You guys sure you ain’t down for Most Wanted. $25 on Black Friday. The main reason I got Hot Pursuit two years ago(?) was autologging with you guys.

The rest of Wal-Mart’s ads in case any of you guys feel like venturing out with crazies at five in the morning in -3 Celsius weather: http://bfads.net/Ad/Walmart-2012/Page2

Forza Horizon – $15
Dishonored – $25
XCOM – 25
Max Payne 3 – 15
Borderlands 2 – $25

Of course all these deals are still console-only.

@RedSwirl I’ll always feel so sorry for 2K Marin, because it seems everyone bar Tom Chick came out of the gate calling their hard work totally unnecessary. Will you carry on a little further, just for them?

Last Thursday eve I found myself with some time to, ahem, burn and spent it playing Hot Pursuit, head-to-head racing with @poimandre (who I will admonish for not posting here!). And without a doubt, it’s the finest pure arcade racing game to be had in a long time. There’s a stench from the peanut gallery online stating it’s simply ‘Burnout Lite’, but we came to the conclusion these saps are simpletons who undoubtedly came onto the Burnout scene with something silly like Revenge. This is utterly the spiritual successor to Point of Impact, especially after giving it the old versus workout for a solid few hours. Traffic deadly, smooth and uncomplicated racing mechanics and a pleasant differentiation with car handling and classes.

Also, Nail’d arrived just before I zipped off to the inlaws for the weekend. Holy hell, the few races I had before I left were…erm…rather fast. It’s definitely not everyone’s cup of Earl Grey, but it’s excellent regardless. A little more nuanced than you’d think, because mid-air repositioning and tactical boosting is paramount. Not a fan of the metal soundtrack, but it fits the game at least. Unlike a lot of fixed track racing games, this one is initially hard to figure where to navigate. Pansies will cry about this, but once you run a track a few times, you get a good feel for that ‘critical pathing’ multi-road hijinx something like this offers.

It might not win any awards for Criterion-level visual clarity, but I dodged five scything wind turbine blades whilst dropping hundreds of metres towards down an Aegean island mountainside onto the head of another racer. So far, that beats the pants off Motorstorm: Pacific Rift and any other extreme offroad racer.

May I just take this opportunity to – in case of schedule issues and whatnot – thank the Squad for a solid however many months this Squawk has been around. It’s always a pleasure to log in and see the best word on the street there is; may the geekiness and quality discussion continue. Merry Christmas and a happy new year to the best damn group of gaming enthusiasts on the web. It’s a pleasure and an honour to squawk with heroes.

@angryjedi I still haven’t logged on to see our latest bout of FS, but if the opening is anything to go by, it’s a savage one. I’m actually really glad they bothered doing a Mac version – despite the instability – so more folks get to check it out. Tell you what, though, the angriest of the Jedi is a fearsome opponent. I’ll go by your “Biggest Potential” quantifier, but would even call it “Best PC Multiplayer” for me personally.

And NFS…good lord. Autolog is the devil. It’s no longer a quest for the gold, but to hit the top of the speedwall. It’s exactly what they advertised, too.

Weird. So there is a PC version of Hot Pursuit, and it’s available everywhere BUT Steam. Oh, and was there a demo? I can’t find it on Xbox.com. There seems to have been one according to most news sites, but was it temporary or something?

As much as I love the symphonic music that plays during chases in NFS, I loathe the Lady GaGa sounding nonsense that plays the rest of the time.

If I wasn’t so lazy, I’d rock some custom soundtracks.

@RedSwirl , whoops missed the on the couch clause.

And No NFS has no split screen.

@cptcarnage When I said “three other people” for BLUR, I didn’t mean three other voices through some internet pipeline. I meant three other actual people.

In fact, does Hot Pursuit have splitscreen? The lack of it was my BIGGEST disappointment with Paradise. It’s one of the reasons why I still keep a copy of Takedown for the PS2 around.

@unmanneddrone As far as racers this gen I’ve mostly just played… yeah Burnout. I didn’t really see the point in Split/Second and I’d probably only get BLUR if I regularly had three other people to play it with – on a couch. Paradise has been about it this gen and I really enjoyed that while also acknowledging the things it loses from Takedown (and to a greater extent Point of Impact).

I’m contemplating getting GT5 even though I’d probably never get anywhere close to exploring all its content. Really just to look at it.

The reason I waddle back and forth on these things is because I lost every continuous source of income I had this year and am STILL trying to save up to buy a damn GPU next year. I simply cannot afford to drop $60 and then trade in for $10 because someone else dropped one sentence about why it is good.

Now, is this really like, the real Burnout 4?

@redswirl NFS is Fun. Yes, capital F. What else do you need?

@RedSwirl As a long-time racing fanatic, I’d first ask if you’ve played a racing game in recent memory, because a lot of the time you seem to need some sort of ‘hard sell’ scenario – something that either works for you or doesn’t when it comes to things like the racing or fighting genres.

Why not go and read @angryjedi’s rundown of it on his blog? http://bit.ly/a62dT5

If it sounds like fun, and if you don’t have an aversion to arcade racing, you should get some sort of enjoyment out of it. Whichever way you cut it, 2010 has been very, VERY kind to the racing fan. From Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing (the unsung gem of the racer genre this year) to Split/Second, BLUR and Modnation Racers, to F1 2010, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit and finishing with the beast of Gran Turismo 5 and probably this year’s most awesome game nobody will ever play, Nail’d, high speed antics abound.

My advice? Go and get Nail’d, because Techland know their business. And hell, between the magical GT5 and the rambunctious Hot Pursuit, people will be missing a wild time.

@feenwager: I stopped playing New Vegas because of Deadly Premonition, of all things. Once I’ve beaten that, I’ll return to the Mojave Wasteland; things were just getting interesting in my game. I’d just reached a difficult bit, though, so I was happy to take a break, too.

Need for Speed has been monopolising a lot of my time over the past few days, though. That shit be addictive. And not just because it’s super-solid, fun arcade racing; the Autolog Recommends thing is a work of evil genius.

Once I’ve beaten Deadly Premonition and New Vegas, I think I will tackle some of my backlog rather than buying anything new. I’m not playing Brodeo until I’ve at least played ACII, and I don’t really want to play that until I’ve beaten ACI, as flawed as it is. In the meantime, I have Castlevania, 3D Dot Game Heroes, Demon’s Souls, Darksiders, Final Fantasy XIII and a ton of other stuff that needs actually beating.

Guys, time to sell me on Hot Pursuit. It will be $35 at Target and Kmart on Black Friday. Give me a reason here.

I haven’t played a Need For Speed since 2. Not Hot Pursuit II, not Underground II, 1997 PS1 Need For Speed II. The only thing that has me playing attention is you guys basically calling this “Burnout 3 Takedown… 2”. Please draw the comparison.

Give me a reason.

@angryjedi I’ll be grabbing a copy, but…

@angryjedi I’ll be grabbing a copy, but not until next week. Tradin in Halo: Reach for $27.25 to Amazon and I have to wait for them to process the gift card before I can buy it.

@feenwager: My copy arrived this morning…

@feenwager: My copy arrived this morning, so I shall proceed to obliterate you at the earliest available opportunity.

Who else is jumping on this turbo-charged train?

@rocgaude not that I’ve seen so far, bu…

@rocgaude not that I’ve seen so far, but they’ve taken away the pointless meandering around the city in favor of a list of races, and just straight up tracks. No more losing the race because you made a wrong turn and got lost.

They’ve also returned to a very aggressive style of driving, where takedowns playa big part.

@feenwager Does that mean they’ve broug…

@feenwager Does that mean they’ve brought back the puzzle thingy?

Criterion has given me my Burnout back! …

Criterion has given me my Burnout back!

I’m so very happy.

@JeffGrubb: Hah, yeah, I know it was a 4Chan thing, hence the “I hate myself”. I came across it via Reddit though. Reddit appears to be 4Chan Lite in many ways, which is absolutely fine by me, ’cause I can do without the horrible shit on /b/. I was delighted that the Reddit gaming community came out with this much discussion when given the news that a Commodore 64 game 20 years in the making is finally being released.

@cptcarnage: NFS is more like Burnout than Split/Second, though I guess Split/Second was kind of like Burnout with more explosions in the first place.

@everyone: Reviews… I hardly read reviews any more, to be honest. I’ll go almost exclusively by Twitter buzz, what you guys say and what other friends (YES I HAVE OTHER FRIENDS, DEAL WITH IT). I find that this approach is good when it comes to writing my own reviews, though, as it means I’m not coloured by other sites’ judgement. I always think it’s more interesting when people have opinions that differ a little from the “norm”.

@angryjedi No worries sir, I was just being petulant! Super excited your wonderful brother nabbed you a copy, gives us all something to yap on about – regardless of platform! But ol’ FS…I hear there’s going to be a big single-player reveal in January! They’re smart fellows over at Mode 7, so I think we’re in for something special. Oh, and FS is coming to Steam!

@cptcarnage GT5. Indeed. You know, the most exciting part of GT5 for me would be the B-Spec racing management component. It looks fantastic!

As for review sites…for PC, I indulge in Out of Eight. (and @bowlisimo, Out of Eight’s twitter feed is a great source of indie and strategy titles – the man has taste!), for everything else it’s a combination of Strategy Informer, Fidgit (he may be intentionally contrarian, but you can’t hate Tom Chick) particular user impressions on NeoGAF and, of course, the fine folk found hanging around a certain Squawkbox.

Oh, and for those interested in Under Siege, a new cinematic trailer came out! Gorgeous…utterly gorgeous! http://bit.ly/anuD53

@cptcarnage Remember that one time they said GT5 was going to come out? Remember that other time they said the same thing? How about that one time, where they said GT5 was going to be released, then they said it wasn’t, then they said it was going to be released 5 weeks later?

Yeah.

That was awesome.

I’ll be picking up NFS on 360, if I get it. The autolog stuff is really awesome. I spent about 2 hours trying to beat @A.J.’s runs (finally did it) and didn’t realize the time had even passed.

As for my review site? I’m pretty much exclusively Giant Bomb, if I even go to a site. Most of the time it’s twitter, you guys, and word of mouth.

I may jump on the NFS bandwagon, only problem is GT5 comes out next week and I am thinking about it.

I’m in the dark about NFS and Assassin’s Creed B they fell off my radar and like Borderlands they are back on just after they came out.

Is NFS sortof like Split Second?

Also on that note, which site do you guys prefer for your reviews?

Yeah, I’ll be picking it up. I can tell that it is going to be a twitch-game kinda holiday. Between this, BLOPS, and Pac-Man: CE DX.

@unmanneddrone Sorry man! If I get paid any time in the near future I’ll double-dip on it for PS3 (since I’ll have only paid for one copy). I would very much like some rivalry with you! 🙂 You’ll be pleased to know I’ve finally got around to requesting an OSX version of Frozen Synapse so I might actually get around to playing it sometime before the year is out!

Having discovered Reddit recently, I can’t hear the phrase “pretty cool guy” without wanting to say “I think brother is a pretty cool guy. Eh buys me gaems and doesnt afraid of anything.” [sic] I hate myself.

But still. Brother is a pretty cool guy and doesn’t afraid of anything.

I traded Halo in a while back. It was fun, but I don’t have the time to keep up with everyone. At least with Halo things were kept on a level playing field all the time, it was just visual customisations you unlocked.

I’m looking forward to the Autolog business with Hot Pursuit, though. My brother’s been raving on about it. My buddy Phillipe (@pabosher) wrote a good review here, too. If it’s half as competitive as those Road Rules were in Burnout Paradise… well. It’s on.

@angryjedi I was thinking about getting it. Amazon is offering $35 back on Halo Reach and with CoD:BLOPS, FO:NV and Kinect currently at my house, I don’t see myself going back to Halo. Maybe I’ll trade it in and get NFS.

You’re brother seems like a pretty cool guy to do that for you. Just sayin’

To change the subject for a moment… my brother has been super-kind enough to order me a copy of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit for 360, so impressed with it that he is. Who else is going to be playing?