This game is a great buy for portable play on the Switch. It runs surprisingly well and looks pretty good. It’s super satisfying to play as a cop and tear through the racers on Hot Pursuit. Unfortunately the physics make it frustrating to play when you start using the high-end cars.

Drifting feels good but if you’re trying to make small adjustments, like changing lanes, the cars are total boats. Hitting traffic is a 50-50 chance, which sucks when you’re doing Rapid Responses and you get penalized +3 seconds/civilian you hit. Rubberbanding can be pretty obnoxious as a cop or as a racer. If you manage to stop somebody with a roadblock, you have to wait to see whether the game will reset the AI and launch them at 80mph+ or will have them accelerate like normal. As a racer, even if you’re dominating the entire race it always ends within a 1 or 2-second margin where you’re one spike strip or guard rail bump from losing.

Another weird issue is when you unpause the game, you don’t regain control of your car for another 2 or 3 seconds. When you trigger an in-game cutscene(like taking a car down) sometimes the game won’t autopilot and you’ll end up running off the road.

I don’t remember if the original was this clunky and awkward, but Hot Pursuit is still super entertaining and it seems like a very faithful remaster.