Whilst I have really enjoyed many parts of this game and still am, I must say, I extremely disappointed with Criterion on this one. I held them in very high esteem, and just don't feel NFS HP has really been up to snuff with what I've come to expect from them. It's fun, really fun at times. But lacks variety and segments where I'm at now, I just feel the AI is incredibly cheap.
I've had some pretty infuriating races, and I've played and completed (usually 100%'ed) every Burnout title thus far, and never really felt it was 'cheap'. But NFS HP wreaks of it.
Take this race I'm stuck on now "Encore Performance - Race Performance", basically usually the M3 or Alfa in first. But I don't think I've ever played a cheaper track on any racing game.
You have scripted AI. Same crash every time near the beginning of the race after the opening tunnel (I know because I must have re-tried it 10 times). You can either go to the opposite side and lose time because it's a wider route, or stick it through and essentially luck it out when the crash takes place. Appalling that it's literally down to luck if you get caught in the crash (near enough).
Next up, how is the person in first always a set time or length ahead of you? The track basically forces you to take short cuts, otherwise no matter HOW well you race, the opponent that comes first will always be a set distance ahead of you. Again I know this because my completion times have dropped 1 second each time, but every time it's not made a single difference to the distance he finishes in-front of me.
That's just one race. There's so many other examples of cheap AI and gameplay. Moments where an opponent will lay a spike trap in such a tight squeeze you can only turn one direction, but a truck will happen to be coming there too. It's like the game pre-calculates when it wants you to crash sometimes. So many times I've gone through tunnels where the arrangement of cars (2-3 vehicles in traffic, another 2 racing) have literally made it impossible to escape an accident.
For a Criterion game, it's all quite disappointing. Usually their games have a bit more polish than this. And scripted nonsensical AI in these later parts of the game I did not expect.
Poor show Criterion. I honestly hope the further I get in to the game, it's not just more difficult purely for reasons like the above. That would be a damn shame.
