Gamertell

The Need for Speed franchise has been sorely lacking in that “wow” factor in its last several installments. Electronic Arts realized as much and brought Criterion, the developers of Burnout, on board to revamp the racer.  At its E3 2010 press event, EA gave us the biggest glimpse yet of Need for Speed:Hot Pursuit.

The title itself is the same name a few of Need for Speed’s PlayStation and PS2 era games shared and the message is clear. These games are going back to their roots. After the Fast and the Furious movies put illegal street racing on everybody’s pop culture radar, Need for Speed was trying too hard to be a Fast and the Furious video game. The games’ decline in quality was indicative of a franchise that didn’t know what it wanted to be.

Criterion is keeping things simple, it seems. Here are the cops, run from them. If you’re a cop, bust speeders. There is also a heavy focus on the online component. In the E3 demo, we saw that your friends’ names will appear on your on-screen display as “Most Wanted” criminals. I get the feeling Need for Speed will have the sexiest online leaderboards in the business.

While recent racers such as Blur are about the 10 car pileups of multiple players, Hot Pursuit will provide some great “it’s just me and you” moments. Imagine bearing down on your best bud with your police-issued Ferrari and calling for a rolling roadblock to push them off the road. Or if you’re driving on the wrong side of the law, imagine being the speedster that gets away while 12 police cruisers and two choppers are chasing you all over creation.

Read [Gamertell at E3 2010]