Need for Speed Hot Pursuit (2010) was a game that was introduced at the E3 conference in 2010. I know when I saw this; I got pumped as I was an avid player of all of the NFS games throughout history. Racing or chasing is all you do and it was a lot of fun playing. Now onto the sound review.
Little disclaimer…These reviews are my opinion on sound as a player and what engages me into a game and doesn't annoy me while playing a game. I will be rating my sound review on close-to-real as possible on certain genres. I will not rate anything on gameplay like graphics or mechanics. I am just rating sound. If I miss anything that you would like me to review on, comment or tweet me and I will update the review accordingly.
Rating is as follows: 1 through 10
1 Being BAD, what were you thinking, horrible sound.
10 Being the Best sound element ever!
Ok, let's review the sound for the game Need for Speed Hot Pursuit (2010)
Music: There were two areas for music for this game. In game play and menus. The menu music was subtle and not annoying. How I do this is I sit in the menu area for a good amount of time. If the music doesn’t get on my nerves, then I am happy. This music certainly didn’t annoy. Now, the in game music is broken up into two parts. Cinematic and Radio music. Cinematic is when you are a cop and chasing a racer or you a racer being chased by a cop. The music choice for that part of game play was awesome. When you are just a racer, you get a choice of a few songs and frankly, I only liked two. The choices of the music for the “Radio” soundtrack when you are racing was a bit weak. I am not one to load up music on my Xbox HD so I was hoping the music would have been more of the music like there was in NFS Most Wanted. Cinematic music was good, albeit singular and the choices for the racer soundtrack was lacking.
Music gets a 6
Ambient: When I was a photographer at race tracks, both dirt and tarmac, I am always listening to what is going on around me. Not much on this one, there wasn’t that much of ambient. No dirt in the fenders etc. Only sound I really noticed was the slamming of cars, tire screeches, the “swoosh’s” when you fly past something, the engine and sirens. The only thing that annoyed me was the overuse of the glass breakage, almost comical.
Ambient gets a 7
Dialog: There were limited voices in the game which only consisted of the car review VO and the Cop chatter. The thing that annoyed me was when the cops were saying they were chasing a car. Cops do not say, “I am chasing a red Alfa Romeo Spider” I mean REALLY??? Product placement on the vehicles was a bit overdone. The VO on the car review “Show Room” was done well and I learned a lot about the cars which was cool. But the cop dialog I just didn’t like all that much.
Dialog rating: 6.5
Vehicles: This was something that NFSHP got close-to-real as possible but not dead on. The various vehicles in the game had their distinct sounds but all pretty much sounded like the others in their class. Didn’t hear much on the superchargers or nitrous. It was a bit weak. Engine sounds specific to the vehicles was ok.
Vehicle rating: 6.5
Overall Sound: I know EA wanted to bring this franchise back to life and they did an ok job. For something you just want to pick up and have fun with ok. But from someone who wants more when it comes to sound, I was let down a little bit on this title. Hopefully the next one will be a bit better. I will do a review on the Shift titles to see the level of immersion on the sound for those racing games. My favorite sounds in the game were the turbo and the helicopter. Sorry guys, this one just wasn’t that strong in the sound category in my opinion.
Overall Sound rating gets a 6.5
Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2010 overall review: 6.5
That is all for now, Raptor Claw 141 out.
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