Hi everyone! On April 26-28 at the Melbourne & Olympic Parks, I'll be attending 'DreamHack' as a CREATOR! I'll keep you posted on what I'm doing as the expo gets closer, but I hope to see you all soon! Otherwise, enjoy the review, I hope it was worth the wait! Happy Easter everyone! 👍
- Spencer
https://dreamhack.com/melbourne/

"it's always the same" proceeds to show 3 different cars with 3 different engine noises.

EA shutting down Black Box was one of the worst decisions they ever made. Black Box played a part in so many people's childhoods in the 2000s with so many great games: they made the iconic Need for Speed games of the 2000s like Hot Pursuit 2, Underground 1 & 2, Most Wanted, Carbon and Prostreet and they also made all of the Skate games and assisted DICE with Battlefield 3.

They had all these studios capable of producing great games and they overworked them and then shut them all down when they didn't meet sales expectations.

Kinda disappointed you didn't mention each car has a difficulty attached to it. Don't exactly remember what they're called but easy basically means grippy and hard is drifty and hard cars tend to be faster too.

The moment when you realise the original Crew was just the "spiritual successor" to this game in terms of its premise.

The Frostbite engine; When your evil publisher overlords force you to make all your future racing games with an engine meant for first-person shooters

Rip Black Box
they went out with a banger of a game

I genuinely love NFS: The Run and I think it deserves more love

This game had a bit of a charm to it, interesting story but really short. The game was also brutal on the hardest difficulty as it had what I can only describe as “Slightshot AI”. Once you over took the final AI you needed to pass, they would rubberband pass you and just disappear into the distance.

Also QTEs. I still remember a section of the game in playing it on the hardest difficulty on the 360 where the buttons required were hidden behind a digital camo like image. Though having seen absolutely zero mention of this anywhere tells me that this was either a broken texture that failed to load, or absolutely noone suffered through this mess on the max difficulty

Greatest curated racing experience ever, nothing matches playing through the main campaign of The Run and it’s peak cinematic gameplay and audio. Favorite game I’ve ever played, hands down. Also made me fall in love with M3 GTS. Black Box’s finest effort ironically was their last, at least to me. It’s okay to be different. Not every racer has to be open-world, customization based.

Fun fact: some tracks in the soundtrack were composed by Mick Gordon and although I haven't played it for obvious reasons it seems he did the soundtrack for the Wii/DS version of The Run too which weirdly enough comprises of remixes of 90s NFS songs.
Another thing worth mentioning, idk how they messed it up but the audio is bad on console and bad on pc too but not on certain versions? The intended audio is actually amazing but they messed something up with the mixing on certain versions iirc.

I always felt that The Run was inspired by Uncharted 2 which featured "action set piece moments" like something out of a Hollywood action movie (EA even hired Michael Bay to direct a trailer for The Run). The avalanche section and the Las Vegas quick time events especially look like they were inspired by similar moments in Uncharted 2. The final race is probably my favourite race in the entire series by far with the subway section being my favourite moment.

The handling model was probably meant to be a mix of the grippy handling of Black Box's previous games with the drift focused handling of the Burnout games (due to Criterion developing Hot Pursuit 2010). I think it's one of those handling models that you either love or hate: I liked it with certain cars but hated it with others. Also the game for the most part felt slower than previous games like Shift or Prostreet (or maybe it was just the close camera angle making it feel slower than those games).

The car list (with all DLCs included) was surprisingly varied (even if they sort of padded it out with tuned variants) and felt closer to the kind of car list you'd find in a Forza Horizon game. The Run and Most Wanted 2012 definitely had the most variety with their car lists. Though I wished they used the actual NFS hero cars with their actual body kits and liveries instead of whatever the hell they did instead (looking at you "Underground 2 370z").

This game would be amazing if there was like arcade mode instead only challenge mode, and for the story is better than actual NFS Movie

The visual customization in this game is the best part of the game for me despite how basic it is and whoever designed those style and aero kits for the cars surely has a good taste since almost all of them are so well designed. The street kit for example is true to its name, focusing on stances and elegant use of widebody meanwhile the aero kit is more aggressive and race car inspired yet still possesses the same elegance as the street kit. My personal favorite in this game is that one special edition mclaren 12C with livery and body kit inspired by the 12C GT3 but street racing-ized and it looks positively gorgeous, so gorgeous in fact that it became my go to car for the last chapter where it becomes available (despite its questionable handling)

I loved this game, the whole idea of canonball run through whole states is so great

The Run is so slept on! Race from coast to coast and all the action in between makes this one of my top fav NFS games!

I actually enjoy this game quite a bit. Only downsides are the ai being insanely fast and how short the story is

A fair review, but I disagree on a few points. My biggest gripe is your take on the handling. Yes it's a difficult and at time floaty handling model but to me it's incredibly satisfying once you master it. Honestly cars at the speeds you travel in that game (especially on normal non-track roads) are going to feel something like they do in game. Cars at high speeds, even high end cars, are going to be difficult and at times unpredictable. I love that the Run aimed for that. I also adored Hot Pursuit 2012 but because it was good arcade-like fun. The Run felt a bit more grounded in reality compared to the "tap brakes to drift" style handling of NFS Hot Pursuit. That is one of the downsides of the short story mode though. IMO you have to play through it at least twice to fully master the handling model and that's a problem for a racing game that's so linear. I loved it though so I've played through the story a few times. Once you master it though you really feel like you're fully immersed in a movie.

I liked the way engines sounded in The Run, but I do agree that at least some of the lower end cars sound a bit samey. The Gallardo you showed though sounded pretty distinct from the others, at least for me.

I feel like this game needed more time in the oven. The concept was so unique for the time and I feel like with more dev time to add tuning and a longer story mode (maybe one with some alternate routes) the game would have been perfect. The soundtrack especially goes so hard, both licensed and original. I also love the sound design overall. The way cars sound like they're just barely hanging onto the road as you go hard into a turn is just perfection and really helps get the adrenaline pumping. And don't get me started on the atmosphere and insane track variety.

Also NFS Undercover is bad. I can't believe so many people like that dumpster fire. Easily one of the worst NFS titles, at least on the Xbox 360. People must have some really thick nostalgia glasses. Fortunately most reviewers give it low marks because they actually have to replay it.

dynamic music makes it for me. i wish a new need for speed came out with an original score of soundtracks (especially dynamic) instead of just licensing a bunch of popular pop culture songs. Even if there were many licensed songs in The Run, it was completely overshadowed by the over the top soundtrack.

Black box went out all guns blazing with this game. Major respect to them for trying and innovating. This game really felt like a good action movie. And the landscapes and different scenarios… NFS The Run is legendary.