Need for Speed: The Run isn't a bad game but it's not perfect.
User Rating: 7 | Need for Speed: The Run PS3
Need for Speed has gone downhill after Most Wanted came out. They tried and tried to go back to what originally made Need for Speed so great but they either made mediocre or just plain bad games. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010) was the first good title in a while but it was developed by Criterion Games, also known for their Burnout titles. Black Box has been working on Need for Speed for a very long time and they even have the Skate games. I didn't know Black Box made Hot Pursuit II, Underground or even Most Wanted. I still consider Most Wanted to be the last good Need for Speed game. That one and Need for Speed: Underground. (Underground 2 was good too but not as good) Anyway, another one by Black Box is Need for Speed: The Run. They wanted to give it a new approach with a new story involving a man named Jack Rourke (played by Sean Faris whom you might remember from Never Back Down) who is high in debt and has to compete in a cross country race from San Francisco to New York in order to earn money and pay off his debt. Nice concept written on paper but once you see the game, you'll know it's just another attempt at Black Box trying to make another one like Most Wanted. The game isn't all too bad.. I mean, it's pretty decent. Actually, it's better than the past games like Undercover and even ProStreet. It uses the Frostbite 2 engine seen in Battlefield 3 and like Hot Pursuit, there's cops that will chase after you, there's explosions, avalanches and even police choppers shooting at you. Unlike past titles, The Run has has you racing on real environments instead of fictional tracks like Need for Speed is famous for. The environments look great, from the mountains of Utah, the snowy mountains of Colorado to the lit up cities of Las Vegas and Chicago. The game looks great. I don't know why you have to play interactive cutscenes because they are so unnecessary. The ending had me going "what?? that's it??" I can't really talk down on Need for Speed: The Run though. Sure it wasn't an improvement over games like Underground or Most Wanted but at least it was playable unlike ProStreet which put me to sleep and Undercover which I got tired of after one day of playing it. Some people didn't like the game, some people will even slam it but I think this game was decent. I wouldn't want another Need for Speed game like this though.
