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Check out the Mumble overlay near the top-right corner.
Yes, that's my THT1GUY license plate next to my alias! :) |
Well, Christmas night was a blast. And while
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit isn't without glitches, it's a pretty dang nice experience for the most part.
We had six people show:
- SpeedMonger
- BomaJoe
- DirtyDan
- ThatOneGuy
- d6Amefath3r
- Mando
We were hoping we could get all of us into a game, but for some reason SpeedMonger has a problem connecting to ThatOneGuy, but only with certain computers from my home. As mentioned before, my two kids joined us, and for some reason, d6Amefath3r could join SpeedMonger and BomaJoe and play a few rounds, but anytime Mando or myself joined with them, if SpeedMonger was in the game, we couldn't join, and vice versa. d6Amefath3r was having problems with the game crashing to the desktop with no error randomly too.
So we split into two games and had a riot for a while. SpeedMonger opted to jump out and the five left joined together for some fun mayhem. We played a bunch of Hot Pursuit matches, taking turns being cops and racers. (Being a cop is harder than it sounds...)
Hot Pursuit involves cops trying to stop the racers during a race they're having along the Seacrest County roadways. If the racers reach the finish, they win. If the cops shutdown the race by taking the racers out, the cops win. It was definitely interesting trying to stop the racers as a cop, and exciting trying to finish the race with the "po-po" on your tail.
After midnight, I excused my children to bed, and BomaJoe excused himself; which left DirtyD and I to our lonesome.
We decided to try another mode, Interceptor, which was a perfect choice because it's meant for one vs. one (Cop vs. Racer.)
This mode is interesting, in that it plays more like Need for Speed: Most Wanted. The cop chases the racer until they are able to take the racer out; or the racer evades the cop until they can get out of its range and go through a 30-second "cool down" timer. It's more of a free-roam mode where you're not locked into a given way to go on the track, like Hot Pursuit.
DirtyDan and I found each other pulling a lot of handbrake 180's, trying to evade each other, and have some really funny moments I wish I'd FRAPSed some screenshots or video of. One of the funniest moves of the night landed me one of our first "escapes" in Interceptor mode.
DirtyDan had about exhausted his supplies of helicopters, EMPs and Roadblocks (still had some spike strips), on this track that was nighttime and raining. On his last attempt at unleashing the fury of his EMP shockwave on me, I used the first of my "Jammers" to stop the shockwave and disable his radar. I can't remember, but I might have dropped a spike strip myself at that point to help slow him down too.
I then immediately kicked in my Turbo to try for a speedy getaway. In the meantime, I'd wait for one radar jammer to finish, then immediately launch another; and continued this until I'd exhausted them all... which gave me enough time to evade DirtyDan far enough to get my cool down and complete it.
We shared some good laughs over that and other fun rounds of Interceptor.
Thundr received his copy of Hot Pursuit on Monday, so he and I hooked up for a little more mayhem (in more than one sense of the word.)
Thundr's system unfortunately fits the mold of the minimum requirements for the game; and they proved to act like sub-minimum requirements. Thundr had some trouble getting connected initially, but it seemed to work itself out for 5-6 Interceptor rounds. Then it seemed to kick him out of every game after that.
One aspect of the game I forgot to mention is the
Autolog. It keeps track of the top scores of your friends in the different events throughout the career modes. While Thundr was making tweaks, I'd periodically go back to some of the career modes and run a round or two, and was able to successfully claim #1 spots on some events, or raise my standing on the "Speedwall." That will add some extra fun to the game when we can't be online playing each other.
Anyway, if you don't have it... snag it. If your computer won't handle it, upgrade it! :) I think this game's going to stay for a while, and we'd love to have you join us.
Hopefully we can work out whatever kinks we've experienced so far (or that EA/Criterion will and give us a patch) so we can all enjoy the game to its fullest potential.
Happy New Year!