Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit (PlayStation)

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To do: Regional differences. (Police chatter voices are in different languages and Region-Exclusive Cars)

Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit brought back the police after their absence in the second game and allowed players to play as the cops for the first time. Considered to be arguably the best NFS game of the classic pre-Underground era, it began one of the franchise's most celebrated sub-series.

Unused Textures#

ZHUD.PSH contains a texture practically named "shit". It's simply a black 3x3 image.

Unused Text#

The language files have multiple leftovers. Races with 20 laps were planned to be implemented (or maybe it was a track name placeholder, as lap numbers come right after tracks' names).

20
4
8
2

Leftover time and weather settings also exist; in the final game, only locale specific weather and night-time were toggleable.

day
night
dusk
dawn
dry
rain
snow
drizzle
storm

Pink, black and gray car colors existed as well.

green
yellow
pink
red
black
blue
orange
gold
silver
light blue
charcoal
maroon
purple
gray

Early AI names also exist. Only Tad made it to the final list unaltered; Blazin' Brooke and Iceman were shortened to Blazin and Ice respectively. There could be up to 11 AI opponents in a race; the leftover AI names are proof of that. (10 if you don't count "Cop" as an AI name).

Krazy Ivan
Blazin' Brooke
Akmel
Bob
Serge
Tad
Mid-Life
Iceman
Juan Valdez
Tatoo
Cop

And some totally weird strings, somewhat related to cheats.

fancy schmancy
funky monkey
no cheats achieved yet

Unused Tracks#

TR02B#

Watch on YouTube

Empire City is the only non-hidden track that lacks a second variation; though it was supposed to have one. It is only present on the PlayStation release of the game and is only accessible by replacing the files of another track. Its actual name is unknown, as it's not present in the text files.

The track itself is largely unfinished, with several bugs such as incorrect texture placement and broken AI paths towards the end of the route.

The route detaches from the regular Empire City layout at the first tunnel, right after the looped highway leading from the docks, and then goes down a long curvy tunnel towards a forest area with a variety of elevation changes, twists, and turns. It then connects to the regular Empire City layout at an intersection near the cathedral.

TR02B uses an early loading screen for Redrock Ridge; it has an completely black start point in a different place and the background picture is different, though the road layout matches the final version perfectly.

Interestingly, each track has its own set of colors for cars. TR02B uses an older set! While it's not too different from the final set, there are some minor differences. Of note, Countach and 355 F1 had an yellow color, whereas the Diablo had no yellow color, but instead it had a gray/charcoal with white/silver lettering scheme.

Unused 355 F1 color variant	Unused Countach color variant

Unused Diablo color variant

The unfinished state of the track along with the early Redrock Ridge placeholder screen suggests that the track was cut early in development. It is interesting to note that remnants of this track can still be seen in Empire City; namely, the tunnel and the cathedral has some impassable barriers with geometry beyond it (note the design changes on the tunnel and the areas around the cathedral).

Empire City	TR02B

Empire City	TR02B

To access the level, enable the GameShark code below on a North American version of the game and select Empire City.

301F78A7 0042
301F78BB 0041
301F8C41 0042
301F8C91 0042
301F8D6D 0041
301F8DA9 0041
301FAB0B 0042
301FAB1F 0041
301F8CB9 0042
301F8CE1 0042
301F8D59 0042
301F8DD1 0041
301F8DF9 0041
301F8E21 0041