- Publisher: Electronic Arts
- Developer: Black Box
- ESRB Rating: “T" for Teen
- Genre: Driving
- Pros: Nice presentation; fun racing; neat tracks; Christina Hendricks
- Cons: Dumb story; ridiculous QTE sequences; inconsistent penalties; not a ton of content
For whatever reason, NFS The Run has a super serious story behind it. I guess it is to get you motivated, but I was sold at the "race cross country from San Francisco to New York" part and didn't rally need a story. It is basically a modernized Cruis'n USA, which should be awesome. The only problem is that instead of just setting you loose, the game has a story about some loser who is in trouble with the mob and needs to win the race in order to pay off his debts. Stupidly enough, instead of waiting to see how things in the race play out (and, hey, maybe getting their money back) the mob constantly tries to kill you.
This stupidity comes at the expense of the gameplay. When the dumb story gets out of the way and lets you race, it is really quite fun. But instead you're being shot at from helicopters, mob cars are shooting at you, police are chasing you (and only you, for some reason, despite being in a high speed cross country race with 200 other cars), and you're running around on foot in pointless QTE sequences. The QTE sequences are more like interactive movies where you watch your character leap across rooftops and escape oncoming trains and you just have to mash buttons as they pop up on screen. They aren't hard, just dumb. Dumb because they get in the way of the fun racing.
Gameplay
EA
There are problems, though. First, selecting cars is done at a handful of specific points during the story, or you can stop at gas stations in the middle of races (though the race pauses) and pick a new car. The idea is that different kinds of terrain require different cars - muscle cars for highway speed, exotics for technical tracks, etc. - and you switch cars based on that. In my experience, though, I didn't really need to change cars and just powered through with whatever I was driving without switching other than when I had to for the story. The thing about cars in this game is that they aren't customizable like past NFS games - you can pick different body kits and colors, that's it - and they don't really represent the handling or feel of the real versions of the cars. Also, all of the cars, at least up until the end of the story, are pretty evenly matched so which car you pick doesn't really matter. It is meant to be an arcade racer, though, so we don't mind these things.
The whole race from SF to NYC is so tightly scripted - you have to perform the way the story dictates or you do it all over again - that you feel more like a passenger along for the ride rather than a real participant in the race. Re-playing stages isn't all that fun because the set-pieces are always the same, and the result (you winning) is always the same. It is neat to play once, but you'll never touch The Run mode again. There are a series of challenge events you open up that give you new objectives and unlockables to earn, which do add some replay value, but The Run doesn't really offer very much total gameplay to warrant its $60 price tag.
My other complaint is that the game is very inconsistent when it comes to deciding when you wreck or when you go out of bounds. What do I mean? I mean sometimes you can hit an oncoming car head-on and just keep driving, and other times you'll barely brush a guard rail and it says you wrecked. Also, venture a little too far off the road surface (just a few feet ... or trying to cut corners) and the game will reset you back to the last checkpoint. Again, though, it isn't consistent. Some tracks you'll barely drop a wheel off the road on accident and it will reset you, and other times you can drive 50 feet into the weeds and it won't reset you. By the end of the game when the competition is much tighter and the speed are higher and the necessity for precision is at its peak, not having consistent boundaries about what you can and can't do makes for some very frustrating races. I mean very frustrating. I honestly can't remember the last time a game made me swear as much as NFS The Run has.
EA
Visually, NFS: The Run is a pretty nice looking game overall. The tracks look awesome and feature really solid lighting and special effects. The cars aren't super detailed, but they do look good. Real world actors Sean Faris and Christina Hendricks lend their likenesses and voices to the main characters in the story and their models look pretty good (particularly Ms. Hendricks).
The sound is also pretty good. Solid car engine noises and a good soundtrack where a seemingly perfect song was chosen for every race course.
Bottom Line
When Need for Speed: The Run is at its best, it is right up there among our favorite NFS games of recent memory, but when it interrupts the fun with a dumb story or QTE scenes or inconsistent gameplay it is absolutely borderline terrible. Unfortunately, the bad stuff outweighs the good stuff in the second half of your trip across the U.S. and you're just left with a bad taste in your mouth by the end and the good stuff (the Rocky Mountains or the high speeds of the Midwest) is quickly forgotten. There also isn't very much content here, which make it especially hard to recommend for full MSRP. You can see the potential, and at times it is fun, but dumb design decisions get in the way frustratingly often and knock it down from "good" to just "mediocre". Rent it, beat The Run mode in one sitting, and return it. Then forget it.
