Classic Games Emulated: NFS Hot Pursuit 2

While NFS Hot Pursuit 2 doesn't receive as much nostalgic praise from devoted fans as High Stakes, it's still a very good and worthwhile game. Hot Pursuit 2 is regarded as the last of the "classic" lineup as it's the last NFS game that still conformed to the classic format since the franchises' inception: racing exotic cars in exotic locations.

Time to burn rubber on the Greek countryside in my Mustang!

Despite it being the last of the classic games, HP2 was the first in the series that started to use licensed music, a feature that would become standard in later titles. The game featured music from prominent artist of that time. As such, HP2 highlighted the two main popular music trends from the early 2000's: neu-metal and gangsta rap. I admit that neither genres are my personal favorite, but that's just preference. Also, one can turn the music off, which in retrospect, is a Godsend for YouTubers recording gameplay footage. The last thing this YouTuber needs is their video being flagged because of copyrighted material.

This was the most detailed game in the series yet. While High Stakes conformed to DirectX 7, HP2 conformed to the latest DirectX 8 specifications. As such, their were even more graphical enhancements that made the track and cars look even more detailed than the previous title.

Mercedes-Benz CL-55

However, even with a improved graphics engine, HP2 makes a somewhat poor use of it as their is no race replay. This was removed from HP2 for whatever reason. Watching the race was real exciting. This was one of the standout features in High Stakes and the other titles, so its absences in this game is a massive drawback.

On one hand, it's possible to pull off awesome camera effects by manually modifying the camera settings file. However, this is a very tedious task and the constant changes in camera angles makes seeing other cars and sharp turns much harder.

Mod support of this title was minimal compared to High Stakes, but a lot of gorgeous cars were made for this game, especially from Robin74. His cars are a must for a modded install. His mods feature mainly American cars from the 1960's-1970's.

1979 Chrysler Newport by Robin'7t4

NFS HP2 has no trouble running under VMware Player 16 on Windows 10. My host hardware has a AMD FX-4300 Quad-Core processor running at 3.8GHz with 16GB's of RAM. The Windows 7 32-bit guest has 3GB's allocated along with access to 3D acceleration provided by the guest drivers. The game runs mostly at 60FPS at 1024 by 768 with full graphical fidelity.

1979 Chrysler Newport Police Cruiser by Robin'7t4

On the whole, this was still a descent release despite it feeling somewhat lacking at times, especially with the racing cameras. However, the racing is still quite enjoyable in this release. One can't go wrong in pursuit mode. 

Owwwww! Sucks to be that guy! Me driving a 1972 Plymouth Fury Police Cruiser while knocking off another Fury off the road in Pursuit Mode (He deserved it!). 1972 Plymouth Fury by Robin'7t4


Their would soon be big changes in the franchise though. A movie would come along that would change the course of pop culture, and racing games would be affected by this shift in trends.

Cars by Robin'7t4 (NFSCARS) : https://www.nfscars.net/need-for-speed-hot-pursuit-2/4/downloads/list/cars/1/author/robin7t4/1569/

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (Wikipedia) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_Speed:_Hot_Pursuit_2

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