Need for Speed: The Run

 

Then EA decided to split up the franchise which was growing tiresome with its yearly updates, so since 2010 we've had two Need for Speed games a year instead. I don't understand that either, but here we are: a year after the fun, but flawed, Critereon-developed Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, with Need for Speed: The Run, the first EA BlackBox developed title since Undercover. The Run comes complete with glitzy production values, random celebrity appearances (with actor Sean Faris digitised for the role of protagonist Jack Rourke and the ever-radiant Christina Hendricks as sort-of girlfriend Sam Harper), bonkers storyline, and a penchant for Porsche that goes some way to explaining EA's reluctance to license the cars to Turn 10 for Forza 4.

 

We've taken on all manner of roles in BlackBox games, from undercover cops to rookies out to prove themselves and so on, and now we're a gambler (but really good driver) who's fallen into trouble with the Mob, whom he owes a lot of money. The solution? Take part in an illegal street race across the US, from San Francisco to New York, snatch the first place prize from the grasp of the other 249 competitors and bank enough cash to pay off his debts. The obvious choice, really.

 

The concept is a pretty decent one. A 3,000 mile-dash across the US with 250 racers duking it out? Sounds good. But the implementation is everything, and The Run falls flat on pretty much every level.

 

For a start, the main single player mode - inspirationally named The Run - lasts about 2 hours if you're lucky. Now, geography and math enthusiasts will note that it isn't actually possible to cover 3000 miles in 2 hours unless you're travelling at 1,500 miles an hour, which most road cars do not do, and that driving the breadth of the USA would take about 2 days solid driving, which is probably taking the concept of endurance racing a bit too far in videogaming. So BlackBox has split The Run up into chunks, breaking the various legs of the journey down into separate challenges that need to be completed. These are normally pretty basic variations on standard racing modes - fight your way to the front of the pack over a point-to-point race, drive through checkpoints within a time limit, and so on. As individual challenges (which are playable separately, and in multiplayer) that makes sense. As part of the overall mode, however, they really don't. Overtake 10 cars, the first challenge tells you. So you do so. The next level loads. 'you need to make up lost time!' comes the next objective. Er, okay. Where did I lose this time exactly? 'Overtake 6 cars!' comes the next. Why only six? Are the next group of cars so far ahead of the pack that I stand no chance whatsoever of catching them at this point? And how did they even get so far ahead anyway if we all started at roughly the same time?

 

The holes in the logic get worse. Pull into a gas station and you can change your car to any of the other vehicles in your garage, and the rest of the race pauses while you do so, ensuring that you don't lose any time. But how did your cars get there? And why can't you change cars in between challenges? They're not helped by occasional cutscenes with hopelessly misplaced QTE requirements, or the humongous loading times that break up each race, or the terrible, terrible UI. One helpful tip advises me to chose a car suited to the track, by choosing a car with good handling for tight, technical tracks, or a muscle car for longer sprints. But The Run doesn't think to show me a map of the track before I start the next stage.

 

Even if it did, however, it wouldn't make a lot of difference. The cars available in Need for Speed The Run are a limited selection of high performance street cars, all of which have been specially tuned for racing performance. What that actually means is that they universally handle like tankers, unable to take even a gentle corner at speed without careening off the road, that their speedometer's report a speed roughly 50mph faster than they actually appear to be going, and that they carry a pitifully poor nitrous tank that can provide a meagre speed boost for about two seconds before it needs to be recharged. Occasionally that will be enough to make up for the need to lose all of your speed in order to take a mild left-hand bend, but not often, and given that your AI counterparts apparently drive much grippier, controllable vehicles you'll spend half of your time trying not to careen mindlessly off the road or into other vehicles. 'dirty overtake, 25xp' the game rewards you as the AI driver barges into me on a straight. Well, I did try to avoid him, but his car seems to obey complex commands like 'turn right' better than mine. Playing the game with a steering wheel doesn't improve matters either, and the handling becomes even more of an issue when you can't even see a hazard until the last second thanks to the flashy visual effects obscuring it. Should you crash - and you inevitably will, thanks to the appallingly clunky handling and terrible visual design choices - you have a few instant rewind tokens at your disposal. These aren't quite the same as you'll find in GRiD, DiRT and Forza, though; in The Run the rewind just restarts you back at the last checkpoint you passed, after a few moments of loading it. 

 

Once you've made it through the brief The Run mode, you can set to work on the Challenges and Multiplayer aspects of the game, which let you take on individual missions from The Run with different cars to beat your friends and top the leaderboards, as well as unlock more goodies like new cars and tuning setups. You can make minor cosmetic adjustments to your vehicles as well, though these are in the form of a handful of preset body kits and vinyl groups - don't expect any full vehicle customisation from The Run. Autlog is once again the excellent driving force (pardon the pun) behind the multplayer mode, constantly offering comparisons with the results of your fellow The Run-playing buddies. Taken online, the races are slightly more fun since at least al the players are in the same boat when it comes to handling, though the game is still just as frustrating.

 

On the plus side, The Run looks fantastic, mainly down to its somewhat unexpected use of the DICE's Frostbyte 2 Engine. The result is some spectacular scenery and gorgeously detailed vehicle models, and great looking in-game characters. The atmospheric effects are especially beautiful, most noticeable during the mid-game 'avalanche' sections, but as great as the visuals are they bring with them some problems. Most noticeably, BlackBox has fallen into the same trap that Critereon did with the Xbox 360 version of Burnout: Revenge: too much contrast and HDR lighting. Sure, the game looks great, but with high-speed racing visuals cues need to be clear and easy to spot. You can't dodge an oncoming car when it's obscured by a snazzy-but-entirely-unnecessary spot of glare, especially when your vehicle doesn't like cornering at the best of times. The engine also brings with it another problem in the form of inexcusably long load times: Each 5-8 minute long race is bookended by another 30 seconds or so of loading. It also means there's no splitscreen option, either.

 

On the plus side, the meaty sound effects and strong voice acting are backed up by an excellent soundtrack that takes in a variety of musical styles from blues to metal, which proves an unexpected highlight in a game that otherwise lacks them.