zzdcar
Home
/
Reviews
/
Culture
/
Here's Why You Should Be Busting Out The Old Need For Speed Right Now
Here's Why You Should Be Busting Out The Old Need For Speed Right Now-June 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:12:44

Image for article titled Here's Why You Should Be Busting Out The Old Need For Speed Right Now

Modern gaming, especially in the racing world, has made enormous strides forward in recent years, with tire wear, realistic slipstreaming, and laser-scanned real world courses dominating feature lists. But sometimes, it’s fun to just throw a disc in, and harmlessly slam a multimillion dollar exotic off of walls, and for that, I think the best place to look is the classics.

Let’s start off this series with my personal favorite from childhood, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2, released in 2002. I was right at that sweet spot in my life where I could be in absolute awe of it. The NFS series has produced three Hot Pursuit titles, in chronological order of release: , , and . And we thought Valve can’t count.

While the first game was still finding the sweet spot of what made racing games truly fun and had graphics that have aged to the point of being difficult to see on a modern TV, and the last game was a bit of a Burnout clone with actual supercars instead of imaginary ones, NFS: Hot Pursuit 2 was released at the arguable peak of the series’ strength, with the right blend of semi-realistic graphics, arcade-style handling, and a ridiculously over-the-top Be The Cop mode, where you could call in a helicopter to literally drop bombs on speeders.

With one of the of all time (you can fight me on that one) and a that shaped my tastes immeasurably in the decades to come, not to mention an (how many racing games put Rush in their playlist?), I think it’s worth blowing the dust off the PS2 to give it another go. Plus, if you have some pent up aggression from being trapped inside you’d like to blow off, you can ram speeding supercars off the road as a cop in a Corvette Z06.

Check out some nicely modernized footage of every Millennial’s favorite supercar ripping through the streets of-definitely-not-Italy below.

Comments
Welcome to zzdcar comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Culture
The 2600 Miles Of Road To Sebring, And Back
The 2600 Miles Of Road To Sebring, And Back
“The tank is leaking and leaving a lake around the RV.” My father rounds me up so that we can both look under and into the RV to find pools of water forming from a sizable leak around the water tank. We both sigh. This wasn’t an ideal way...
Jun 8, 2026
Turtle-Into-Windshield Collision Gives Stark Reminder Of The Grim Reality Of Mario Kart
Turtle-Into-Windshield Collision Gives Stark Reminder Of The Grim Reality Of Mario Kart
You know how when you’re playing Mario Kart and you just gleefully whip a turtle shell at an opponent with the careless abandon of a waterfall? Did you ever stop to think about what the reality of that would be like, especially if that shell contained a living turtle?...
Jun 8, 2026
Traffic Jams: Hole - 'Miss World'
Traffic Jams: Hole - 'Miss World'
It’s technically felt like spring here in Texas for the past few months, but I still can’t shake the Michigander in me that only decides spring starts in April — and with the arrival of spring comes the yearly revival of my favorite album: Live Through This by Hole. (If...
Jun 8, 2026
EV Trucks Save 1.5 Times As Much CO2 As Electric Cars
EV Trucks Save 1.5 Times As Much CO2 As Electric Cars
If we’re going to go through all the trouble of tearing up every last ounce of lithium on the planet just so that we can send hurtling down the road on autopilot, they had better be good for the environment. All that and more in for April 11, 2022....
Jun 8, 2026
Cop Admits To Playing Copyrighted Music Through Squad Car PA To Keep Videos Off YouTube
Cop Admits To Playing Copyrighted Music Through Squad Car PA To Keep Videos Off YouTube
A police officer in Santa Ana, California, admitted to blaring Disney favorites from a squad car PA system in an attempt to keep citizens’ videos of their actions off of YouTube. It just so happens they woke up a sleeping city council member, who took police to task for their...
Jun 8, 2026
Would You Fill Your Tank With Refined Scotch Whiskey Byproducts?
Would You Fill Your Tank With Refined Scotch Whiskey Byproducts?
I don’t have to tell you that gas prices are While I haven’t reached the point of considering alternatives, the landscape for sustainable fuels for internal combustion engines is changing. into technology to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and transform it into fuel. What if distilleries could collaborate...
Jun 8, 2026
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.zzdcar.com All Rights Reserved