Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit

"I always wanted to be chased by cops..."

The third, and in my opinion, the best of the series, Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit has about 8 different tracks, plus one hidden one, about 15 different cars, and about 4 bonus cars, along with the ability to customize the cars, and several ways to play. You can choose Knockout, Tournament,
Single race, Multiplayer, and my favorite, Hot pursuit

Game play - 8/10

Knockout is a race on all the tracks, starting out with eight opponents. The last placed racer is eliminated. It goes on until the last track is you (if you made it) and one other opponent. It's Kind of fun, but time consuming.
Tournament is like knockout, but only depending on the place you come in, you will get points. Who ever has the most points at the end of all eight races wins.
Single race is just one race on one course. Good for practice. In this mode, you can customize your car the way you want it, change your opponent’s car, number of laps, and how many opponent there are.
Hot pursuit is like Single race, only the cops are out. Depending on how many laps there are, you can only get a curtain amount of tickets before you go lose. The cops will also go after the other opponents, set up spike strips, and road blocks. Get to the finish line (if you can) before your opponents do and you will be most wanted for that level. If you can get most wanted in all levels, you will become the cop yourself, chasing the racers!

Graphics - 7.5/10

The dust/smoke left after a burnout of going off road is just annoying. It will stay there for a little while. The cars look decent, but not great. The road looks good, but the things in the distance look a bit blurry. The good thing is that you can also change the graphics around a bit, from adding a glossy look to your car, or getting rid of that annoying smoke trail.

Challenge - 7/10

Just the right amount of challenge a game should have. Not to simple, not aggravatingly hard. Hot pursuit is fairly easy. The opponent gets pulled over by the cops a lot. It’s fairly easy to avoid them, either by slowing down to 40 MPH or just drive good so they can't catch up with you.
Single event isn't to hard, expectaily since you can customize your own car, or use an A class car (the best kind) and put your opponent’s car as a C class (the worst.)
Knockout is kind of hard around the end, but simple in the beginning. Just practice for a bit and you shouldn't have a problem. Tournament mode is the hardest. To bad you can’t customize your car, that would help a lot. I would say if you practiced, you can complete this game in two or three weeks.

Sound and music - 9.5/10

The sounds are great. Each car seems to have a different engine sound when you rev it up. Each sound has high quality. The music is the best part. You can choose from two different background music, rock or techno, and several songs from both, although there not real songs, its better then nothing

Replay value - 8/10

Well, it’s a racing game, so its replay value is pretty high. With the different ways of playing, different cars, and expectably playing as a cop, you can play this game a lot.

Pros and cons

Pro
-Able to play against other people online.
-Play as a cop
-Bonus cars and tracks

Con
-Turning is sometimes hard, not matter how sensitive you set the controls

Overall - 8.5/10
A pretty good racing game. If you like Need for Speed 2, you will love this one.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/04/02, Updated 06/04/02