see deal Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit - Xbox 360 $12.29 on Target

Like all the best video game locations, Seacrest County is a completely ridiculous place. The roads are universally pristine and peppered with awesome shortcuts. The national parks are gloriously free of gigantic RVs. And when people decide to break traffic laws, they do it at 200mph in exotic supercars. If that sounds like a slice of heaven pie to you, then you're going to want to check out Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Electronic Arts ' cops-and-speeders driving series from veteran developer Criterion Games

Loading

Yeah,+it+really+looks+like+this.

You might recognize the Criterion name from such over-the-top virtual driving experiences as Burnout: Paradise, the 2008 open-world racer that placed a premium on high speed and crazy crashes. Criterion has brought its amped-up aesthetic to the Need For Speed series, and the result is a slick and surprisingly focused driving experience that's positively bathed in adrenaline.The concept of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit could have been dreamed up at a middle-school boy's sleepover party. What if there was a place where both cops and the illegal street racers drove Lamborghinis, Mercedes, Bentleys, Porches and other drool-worthy marques around a gigantic network of roads at supremely high rates of speed? Oh, and wouldn't it be sweet if they could crash into each other and drop spike strips and call in helicopters and run each other off the road? And when you crash into someone, it should drop into ultra-slow motion and give you a ton of points!What I love about Hot Pursuit is that it completely embraces that spirit of adolescent madness and just runs with it. There is no wedged-in storyline here. You can play as a cop or a racer, and you increase your rank or wanted level as you run people off the road, drift around corners, drive into oncoming traffic (as a racer), and generally behave like a motoring maniac. Along the way, you'll earn Bounty to unlock new cars, expand your arsenal of weapons/gadgets and open new sections of the Seacrest County map. The more you drive, crash, smash and win, the more cool stuff you get. It's simple, and it works.This is no racing sim, but the cars do have their own distinct personalities. The Bentley Supersports, for example, is basically a tank with leather seats. But it handles surprisingly well, making it a great choice for Pursuit events where the goal as a cop is to smash racers into submission. If you're entering an Interceptor event where it's just you against a single wily racer who's liable to pull constant U-turns and shortcut maneuvers, you're better off in something light and agile, like the brilliant Pagani Zonda Cinque.Hot Pursuit isn't a car collecting game. Although you unlock vehicles as you progress, there's no real garage to speak of. The focus is on driving these cars, not upgrading, tweaking or painting them. But that's OK because the list of vehicles in Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit reads like a multi-billionaire's Christmas list. The Bugatti Veyron, McLaren F1, Lamborghini LP 670-4 SuperVeloce, Mercedes SLS AMG, Nissan GT-R SpecV and Porsche Panamera are all here. And that's just a sampling.Criterion has created a racing landscape that feels alive. Traffic (all licensed vehicles) comes and goes, aircraft fly by as you're driving, weather effects are realistic and dramatic, and the buildings along the roads just seem, well, real. Hop into Freedrive mode, and you can hop into any car you've unlocked and just tool around the entirety of Seacrest County. As you motor along, weather will come and go, the sun will rise and set, and the world will just sort of roll along.Freedrive doesn't affect your career, so all the damage you do to your car will just slide right off (if you choose). It's a great mode for taking perfectly-staged screenshots of your car in action. Unfortunately, there's no way to access the Seacrest County overmap while in Freedrive mode, so you'll have to rely on your smallish mini-map to explore the landscape. It's a bit of a frustration in an otherwise nice addition. Another frustration -- the PC version of Hot Pursuit has no mouse support. Not a huge deal, but if you were planning on playing with a mouse and keyboard, well, you're going to have to stick with the keyboard. A game controller is really the way to go, though, and the PC version of Hot Pursuit worked swimmingly with an Xbox 360 gamepad.But most of your time will probably be spent in the Career mode. Unlike Criterion's last effort, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit isn't an open-world game. You won't be driving around randomly in your race car or cop car waiting for something to happen or triggering it from your vehicle. Hot Pursuit's single-player mode is far more focused than Burnout: Paradise. In order to start off an event, you'll choose a marker on a map of Seacrest County and bring up a list of available events. Choose one that strikes your fancy, and you'll be taken into that event after a brief (and skippable) cutscene. And there's no decision to be made up front about which side you'd rather be on – you can alternate between cop and racer events at will.