Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Review

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Review

This fast-paced racer keeps you glued to the TV and on the edge of your seat regardless of which side of the law you're playing on.

The Good

• Exhilarating races and cop chases
• Autolog system makes competing with friends more compelling
• Tight controls make it easy to take corners at high speed
• Loads of licensed supercars
• Great online options.

The Bad

• Camera cuts occasionally mess with your driving
• No traditional leaderboards.

Hot Pursuit is a Need for Speed game in name only. This blisteringly fast racer has more in common with developer Criterion Games' own Burnout series than it does with any previous Need for Speed offering, despite lacking a number of features that are commonly associated with Burnout games. This isn't a game in which you're rewarded for crashing spectacularly or for jumping through billboards, but it is a game that encourages you to drive dangerously and to take down your opponents by any means necessary. The option to play both as illegal racers and as the cops that are chasing them brings some much-needed variety to the action, while spike strips, road blocks, and other satisfying countermeasures ensure that Hot Pursuit doesn't feel quite like any racer that you've played before. Regardless of whether your interest in Hot Pursuit stems from a love of Need for Speed, Burnout, or neither, you won't be disappointed.

You have to race hard for some of the gold medals.

If you're familiar with the Burnout series, you'll immediately feel at home with the handling in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Licensed cars from the likes of Lamborghini, Aston Martin, and Porsche can be made to slide around corners with only the briefest of touches on the brake, and you earn nitrous by driving dangerously close to other vehicles and into oncoming traffic. Furthermore, there are plenty of shortcuts available if you stray from the Seacrest County roads, and should you wreck your ride while attempting to take one, you're treated to a glorious slow-motion shot as panels buckle and debris starts to fly. A similar slow-motion treatment is used to alert you when additional cops show up to chase you down and when you successfully take out an opponent, which adds a welcome touch of Hollywood to these high-speed chases. Not that they need it.

Even in the Career mode's time trial and rapid response events where you have no cops or racers to worry about, the potential for disaster is ever present. Oncoming and slow-moving traffic, risky shortcuts, and sharp corners all conspire to keep you on the edge of your seat, and other event types add so many additional hazards for you to concern yourself with that your heart will likely still be racing long after you cross the finish line. As a racer, you find yourself being pursued by cops who can organize roadblocks, hit you with EMP blasts, drop spike strips in your path, and even call upon helicopters armed with spike strips to slow you down if you get too far ahead of them. And as a cop, you're expected to chase racers who have their own EMPs and spike strips, as well as powerful turbo systems and jammers that render all of your equipment useless for a short time. The good news is that as your opponents slowly gain access to more and better equipment in Career mode, so do you.

Hot Pursuit's cars are resilient enough that they get their own health bars.

Equipment is mapped to the D pad and is available only in limited quantities. This keeps events of the same type from feeling too similar because, for example, taking down racers by overtaking them and then dropping spike strips is very different from hitting them with EMP shots that take a few seconds to lock on after you position yourself directly behind the target. You always have the option to just bash into other vehicles in order to take them out, but these cars are much more resilient than their Burnout counterparts, and it generally takes several hard shunts to put them out of commission. Incidentally, as a racer you're free to run your opponents off the road or even to use countermeasures against them, but when there are cops in pursuit, it's best to save your aggression for your common enemy.

Cops and racers in Hot Pursuit benefit from impressive AI that makes them both formidable and occasionally unpredictable opponents. Both are smart about using their countermeasures effectively and are appropriately aggressive. But they're also fallible, which can make for some exciting moments when racers collide into each other directly in front of you, for example. Racers won't always take shortcuts, but it's not uncommon to see them doing so; impressively, when you're tailing them as a cop, they often wait until the last second to turn off the road, which makes attempting to follow them much more challenging. Cops will take shortcuts as well, but only when they're pursuing racers down them. Interestingly, not all of the alternate routes actually save you time, and how effective they are as shortcuts is in part determined by how well your car handles off-road. If you're in a four-wheel drive Subaru Impreza or Mitsubishi Lancer Evo, loose surfaces don't slow you down much, but if you're in a low-slung exotic like the Koenigsegg Agera or Pagani Zonda, you're probably better off staying on the tarmac.

Taking down racers as a cop is even more fun online that it is in Career mode.

Predictably, though AI opponents do a great job of keeping things interesting, they're still no substitute for other players. Hot Pursuit doesn't support local multiplayer, but its three online modes are so much fun that it can be hard to tear yourself away once you start playing. Online races support up to eight players, and since they don't feature any weapons or cops, they are a test of your driving skill and nothing more. Hot pursuit events, on the other hand, are four-against-four races in which a team of cops with full arsenals must try to prevent equally well-equipped racers from reaching the finish line. These events never play out the same way twice, and therefore you're unlikely to tire of them anytime soon. Similarly, you never know what's going to happen next in online interceptor events, which pit just one cop against one racer. The difference here, other than numbers, is that you're free to drive anywhere on the map. As the cop, you obviously need to stick close to your target, but as the racer, it's extremely satisfying to outwit your pursuer by taking a shortcut, using countermeasures to gain an advantage, or just doing something as simple as performing a quick U-turn. The chase ends either when one of the cars gets wrecked or when the racer manages to outrun the cop, at which point you have the option to switch roles and start over.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 Review

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 Review

While the third-person shooter aspect of Harry's latest adventure can be fun, the game's story elements fail to live up to those of its literary namesake.

The Good

• Gameplay is fun for the most part.

The Bad

• Fragmented, confusing story
• Bad character models and voice acting
• Occasional bad camera and bugs
• Little attempt to capture spirit of source material.

The most disappointing thing about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 is that it fails to capture the essence of the story it's trying to tell. While the revamped third-person shooter gameplay stays engaging throughout most of the campaign, the context that it's framed around is paper-thin. There is no attempt to tie the onscreen action to the motivation of the hero performing it; nor is there a coherent and engaging narrative to complement the gameplay and inject some sense of purpose. Crude character models, bad voice acting, a fragmented storyline, and a variety of bugs transform the richly detailed and minutely imagined world of Harry Potter into an experience as colorless as one of Professor Snape's lessons.

Harry fights a couple of nasty Snatchers in the British countryside.

The final journey facing Harry Potter is not an easy one. Darkness, loss, and death now fill the space once inhabited by classes, Quidditch, and dorm-room chitchat. There are no more schoolyard adventures, traipses through the forest, or twilight romances by the lake. Instead, Harry, Ron, and Hermione must venture past Hogwarts into the cold, wet English countryside, tracking down and destroying the remaining parts of Voldemort's soul. This is the picture painted so clearly and heartbreakingly by J.K. Rowling's final Harry Potter book and so unceremoniously represented here. Not only does the game's story take liberties with the canon (when did Harry, Ron, and Hermione ever venture inside an abandoned factory?), but those elements of the story that are reflected accurately are portrayed through short, fragmented cutscenes that look dire and are completely unconvincing, making the story confusing and unclear for those unfamiliar with the books.

Important plot points are glossed over in favour of combat, and the game does very little to explain what drives these characters to do what they do. What's more, cutscenes have the emotional range of a teaspoon, to use Hermione's own words. What is supposed to be one of the most touching moments of the final book is reduced to a cutscene so brief and so badly acted you can only laugh. The character models also leave a lot to the imagination and are plagued by awkward movements, a perpetual stiffness of the hair and clothes, and out-of-sync talking, not to mention extremely limited dialogue--Ron is particularly fond of shouting "We can't do this!" during every single combat sequence at regular intervals, which is annoying at first and completely soul-destroying by the time you finish the game.

Looking past the problematic storytelling elements, the gameplay itself is fun for the most part, especially if you can look past the fact that you won't be doing much else. The third-person shooter makeover sees you controlling Harry from an over-the-shoulder perspective, with a targeting system and cover mechanic also at his disposal. Most of the combat is free-flowing and rapid, however some camera issues stop it from being a completely rewarding experience. In some parts of the game, the camera becomes uncooperative and results in extreme close-ups, usually when you're moving in and out of cover or navigating within small spaces. This is something that almost always ends in disaster--it's impossible to determine the direction of killing curses when the whole screen is filled with the bottom left-hand corner of Harry's blue jumper. What Harry "shoots" are various spells; each spell's intensity increases over time, with Harry levelling up throughout the campaign and eventually unlocking 10 spells overall, including Expelliarmus, Expecto Patronum, and Petrificus Totalus. The spells are assigned to a spell wheel that you can either cycle through using the right bumper or bring up as a radial menu. The targeting system also works smoothly and is responsive throughout the whole game, activated by pressing the left trigger to lock on with the reticle, and the right trigger to shoot. The fact that the display features no health or magic bar (with health obtained from various potions dropped by defeated enemies) also helps to make the experience smoother and more immersive, at least during those parts when the camera isn't acting up.

Shooting enemy clones is fun, even if occasionally one will run into a tree for no reason.

Most of the game is composed of Harry, Ron, and Hermione moving from place to place, fighting hordes of Death Eaters (Voldemort's cronies), Inferi (dead people), and Snatchers (rudimentary bad dudes). Combat takes up the entirety of the gameplay, leaving no room for the more imaginative exploration and puzzle-solving that featured strongly in earlier Harry Potter games. To compensate for this, you're required to take part in four sets of mini challenges at certain points in the game--each set is made up of three short challenges that have no bearing on the story and involve Harry defeating a certain number of enemies or surviving an oncoming attack. These challenges are pointless and quickly become tedious, and there is no motivation to complete them other than that you cannot continue in the single-player campaign without doing so. Adding to this annoyance are occasional gameplay bugs found throughout the whole campaign, the more interesting of which include invisible walls and odd AI behaviour (hey, death eater, why do you keep bending over that desk at 30-second intervals?). There is also very little diversity in enemy non-player characters--there appear to be only three types of Death Eaters and three types of Snatchers, with absolutely no difference between the character models, which means you're often fighting an army of clones. Again, this doesn't help with the immersion aspect.

While shooting the place up like you're Yosemite Sam can be satisfying, it doesn't make for a very convincing Harry Potter game. Harry is a tortured, confused, and deeply anti-violent adolescent. It's true that these traits don't exactly make him the perfect video game character, but the game hardly even tries to represent the weight behind the choices he makes or the gravity of what he is facing. There are only two instances in the whole campaign when a certain kind of sensibility shines through. The first is during the first-person mode that's triggered when Harry puts on his invisibility cloak (accessible at any time by pressing the Y button). Someone put a lot of thought into this element--not only does the camera actually work smoothly in this part, but while Harry is wearing the cloak (encouraged in situations where it's prudent to be stealthy rather than go in guns blazing for fear of being overpowered), you can hear his slow, frightened breath in your ear, as if you were under the cloak with him. It's a wonderful touch. The second instance occurs during a Tim Burtonesque sequence that tells the story of the Deathly Hallows through shadow puppetry. While this is taken directly from the Deathly Hallows film, it is reproduced here with a softness and grace that is both visually stunning and emotionally arresting.

Outside of the main campaign there's a Challenge mode and a Kinect mode that uses Microsoft's new motion-control system. Challenge mode includes 20 tasks based around survival, stealth, and time attack goals where you must survive attacks for a certain amount of time, or defeat all enemies using only one spell, and so on, in easy, medium, and hard difficulties. Although there are online and offline modes, the challenges are the same, with the only difference being that you are scored in online leaderboards after you complete a task if you choose the online mode before starting.

Ron is mad because he keeps saying the same line over and over.

Kinect mode includes 22 challenges: 12 single-player and 10 two-player offline co-op challenges. The theme is the same as in the other challenges: you must survive attacks for a certain amount of time, or defeat all enemies using only one spell, and so on. While the challenges start out being fun to play, it's not long before your right hand feels as heavy and limp as a dead fish. The gameplay in these challenges consists of an on-rails shooter-type scenario: you have a third-person view of Harry as he moves of his own accord on the screen, with his wand arm mimicing your right arm as you perform the movements that pop up. These are fairly basic: shooting requires a simple flicking of the right arm towards the onscreen target or swiping your right arm across your chest as if you were performing a backhand in tennis; charging spells require you to hold your right arm above your shoulder for a second before flicking it forward; protective spells require you to raise both arms in a stopping motion; and finally, throwing potions requires a simple ball-throw at the screen with the left arm (there doesn't seem to be any option for reversing these controls if you are left-handed). The challenges aren't very long, but don't expect to be able play more than three or four in a row. Dedicated Kinect leaderboards can be accessed through Xbox Live, and there are achievements linked to completing these challenges. You're only able to cast five different spells while using your hand as a wand in these challenges, and you never get more than two spells per challenge. The single-player campaign spell upgrades are also absent.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 is an easy game to forget. Shooting bad guys with little context is enjoyable for a while, but soon enough it becomes impossible to ignore the same problematic aspects present in the last few Harry Potter games--occasionally bad camera, bugs, and a distinct lack of narrative cohesion--resulting in a barely there adventure that does little justice to the source material. The action is functional, but not particularly satisfying, and the elements that represent the core appeal--the story, characters and universe--fail to live up to the Harry Potter name.

Apache: Air Assault Review

Apache: Air Assault Review

Apache: Air Assault faithfully captures all the nuance of piloting an attack helicopter while including plenty of extras to keep fanatics coming back for more.

The Good

• Varying difficulty levels to suit your skills
• Plenty of variety in the extra modes
• Co-op support throughout.

The Bad

• Tutorial too short
• Bland world and story.

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? You've studied the battlefield, marked your targets, and in one explosive pass the enemy convoy you just engaged is reduced to a pile of ash. Air Assault is filled with these moments, and since simply piloting an AH-64 Apache is no easy feat, each one feels like a small victory. Developer Gaijin Entertainment has done a great job of crafting a helicopter combat simulator--a genre typically restricted to the PC--for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Thankfully, this is still a game flexible enough to reward strategic, well-executed tactics or reckless abandon, depending on which mode you play.

A few well placed rockets send these terrorists to an icy grave.

The game provides two modes of difficulty--Training and Realistic--to accommodate your level of helicopter expertise. Designed for the player who doesn't know his pitch from his yaw, Training mode applies several movement assists to make flying a more manageable process. This allows new players to focus on the combat and lends an arcade feel to the action. Should you get shot down as you litter the battlefield with bullet holes and rocket blasts, you'll be respawned right where you left off so you can continue with the carnage.

What Training mode grants in stability, however, it detracts in mobility. With only limited control over your aircraft, the helicopters feel slow and sluggish compared with the freedom allowed in Realistic mode. Sometimes even the simplest of tasks, such as gaining altitude or moving forward, takes the effort of moving mountains--especially when it comes to air-to-air combat. In the skies above, both enemies and allies whiz past, exchanging volleys of fire while you slowly climb to reach their heights.

Realistic mode does a good job of re-creating what it must be like to maneuver a giant steel box through the air. Naturally, it's a bit unwieldy at first. In this mode the entire pace of the game changes. Now, you're fighting not only your enemies, but also working to keep your craft aloft. If you turn too sharply, you might find yourself barrel rolling into the side of a mountain. Thankfully, a handy auto-hover function can help straighten you out in a pinch. And once you get the swing of things, you'll be able to perform winding corkscrews and other nimble maneuvers you can't pull off in Training mode.

Combat is also a more calculated challenge in Realistic mode. Reading the battlefield and planning out which units you'll hit with your limited heat-seeking missiles while not burning though all of your rockets on the first volley is a must. Enemy combatants, especially helicopters, will be more spot-on with their projectiles, so you need to develop a few evasive tricks to stay in the air. Once you've blasted your way through the campaign on Realistic mode, you're awarded with Veteran mode. Assuming you're a glutton for punishment, Veteran mode stacks on some additional restrictions, which includes limiting your lives (to just one) and your ammunition.

The cockpit view gives you an intimate perspective on the action.

Mastering both the Realistic and Veteran modes is a feat that will take more time and practice than many players will give. This is compounded by the game's too brief tutorial, which neglects to mention a few key points about helicopter warfare. Chief among these is the fact that you can land at various helipads, marked with a blue H on your radar, to repair and rearm your helicopter. An in-game encyclopedia helps fill in some of the gaps, but crucial information--such as the fact that your flares will deploy automatically to redirect incoming enemy missiles--is not something you should have to hunt to find.

In addition to re-creating the feel, Apache: Air Assault puts a lot of effort into capturing the look of these war birds. Each of the helicopters has been lovingly modeled to include the finer details of its real-life counterparts. Even the instruments inside the cockpit are designed after the real thing (they can even help you fly, provided you can read them). But while the helicopters all look, feel, and even sound great, the world they inhabit falls flat. Speeding past beneath your blades are some of the most uninspired forests, mountains, and deserts you'll encounter. And while these natural arenas serve their function, before long, you'll feel a sense of deja vu as you revisit the same areas again and again.

The plot is sadly resigned to the back burner as well and does nothing more than provide a thin framework for the destruction. It jumps around among three sets of helicopter pilots caught in a tailspin of drug cartels, narco-terrorists, and maybe something about the end of the world. While this all sounds fun and exciting, the game does a poor job of establishing who's who. So while the different voices prattle on about dictators and enemy forces, you're left trying to decipher which one is Hallows, which one is Riker, and what in the world a Trident-6 is.

Luckily, a cooperative mode helps alleviate some of the tedium, but it should be reserved for only the most dedicated of friends. Here two players fill the roles of pilot and copilot gunner both operating the same aircraft. It helps if both players are familiar with the other's role so that they understand and appreciate the limitations of each. While the gunner is in control of the helicopter's weapon systems, his field of fire is restricted by where the pilot is pointing the helicopter. Having an actual human in the gunner's seat is a plus, however, because the AI-controlled gunner will often develop a digital soft spot for a particular transportation truck or mobile missile platform as it's trying to shoot you out of the sky. At other times, the AI gunner will simply withhold fire altogether until you're right on top of the enemy. In single-player, you can wrench away control from the AI at any time, but that just adds another layer of complexity.

By the time you're finished this entire area will be one big crater

Once you and a friend have your coordination down, you can take your Apache skills online or to the game's highly customizable Mission mode (or you can hit them solo). These modes inject a little more variety into the simple go-here, kill-this formula found throughout the campaign. High-flying helicopter races and a mission where you scout ahead to paint targets for your Apache allies in a tiny scout helicopter help to mix things up. You can also create a custom skirmish match and modify the details down to the ground forces and weapon loadouts on either side. Ultimately, Apache: Air Assault delivers on just about everything for which an enthusiast could ask. While it may not convert many new players into pilots, a keen attention to detail and a good number of customization options help keep things feeling fresh.