The more things change...

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 does, of course, follow up NFS3: Hot Pursuit (has it been four years?). Fans will get a strong sense of deja vu: Tournament and Knockout modes have been combined with straight races into a more varied competition "tree," but the concept is similar. Since the very first NFS, this series has been noted for how "heavy" the cars feel and handle, and that's still the case. And the cops are still frickin' relentless.

In a sense, NFS: HP2 just brings the series into the modern ear. "Just," however, is misleading.

The game looks terrific, with plenty of detail and a decent variety of different locales, from seaside to desert, and EA Games has used a different graphics engine from the PS2 version that takes advantage of the XBox. As always with NFS, the driving and physics model has a bit of a learning curve, but gives the game a perfect sense of barely controlled speed.

Better yet, the cops are smart, calling in backup, roadblocks, spike strips, and even bomb-dropping helicopters! Best of all is the appropriately titled Be a Cope mode, which enables you to crack down on speeders in turn.

It ain't all perfect, though. Championship mode, which is exactly like Pursuit mode except without the cops, is useful for learning to drive, then simply gets boring. Despite the visual variety, the number of tracks is still small, using reversed tracks and alternate routes instead of completely new venues.