonderful. Here's a similar comparison image to the above using the final 2 screenshots to show the difference:



So far, so good. But what about options? Well, this time I think Criterion took a couple of steps back. The following cropped screenshot is the Display settings/options as far as adjusting visuals and quality goes:



This does not leave much room for anything else. The "margin scale" option as seen in the image does nothing but scales the HUD elements down. There is nothing to adjust how the HUD elements are placed. This is a big disappointment as Burnout Paradise was able to do this to some extent and I have seen it perfected in Serious Sam HD.

Overall, it looks to be half good and half bad. I can't say if the gameplay is good since I don't follow the NFS series that much nor do I know if the controls are correct for the franchise. One aspect I do remember is that trying to drift in the NFS games always felt terrible. Burnout Paradise not only made it fun but it also made it easy to do. That same element made its way into HP. In terms of flexibility, I found it to be very lacking, and in the worst case scenario, reminiscent of a console port. There are very little options for adjusting the visuals and quality. And it felt like it does not take much to maximize the visuals, sans motion blur. For a Radeon 5850 in 1680x1050, this game will fly. In Eyefinity resolution, the framerate is manageable and tolerable. I do not know how much of a performance impact using Motion Blur will have. But it's a visual effect that I have no problem omitting from my setup.

Is it worth US$50 on the PC platform? At its current state, no. If Criterion can add more flexibility and options to the game, then maybe it'll be worth it. Right now, it feels like a US$25-30 game than 50.

[DaFox]

@JohnK187 Sorry, it won't come out on Steam

Sorry, no it will not RT @acare84: @NeedforSpeed @EA Hi, will NFS: Hot Pursuit for PC come to Steam? Thank you.

Well that's a fucking disappointment.

May be worth the buy after they release the *ahem* Ultimate Box edition.

[sixshot]

Major disappointed. No Steam? Forget buying it at the store. I'm still trying to avoid games that have all sorts of crazy DRM attached to it.

I dunno how Criterion is going to expand on this. New cars will not cut it. New cars and tracks, maybe. New cars, tracks, and areas will keep players in. Yet given how Criterion shafted the PC players by not implementing Big Surf Island, I have less reason to believe that this game will find its way into my PC (legitimately). It just does not feel it is worth the retail price with some of the drawbacks I've mentioned earlier.

I'm guestimating that I will have the game uninstalled in a week. Having an actual PC demo rather than taking the other route would have saved me a lot of trouble, not to mention making the decision process a whole lot faster. *sigh*

[Paradigm Shifter]

Major disappointed. No Steam? Forget buying it at the store. I'm still trying to avoid games that have all sorts of crazy DRM attached to it.

What sort of crazy DRM is attached to this, then? I can't get a straight answer when I go looking.

Bugger. Just found the answer. Online activation. Dammit, not happy.

[Skid]

[quote]Major disappointed. No Steam? Forget buying it at the store. I'm still trying to avoid games that have all sorts of crazy DRM attached to it.

What sort of crazy DRM is attached to this, then? I can't get a straight answer when I go looking.

Bugger. Just found the answer. Online activation. Dammit, not happy.

I can live with online activation, just so long as its not permanent online connection required to play. If the Royal Mail do their job (unlikely) I should have when I get home. So I'll be uploading a video like the one I did for Blur most likely sometime tonight. Assuming it is there when I get home.

[yogibbear]

Can you turn off the takedown cam?

[Paradigm Shifter]

I can live with online activation, just so long as its not permanent online connection required to play. If the Royal Mail do their job (unlikely) I should have when I get home. So I'll be uploading a video like the one I did for Blur most likely sometime tonight. Assuming it is there when I get home.

It depends. I can deal with online activation for GTA4 and Borderlands because they're unlimited. But I refuse to pay for limited activations. ;)

Oh, let me know how it goes on your system - it apparently has massive issues with quad and hexacore CPUs.

[Skid]

[quote]I can live with online activation, just so long as its not permanent online connection required to play. If the Royal Mail do their job (unlikely) I should have when I get home. So I'll be uploading a video like the one I did for Blur most likely sometime tonight. Assuming it is there when I get home.

It depends. I can deal with online activation for GTA4 and Borderlands because they're unlimited. But I refuse to pay for limited activations. ;)

Oh, let me know how it goes on your system - it apparently has massive issues with quad and hexacore CPUs.

The royal mail didn't do their job well, its not here, it might come tomorrow (will be pissed if it doesn't as its what I had planned for the weekend) but I'll let you know when I can try it. :)

[sixshot]

Oh, let me know how it goes on your system - it apparently has massive issues with quad and hexacore CPUs.

massive issues? I run quad-core here. I didn't notice any hiccups while playing it. What were the symptoms?

[scooby]

I'm running the game with a Logitech G27. No presets for the wheel so you have to set the parameters for it.

The wheel works well enough but the lack of adjustment is a let down as (at least for me) the wheel has about 10"-12" of play before it actually making a turn.....very bad, very bad indeed. Looks like this was made for a game pad.

Game play at 6048x1200 I can see micro stutters but still playable...kinda!!! I reduced the resolution in game to get a more smooth frame rate.

We need a patch for this game soon.


PS If it had adopted some of Test Drive Unlimited game adjustments it would have been great.

[Skid]

Yep, game had absolutely no problem with my 4 core 8 thread system, got a 15 minute video on the way up atm, be ready in a bit off 5 hours (probably closer to 6).

Edit: While I'm thinking about it, if you right click the Need for Speed(TM) Hot Pursuit icon in the Games Browser, it has the following option:
Need for Speed(TM) Hot Pursuit - Deauthorize this machine.

[Skid]

Video is up :)
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=21102

[Paradigm Shifter]

The royal mail didn't do their job well, its not here, it might come tomorrow (will be pissed if it doesn't as its what I had planned for the weekend) but I'll let you know when I can try it. :)

Royal Mail failed for me, too, recently. They lost a Special Delivery item. Further, round here now, First Class, rather than being next day as it should be, is more like "Sometime in the next week. Maybe."

I know it's the way it's managed that is at fault, but they're not helping their case against privatisation. Except that, if it gets privatised, we can look forward to it being even more crap.

massive issues? I run quad-core here. I didn't notice any hiccups while playing it. What were the symptoms?

I just went looking on the EA forums. Now, I know that game-dedicated forums are a bad place, as people only ever go there when they have problems... but it just made me a bit nervous that it wouldn't work. If it does for you, this is good. :)

Yep, game had absolutely no problem with my 4 core 8 thread system, got a 15 minute video on the way up atm, be ready in a bit off 5 hours (probably closer to 6).

Edit: While I'm thinking about it, if you right click the Need for Speed(TM) Hot Pursuit icon in the Games Browser, it has the following option:
Need for Speed(TM) Hot Pursuit - Deauthorize this machine.

Excellent, two for two, and a deauth. :) Thanks.

[DaFox]

Royal Mail failed for me, too, recently. They lost a Special Delivery item.

Don't scare me like that! ;)

[Paradigm Shifter]

Internal mail mate; I think (hope) external mail is a bit safer! ;)

[tepescovir]

I like it, but the huge amount of deadzone with my g25 makes it unplayabe, pc users really need to be able to adjust it. so its going back onto the drawer till its fixed, if ever

[sixshot]

I fear that due to how the game is design nothing will ever be fixed. Sure it's nice that we get to play in hor+ widescreen and 3x wide. But really it should never stop at that point, especially for us as gamers and players. Ideally the update to this game would include a way to adjust the dead zone. And it would also include many more options to add better flexibility to the visual details, such as how much anisotropic, anti-alias settings, what objects to use high-res textures on, and a method to adjust how our HUD elements are arranged or displayed. But I guess now that Criterion is done w/ the game, they don't need to do anything more w/ it. Onward to the next milking title! *sigh*

[Skid]

Couple of notes, if you want to set your ingame picture to an avatar rather then a photo, go to hotpursuit.needforspeed.com and click autolog, then sign in with your EA account and go to the career page, you can edit it in there.

Also, if anyone wants to race or add me as a friend, my user is n_skid11