We've grown so accustomed to playing on the other side of the law in video games, that getting behind the wheel of a legitimate cop car in Need For Speed Hot Pursuit on our Nokia Lumia 800 felt like something of a novelty at first. Can bringing down crooks in your souped up nee-nah provide the adequate number of thrills?

You bet it can. For a start, these aren't your average underpowered Ford Focuses that your local bobby tootles around in. Rather, the cars you step into in Need For Speed Hot Pursuit are lean, mean growling thoroughbreds from some of the most prestigious real-life sports car manufacturers in the world. With flashing lights and cup holders (probably).

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And really, what could be more thrilling than hunting down a perp in one of these exotic cars? The game offers up a bunch of tasks based around such a premise. There's your standard pursuit mode (and variations thereof), whereby you must catch up with criminals and bash them until they crash, deploying road blocks and other such gadgets at select points. There are also straight-ahead races in which you must take on your fellow coppers in a spot of extra-curricular oneupmanship. There are also against the clock dashes where precision and focus is the key.

All of these race modes are joined together in a nifty career mode, where wins mean cash and cash means levelling up and levelling up means a shiny new car with marginally better stats. This isn't the most technical racer, so the differences between cars aren't particularly nuanced, but the game as a whole undoubtedly gets better relative to the hardware at your disposal.

Of course, if you still find yourself hankering for something a little more illicit then there's always the option of playing through the career of an undercover street racer - which basically means doing the same things as above from the opposite perspective. So you have to avoid aggressive cops as they try to bring you down, and race against your fellow crooks. It's essentially the main cop career with a few minor changes in graphics and goals, but it certainly extends the life of the game somewhat.

As hinted at, the racing at the core of Need For Speed Hot Pursuit isn't particularly advanced. By default, your car auto-accelerates, and you tilt your handset to steer. We found the steering to be a little lacking in responsiveness by default, but this was largely sorted by upping the sensitivity in the options menu. Similarly you can change the auto-accelerate to manual, but the driving model is so forgiving and the tracks so lacking in tight turns that such refined control is unnecessary.

In fact, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit isn't really about racing - it's about recharging nitro boosts, near misses with civilian traffic, and deploying an EMP attack at 200mph. As an arcade action game with a fair amount of content (though at £3.99 on the Windows Phone Marketplace, not a generous amount), then, it's tough to beat on your Nokia Lumia 800. Those looking for an outright racer that accurately replicates the feel of driving will have to look elsewhere.

What do you think of Need For Speed Hot Pursuit? Let us know in the comments section below.