Need-for-Speed-Hot-Pursuit posts

Developer Criterion Games continues to update the PC port of its recent arcade racing game Need For Speed Hot Pursuit. Today the developer released the fifth patch for the game since it was first released last November.

As with the most recent patch this new update is mainly to deal with various game crash issues which players have encountered while playing the game. One game crash in particular, which occured on some systems when players were prompted to "Press Any Key", has been fixed in this new patch. Criterion is still taking bug reports for the PC version at its Bugzilla web page.

Download the Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 1.05 patch at Big Download

PC owners of Need For Speed Hot Pursuit can down download a new patch, the fourth, for the recent arcade racing game from Electronic Arts. The patch doesn't add any new content to the game but the patch notes claim that it does fix another 30 percent of the known crash bugs on the PC version. That just leaves another 23 percent of the crash bugs to be fixed.

The fixes in this patch include dealing with crashes when a controller is unexpectedly disconnected from the PC along with crashes when the game loads some invalid controller configuration files.

Download the Need For Speed Hot Pursuit PC Update 4 at Big Download

This patch for Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit fixes a large number of issues that cause the game to crash using specific video cards. It also includes improvements from all previous patches. Continue reading after the jump for the full patch notes.

Download Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Patch #3 (101 MB)
Check out all Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit downloads

Developer Criterion Games has issued its second PC patch for its recent arcade racing game Need For Speed Hot Pursuit. The patch deals with a number of issues in the PC port including some controller configurations not saving along with CPU performance hits and more.

More importantly the free patch adds three new cars to the game; the Bentley Continental Supersports Convertible, the Lamborghini Murciélago LP 650-4 Roadster (shown above) and the Dodge Viper SRT10 Convertible Final Edition. These cars were added in a patch for the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game just before Christmas. Players who download and install the patch won't be able to play online with their friends until they also download the patch.

Download the Need For Speed Hot Pursuit PC Patch 2 at Big Download

You now have less that 24 hours before the third annual Steam holiday sale ends. That means you will have less than a day to take advantage of the price cuts that are available on nearly all PC games on the service. It also means that you have until 1 pm Eastern time until these extra-special price cuts (all repeats of previous one-day sales) expire:

Neverwinter Nights 2 Platinum - $9.99
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl/Call of Pripyat bundle - $4.99
Left 4 Dead 2 - $6.80
Grand Theft Auto IV + Episodes from Liberty City - $9.99
Empire/Napoleon Total War Game of the Year Edition - $24.99
The Hitman Collection - $7.49 for three-game bundle (Hitman: Codename 47, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Hitman Blood Money)
Mafia 2 - $12.49
Dead Space - $6.80
Plants Vs Zombies Game of the Year Edition - $3.99
Amnesia The Dark Descent - $6.80
Need For Speed Hot Pursuit - $29.99
Killing Floor Complete Pack - $4.99

Monday is a new work week and with that new week comes some new one day PC game sales from several outlets. It looks like Electronic Arts will be holding some flash sales for the next few days:

• Over at EA's online store you can take 35 percent off the console and PC versions (both physical box and downloadable copy) of Need For Speed Hot Pursuit until 8 pm Eastern time if you put in the promo code "giftofspeed" at checkout.
  
• Impulse has a one day sale of Sid Meier's Pirates for today for just $2.49.
  
• GamersGate has a one day sale of Reign: Conquest of Nations for today only for $5.99.
  

Update: Direct2Drive starts a week of daily sales of Activision games with Singularity for $19.95 for today only.

While PC owners may not be able to get access to any of the future paid downloadable content for Need For Speed Hot Pursuit, perhaps they shouldn't be complaining that much. While we will be left out of the extra stuff that the console owners of the recent racing game will be provided with, most of us won't be getting any of the extra cars that are a part of the Electronic Arts employee version of the game either.

Yes, EA workers get a very special and exclusive version of the Criterion Games-developed title, as Kotaku reports. And not just some extra fancy packaging deal either. The EA employee version has seven exclusive cars that are not available to anyone else. So if you see the below cars while racing online, you will know that it's an EA staff member behind the wheel.

Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren 722 Edition
Maserati Quattroporte Sport GT S
Chevrolet Corvette Z06
Lamborghini Reventon
Bugati Veyron 16.4
Aston Martin DBS
Audi R8 5.2 FSI

It's a bit of a shame to hear that the Ender's Game adaptation won't be happening at Chair Entertainment. We still think a "Battle Room" game would be fun:

• Steam has new bug fix updates for Serious Sam HD The Second Encounter, Killing Floor, Galcon Fusion, and Lead and Gold Gangs of the Wild West.
• Steam has put Football Manager 2011 on sale for the next week for $27.99.
• A month after it was released, Steam now has Need For Speed Hot Pursuit available to purchase and download.
• Sony Online's free-to-play MMO Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures is now available to play on the Mac.
• Commander Keen, the very first id Software game, turned 20 years old today. Check out some game developer memories over at the Bethblog.com site.
• The theme song to the upcoming Ubisoft game Might and Magic Heroes 6 will have its public debut at the Video Games Live concert in Paris, France on December 17.
• You can download a hand-drawn texture pack for Minecraft, called ScribbleCraft, over at the game's forums.

On Friday, Electronic Arts confirmed to Big Download that the PC port of the recent racing game Need for Speed Hot Pursuit would not be getting the Super Sports downloadable content pack. Now a member of the game's development team at Criterion Games has confirmed on the game's official message boards that the PC port won't be getting any DLC content at all.

According to what the developer stated in the post, " ... we have a limited amount of resources that makes it so that we are unable to deliver new content to all platforms." He did add that, " ... we do have more updates and content on the way for PC players" but no details were provided.

You may remember that 2K Games decided not to offer the final two DLC releases for BioShock 2 but after a massive outcry from fans, 2K Games reversed their decision and "have reallocated resources to work on completing the project."

Gallery: Need For Speed Hot Pursuit Screenshots