Need for Speed: The Run

[Oobgarm]

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/28/ne...teaser-trailer

They might be pushing out a lot of games under the NFS banner, but this one seems like the premise is at least unique.

I'm game for some Cannonball Run.

[Oldskool]

I like the idea. I think it would be pretty fun myself.

[atarikurt]

Looks pretty fun. Remember after Pro Street when they were talking about shelving the series for a while? Now it seems like a new NFS game comes out every 6 months.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/28/ne...teaser-trailer

They might be pushing out a lot of games under the NFS banner, but this one seems like the premise is at least unique.

I'm game for some Cannonball Run.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvHTeNThAo0

[Oobgarm]

Grabbed this last night at TRU and have given it a bit of a try.

The storyline is stupid and a bit too much, just a simple premise would have sufficed.

The driving is just like the other NFS games, save for Hot Pursuit. No complaints.

Dunno what to make of the rewind feature yet, but I can't say I'm a huge fan of wrecking the car after rough traffic collisions.

[Oobgarm]

Gonna give this a bit more time before I lay down thoughts.

Anyone else give this one a try?

[Kitsune Sniper]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvHTeNThAo0

Well I needed a good cheering up. Thanks.

[duffmanth]

This game got pretty half ass reviews for the most part. I can't say I'm really surprised considering Black Box is the developer. EA should make Criterion the exclusive developer of all future NFS games. They made an outstanding effort with Hot Pursuit last year.

[The 1 2 P]

I liked the demo version but I haven't given the full version a try yet. I've been waiting for a little more feedback first.

[Oobgarm]

The bite-size chunks of racing you do are a turn-off. "Pass x number of rivals" in a stage, "Make up time" by beating the clock. Those are boring and generic.

The "battle sequences are a bit more fun, chasing racers down a hill, through city traffic, or through an avalanche on a snowy mountain road. They're not frequent, but they're fun.

The cars handle alright, nothing to write home about. I've made my way through quite a bit with no issue.

The on-foot stuff is just a bunch of QT events for button mashing. Interesting but really out-of-place.

Worst things about the game:

1. The replay system. Go off track or hit traffic too hard, you'll respawn at the last checkpoint, no choice. When you respawn, you'll have a bit more momentum behind you, so passing a nearby rival should be no issue. I've used like 20 replays so far and I'm only through 5 stages. Lots of times, cops would ram me into oncoming traffic or they'd push me off road.

2. The rubberband AI is even more of a joke than before. It's obvious the cars are lagging behind to give you a chance. If I'm not driving well, I don't want the game to hold my hand till I catch up...that's what the pause>retry option is for until I get it down right.

It's an average game thus far, and I don't see it getting any better. Glad I dropped $30 on it, but I guess I could make myself wring $60 of enjoyment out of it since I'm a NFS junkie.

[Ludwig]

The driving feels to "arcady". Tuning came short here, and while it knows how to present itself and stage stuff it just doesn't do that often enough, considering it isn't offering much else.

It's fun but i would play something else instead while waiting for it becoming a budget title.

[Greg2600]

"Let me get this straight, you want to be to blessed by a black priest in a red Ferrari?"

[portnoyd]

I see your

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvHTeNThAo0

And raise you

http://davidwain.com/files/cannonball.mp4

[Oobgarm]

Just finished the story mode. In a little over 2 hours and 15 minutes.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.

There are challenges and stuff designed to “lengthen” the title, but you’d think there’d be a bit more meat to the game mode that the title actual takes its name from.

A FULL REVIEW. I’ve not done one of these in a long time, but I feel as though I should.

I just finished the story mode. In a little over 2 hours and 15 minutes.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.

There are challenges and stuff designed to “lengthen” the title, but you’d think there’d be a bit more meat to the game mode that the title actual takes its name from.

The game’s premise was a promising one: drive across the US in a Cannonball Run-type race, with a few on-foot events thrown in throughout to mix things up a bit. If done correctly, this game could have been extremely fun and challenging, and possibly opened up new avenues for the genre to explore in the future. But the bare-bones presentation, stiff and unpolished cutscenes, technical missteps with AI and environments, and poor design choices in nearly every department really seal this one up as mediocre at best.
Instead of offering a full-on coast-to-coast racing experience (which may not yet be technically possible), the game breaks up the race into smaller chunks. Fair enough. However, these chunks are set up in a predetermined fashion based on three race types:

-“Pass # of Rivals”
The ultimate goal of the game is to pass 249 rivals and come in first place when the race ends in New York. These small sections of the race have you passing a certain number of rivals before you reach the finish line. It’s just boring and bland racing that’s been done to death in past titles. The number of passed rivals is tallied up after each race, but ultimately in the end, it’s unnecessary to even display that info since it’s all predetermined anyway. It kinda takes all the urgency and necessity out of reaching that goal, since you have to complete these chunks or you can’t progress.

-“Make Up Time”
Simply thrown in to make the game seem longer, you have to reach checkpoints before the timer expires. And the only way to fail these is to be a pretty awful driver. I made plenty of mistakes and still came through with more than enough time to spare.

-“Battle”
This type of race is actually pretty fun at first, but quickly loses its novelty about halfway through the race. Essentially, it’s a race from point A to point B against one of a handful of named rivals (or rivals in a couple unique cases, names that help move the story along) or just typical groups of racers with either cops in pursuit or environmental hazards creating a higher challenge. Once race has you driving through a huge dust storm, making it hard to see the road and pedestrian traffic; another is set on a snow-covered mountain, with avalanches cascading down as you race underneath. There are some that are just flat-out races on technical tracks as well. The events are all scripted, so a bit of practice will let you run through them flawlessly.
Once you make it through the main game, you’re offered a series of challenges, set up in a fashion like the NFS games of old. They’re fun, but really don’t serve much of a purpose outside of the main game. You can unlock cars by finishing them, but there’s no real need to do so unless you’re a completionist. You also unlock the highest difficulty for the main game, so the cars would be useful for that, I suppose. But would you really want to play through again?
Perhaps ambition of the game is a bit too high for the limit of the technology we have and these choices were necessary. I can understand that. But some of the design mis-cues and technical hiccups are questionable, and certainly aren’t limited by the hardware.

The “reset” system that’s been put in place really detracts from the game. If you smack objects or pedestrian traffic at a high rate of speed, your car is considered wrecked and the game stops and resets to the last checkpoint while showing a loading screen. Past games allowed you to hit these things and continue, albeit with a loss in speed, or they respawned you where the accident occurred and you got to keep going. Granted, you might not have had a chance to catch up and win the race, but you didn’t have to sit and wait 5-10 seconds while the game reset your car. Going off-road does this as well, but only once you’ve crossed the invisible threshold. There are many places in this game that do not have finite boundaries on each side of the track, allowing you to accidentally go off road or in some cases be pushed by a rival or police. This is a “new feature” to the series. It drags the gameplay out and gets very frustrating at times if you’re trying to cut in on sharp corners to make up ground on a rival, only to be reset.

I ran into many occasions where the AI racers were just plain boneheaded and broadsided traffic for no reason, throwing the car or themselves into my path, subsequently wrecking my car. I had no control over this, and had to sit and wait to be reset. Needless to say, this became very tiring, as it happened quite often.

The AI on the whole is not bad, the drivers are good at maneuvering through traffic more often than not, and can retaliate if you make efforts to spin them out. Though, the rubberband effect that is employed to keep the races somewhat fair is a complete joke. I tested this effect out by purposefully ramming my car into a wall and letting it come to a complete stop. The cars in front of me slowed down tremendously, making it simple for me to catch up and pass them. Not only did this occur with the first rivals to pass on a stage, but the battle rivals that were supposed to be difficult did the same thing. One occurrence near the end of the game made me feel like the game was taunting me. Conversely, if you open a huge lead on a rival (likely due to them crashing), they will catch up to you like nothing ever happened. The time ahead/behind is constantly displayed, so it’s easy to see when it happens. I understand the premise, but it shouldn’t be done in such a way that the trailing driver almost always has a chance.

And since there’s nowhere to lump this in with anything, the load times are atrocious. This may be due to the game’s need to constantly check with the Autolog service to compare times, but even just selecting to restart an event from the pause menu takes a good 10-15 seconds to reload.

After the amazing game that was last year’s Hot Pursuit, this game takes a colossal step backwards and could very well end the brand entirely. The SHIFT series is an average seller but in a different vein, and the only “arcadey” game since 2006’s Most Wanted to have actually scored well was Hot Pursuit. Carbon was “okay” and Undercover was pretty awful. Essentially going back to this well of mediocrity is unwise in today’s day and age, and the lack of polish and fine-tuning on this title clearly shows that it’s becoming nothing more than an attempt at a cash-grab. Give the series back to Criterion, or let them at least offer input and stop putting these bland titles out year after year.

We’ve seen what happened to Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk once they reached this point.

TL;DR: It's well below par. Wait till you can find it for $20, even if you're a big NFS fan like myself.

[Greg2600]

I see your

And raise you

http://davidwain.com/files/cannonball.mp4

I love that!

[InsaneDavid]

Damn, the brand is heading back in the wrong direction. Someone just do a modern remake of Radmobile already.

[duffmanth]

The driving feels to "arcady". Tuning came short here, and while it knows how to present itself and stage stuff it just doesn't do that often enough, considering it isn't offering much else.

It's fun but i would play something else instead while waiting for it becoming a budget title.

I agree with the driving feeling "arcady" and sloppy as well. I wish they would get away from these story driven games and just get back to simple friggin racing games!

[videogameking26]

I also bought it from Toys R' Us and thought it was a fanastic game and yes short but really fun and could of done without the button mashing scenes while he was out of car on foot, like the driving feel as it was like Hot Pursuit to me which I loved, again yes the story mode is short but plain to fire it up again one day on hard after I complete some other games in backlog. But I thought Black Box did a fanastic job and hope to see the sequel soon!.

[jdc]

I'm still in my glory with NFS Shift. Looks like I'll wait for a used copy of The Run at a very much later date, just so that I can keep my NFS collection complete.

[substantial_snake]

I might pick this one up when it drops down in price, looks like a fun arcade racer.

The last game in the series I picked up was ProStreet and although fun it tended to get old really fast and after beating the drag circuit, which was super easy with a max out supra, you pretty much had enough cash to win every race on performance alone. I still think NFS was best as the Underground series before you could buy every supercar under the sun though, I would really like to see another incarnation of that racer again.