EA gave Criterion Games control of an entry in the Need for Speed series and, while that may seem like heresy to Burnout fans, the gamble paid off. From the first race you'll notice that the cars feel heavy, fast, and mean. This is still an arcade-style racer, but it also requires precision and some lightning-quick reflexes. Once you add the weapons systems and the addictive online features... yeah, this is one worth picking up.

It's okay to wish for more Burnout in the future, and it's hard to complain when a team so respected creates something so satisfying.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit xbox*, wii, ps3, pc Release Date: now

now MSRP: $59.99 Official site * = platform reviewed

Which side are you on?

The game offers one career path for the police, and another for the street racers and outlaws. You can switch between them at any time from the overhead map, allowing you to go between the different events whenever you'd like. You'll be chased by the police, you'll take part in races, you'll have to break through roadblocks that offer a single path to avoid crashes, and you'll have to choose when to throw those down. Playing on both sides of the fence keeps things fresh.

The game offers a wide variety of licensed cars, making the police seem ludicrously well-funded. Who cares? We're in a stylized Fast & Furious-style world where supercars are everywhere. This isn't a simulation, but the cars do require you to learn to corner appropriately, and to use boost at the right times to get ahead. This is the best kind of racer: one that looks like fantasy but feels real. It's like living in an action film.

Winning events gets you points, but you also level up by placing high in the standings, finding shortcuts, taking down cops with your spike strips and EMP blasts, and any number of other dangerous behaviors. Getting more points unlocks new cars, new abilities, and opens new events. The game does a wonderful job of testing your skills while offering frequent rewards. The ability to use things like EMP blasts and spike strips adds a level of fun to the game, without making it feel as fantasy-driven as Blur. The game strikes a good balance between instant enjoyment and a deeper strategy and mastery.

Your friends are here, and they're faster than you

Then there's the Autolog functionality. Autolog is the social networking hub that shares your times and scores with people on your friends list, with the ability to upload images you take during the race to share with others. You're shown your friends' times before each race, and once you best a time the game invites you to send them a message rubbing it in. If someone beats one of your times you get a message telling you so, allowing you to go back and try again. This sort of thing has been been tried before, but the integration works very well in practice here; it's woven so deeply into the game that it becomes part of the core experience. If you're not playing online, you're missing a lot of the fun.

The game will even suggest friends to add based on who your existing friends are competing against, and it will serve up a list of events where you can compete with your friends' times.

Hot Pursuit has unlocked a strong sense of competition from people already, as I'm getting instant messages bragging about high scores. People send me taunting messages about my lower times, and I can in turn write on their "wall" in the game when I best them. It's always on, and feels social even when you play the single-player game. This doesn't even take into account the online modes where you directly compete against others.

There is the standard race, a mode that pits one racer against one cop, and Hot Pursuit, an all-out war between the racers and the cops. The racers have to zoom through roadblocks, the cops have to avoid spike strips, and it's a blast. The whole thing feels slick and well-thought-out, a series of obvious ideas put together in a way that's superior to the social approach of most racing games.

This is a racing game that may sound like a mish-mash of past ideas, but they're all combined in a highly polished and enjoyable package. The social aspect of the gameplay is yet another selling point. This may not be a huge leap forward in the racing genre, but it does everything right, and it's hard to fault anyone for not reinventing the wheel.

Verdict: Buy