Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

Difficult for getting every gold medal here seem to be some rapid response levels, interceptor and sometimes hot pursuit.


Rapid response
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1) As stated already, the rapid response events seem to be the most difficult, though I find them easier than the regular time races. The trick really is not to hit anything. If you brake more often and slow down considerably in dangerous situations (like when nearly hitting another vehicle in a corner), you'll win nevertheless precious seconds. Though your speed goes down, it is worth to brake, trust me!

2) If you CAN choose your car, choose a car with good handling. Try some different cars out – handling counts over speed in these races.

3) Except for really good shortcuts, stick to the road even though there’s traffic. On the “shortcuts” you’ll lose speed and you’ll be most surely hitting something, because they are often narrow.

4) It is possible, with good driving, to get the gold medal with up to 7-10 seconds penalty. Though it is hard, try not to quit your mission too early on and go on driving to the end – you may finish gold and you’ll learn the route.

5) The last tip and the most important one: Keep looking on the road! If you watch your mini-map too often it can be lethal and you will hit something. In the rapid response events there is more traffic than usual, so get used to avoiding it. I suggest driving in the middle of the road (between to lanes) in order to avoid cars. Also: Drive on the right side (the “correct” side of the road) in order to have more time to dodge other cars.

Interceptor
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The difficulty in these types of races is the fact that the racers have different racing behaviour. To win you have to find out, what weapons your enemy has and how he drives. Nevertheless the most important thing for interceptor (and hot pursuit) events is: Avoid the spike strips!

1) You can have the “clever racer”: These ones go for shortcuts a lot, don’t use a lot of weapons but the interfering transmitter to jam your mini-map and your weapons. Sometimes it’s difficult to get them because you have to rely a lot on eye contact to get them, and roadblocks are often useless because the suspect only drives on shortcuts. The trick is to use the EMP and/or to hit them with your car. You can also drive on the main route while the racer is on the short cut, to get a head start and drop some spike strips on him.

2) There also is the “changing routes racer”: These drivers aren’t that fast but use a lot of U-turns and spontaneous changes of directions. It is utmost important that you are careful at big intersections as the suspect will most likely turn and drive in another direction. You can’t use your EMP here a lot but the trick is, not to race too fast! This sounds weird, but I does work. Drive near to the racer and then slow down! You have to expect that, as soon as you close on to the bloke, he will turn around 180 degrees. If you are driving slowly behind him (and do NOT get ahead of him!) you will have the chance to hit him very hard while he is turning. Also, if you are prepared for the u-turn (best done with the handbrake) and you have a car with high acceleration, you can use the EMP or boost into him to get another hit. The trick is simply not to drive too fast.

3) Very difficult is the “well armed racer”: He uses a lot of weapons to destroy your car. This means: Keep your distance! If you’re too close behind him he WILL use spike strips and you WILL get hit. You’ll lose precious “health” and time. When you get ahead of him, he will use the EMP or he will try to hit and damage you. I found these racers to be the most difficult ones. You have two things you can do, to get them. The first thing is, to play the waiting game. Even the CPU hasn’t got unlimited weapons. So if you don’t rush stopping him, he will soon have lost all spike strips and EMPs, that’s where you can start the real interception! The other trick is to use a lot of roadblocks and helicopters to slow him down and make him vulnerable for your attacks. Just don’t run into your own helicopter spike strips or roadblocks!

These prototypes show how different behaviour can be found while in an interception mission. Nevertheless, there are also variations or mixes of these three types of racers. Try to study your enemy and use the right weapons.


Hot Pursuit
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I found these events can be difficult later on. Main problem is your “health”. The racers will have a lot of weapons and ARE using them! So the danger you’re running is to get simply eliminated. I once got totally annihilated when I got hit by three spike stripes in a row, got into a crash, got hit by an EMP and hadn’t got a single racer down.

So, in order to get ALL drivers and don’t get eliminated, you have to drive carefully and use your weapons wisely. At the start of the race, try to hit the last (or second last) driver already while your (and your enemy’s) weapons are charging. Afterwards try to keep a distance to the racers (because of the spike drops) and try not to waste an EMP (trick: use the EMP right after you avoided a spike stripe: the racers can’t dodge it now).

Early on in the races it is recommended to use the road blocks and ONE helicopter (don’t waste all the helicopters too soon). The roadblocks are especially useful because usually at least one driver hits them, creates a crash and others behind him will also crash. That’s where you have to drive a bit more SLOWLY and try to hit them while they are motionless. The roadblocks and the helicopter are also a good way of catching up, if you’re getting too far behind from the crowd.

The last tip I’ve got: Keep some of your weapons for the last three racers and drive SLOWLY (especially in the beginning of the race). You don’t want to lose nearly all of your health already in the first thirty seconds of the pursuit.


Hope I can help.

The only really tough events (at least for me) are the rapid response. The key to these is to not hit anything. Seems obvious, but hitting the brake only costs a second whereas hitting the wall or traffic is 2-3 seconds. I went through and did all events and got the best I could (sometimes silver) before going back and re-doing the ones I had left. Even though it might be tempting to rage-quit or restart if it doesn't look like you're going to get gold, finish the race anyways to get the bounty. Every little bit adds up to increase your officer rating while you tackle this.

The events that seemed to be causing the most problems are Rapid Response and Interceptor, so here's a few tips.

Rapid Resonse:

1) When given a choice, pick the best handling car not the fastest. Some cars are really twitchy when drifting and under braking. I found the Carrera GT (Exotic) and Mclaren F1 (Hyper) to be the best balanced, experiment with different cars to find which one suits you.

2) When on the freeways try to stick to the left lane, this seems to have the least traffic. Also it's very rare for traffic to be in the middle and left lane at the same time. When you notice a car in your lane move across as soon as you see it, this will give you more time to react to any other traffic in your way.

3) Stick to the main roads in the exotics etc unless it makes a huge difference to the time (Like the beach shortcut for example). Shortcut's tend be windy and you waste most of your time hitting things. Leave the short cuts to the races It's easier to keep your speed up on the roads.

4) Turn the siren and lights off especially at night (press Y) I know this seems stupid but the lights tend to be really distracting and serve no purpose.

5) Keep your eye on the road. Another glaringly obvious one but if you take your eye off the road to look at the map at 200mph your probably gonna hit something.

6) When travelling on the straights try to stick to the middle of the road it's easier to avoid traffic and you build up your Nitrous doing this.

7) Keep your average speed up. Try to use your nitrous when coming out of a turn and for hill climbs, not for going round corners. You need it to get your speed back up so it's pointless wasting it during a corner or straight into traffic.You do not always need to be going flat out to get great times.

8) Try not to drift using the handbrake I found that most corners can be drifted by simply releasing the accelerator then putting it back down, soooo much quicker. Also some corners do don't need to be drifted at all so don't it will slow you down.

9) Although it's best to drift on the right side of the road it's not always possible. I found that your just as likely to hit traffic on the right side of the road as the left. So when drifting on the left try to stay wide, lots of corners have verges that you can utilise.

I did use a few of the in game tips but they are good advice so use them.

Interceptors:

To be honest these are mostly about luck you normally get ample time to get a distiction but nevertheless they can be really annoying. Damage to your car seems to be the most important factor in later rounds.

1) Use your weapons early on to try and cause as much damage as poss.

2) Remember that the suspect will drop spike strips so don't slipstream him if you can help it. Beware that your helicopter will also drop them and the suspect will avoid them. I've lost count of the amount of times i've hit my heli's strips (I'll never learn).

3) For later rounds the health of your car is quite important so try not to hit your own roadblocks. They cause massive damage. Also try to deploy them when away from shortcut's otherwise they will miss them.

4) Sometimes the suspect will turn around if your lucky you can hit him in the side or front causing massive damage.

5) If your radio says that the heli has made a hit, slow down a little when approaching if you can hit him when he's immobilised that will cause massive damage.

There's not much else i can offer on the interceptors cos they are causing me the most grief. Anymore suggestions let me know and i will add them.

I hope this can help some people who haven't found this out yet, but on the Interceptor missions, there is a very overlooked way to bust the racer. An example of this.

Say the racer just hit your road block and isn't moving at all. Simply drive right up next to him and after waiting for several seconds, you can get a Bust, even if they have yellow health.

In other words, if the racer is "immobilized", even temporarily, simply pull up next to him can result in a Bust. As far as I'm aware, you must be at a near stop right next to the Racer to Bust.

Now I'm not sure the full details of this trick, but this can help shave time off as I have been able to pull this off within a minute of the mission and barely using my weapons.

But this is simply another tip for those who are having difficulty with such missions. As far as I know, this didn't work for me on Hot Pursuit missions. If you have luck, comment or post your own solution/tip, help the rest of the world out. Not everyone has the same skill level.