➤ Run Forrest, Run! 🎮

Versions tested: PC, PlayStation 3

Car games of all kinds have sprung up in recent years. Simulative? Done. Arcade? Done. Road battles? Done. Acrobatic? Done. Masterpieces? Done. Ciofeche? Even too much done. Racing on tracked rosafanti? Not yet, but it will be Game of The Year when it happens. In the midst of this metallic expanse full of rhombuses and virtual gasoline, the Need For Speed series has always stood out more or less well thanks to its exhilarating gameplay and ability to reinvent itself. The latest titles of the Electronic Arts brand have been very successful, and have turned out to be products of excellent quality. EA could have continued on that path, but decided to reshuffle the cards a bit and propose something new, a more cinematic game, with a blockbuster story and, blasphemy, playable moments out of the machine.

The new born is called Need For Speed: The Run, and has been entrusted to the skilled hands of the Black Box, a studio with a respectable curriculum that has given us many of the most successful titles in the series (including the unforgettable Underground). The optimism, to tell the truth, was not skyrocketing for this project, if only because the "on foot" sessions turned out to be simple quicktime events, where all that is required of the player is to press a button. every now and then to advance the action. Placing such an unoriginal novelty as the title's turning point was certainly not a very smart move, and it initially lowered our expectations. Nothing particularly serious anyway, since in the end what really matters in games of this type is the gameplay and, given the pedigree of the developers and the history of the series, at least that promised well. Our task today is to reveal to you if this ride is worth the price of the ticket, or if you would have done better to take the bus. Red, Yellow, Green ... let's go!

Vin Diesel vs Medioman

Need For Speed: The Run puts you in the shoes of Jack Rourke, a skilled driver in trouble with the underworld, who finds himself tied up in a Porsche on the verge of being demolished. As expected, Ours manages to get away at the last moment and, since escaping death just once a day is not enough for him, he thinks well to contact his old friend Sam Harper to get some "job". Sam wants to go big this time, and offers Jack the chance to participate in an event called The Run, an illegal race between 250 riders that crosses the United States and whose winner will be given a whopping 25 million dollars. No rules, no scruples, starting from the last position, police on his heels all the time and, of course, the two guys who had tried to turn Jack into a pancake at the start of the game among the participants. How to refuse? Clearly it is not a nobel history of literature, but for a title of this type it works. Too bad that the characters in the game are of an unspeakable flatness, and that the narration really leaves a lot to be desired. Jack, in particular, is one of the least charismatic men in history. We don't pretend that the main character is an unforgettable hero all the time, but a little more verve in this case wouldn't have made us sick. In general, the plot will give you less than zero, and you will limit yourself to moving forward race after race regardless of the motivations of the protagonists. A missed opportunity.

The upside is that this kind of premise gives developers the ability to use the US in its entirety to create the tracks, and given the variety of landscapes and situations that can be crafted with so much material, that's good and right. The Run consists of a series of drag races, from point A to point B. Usually it involves having to overtake a fixed number of opponents, but the events also include time trials and elimination races. The differences, however, are rather marginal, and in each stretch you will do nothing but dart like bullets to the final destination. Said this way it may seem boring, yet the developers have given their best in this field, and the various phases of the coast to coast are truly spectacular. You will find yourself escaping from fierce policemen aboard supercars and helicopters, dodging landslides and avalanches, crossing busy city areas, and so on and so forth. The choreographic moments are many and well thought out, to the point of making the campaign really fun, despite its shortcomings. Occasionally the aforementioned quicktime events break the action, but they are very few and do not unduly ruin the experience. Their introduction is objectively quite useless.

I go fooortissimoooooo

The flagship of the Need For Speed series is its speed. The Run is no less than its predecessors, and offers a series of very powerful racing cars with which to whiz through the streets of America. The gameplay is the simple and effective one typical of the saga, with the inevitable nitro for crazy acceleration and an impressive sense of speed aboard the most expensive cars in the world (among which there are also carbon dreams such as the Pagani Huayra and the Lamborghini Sesto. Element). By completing races, you level up and gain new abilities, including the ability to make nitrous go up faster with reckless maneuvers and the ability to use your opponent's slipstream to splash alongside.

The physics of accidents are spectacular, perhaps not at the level of the last Burnouts, but certainly of great effect. Minor damage does not worsen the performance of the vehicle and the most functional technique remains that of the "door" in the race against the computer, so, if you love dirty games, you are at home. Brutal battles, however, will force you to reset the last checkpoint with the help of a curious rewind mechanic, which facilitates the completion of the most chaotic levels. The charges of the reset are limited, decrease with increasing difficulty, and allow you to get more experience points if not used. Therefore they should not be used in bursts. In addition to the single player campaign, the game features various challenge modes, which are nothing more than additional challenges on the road sections faced previously. These challenges are used to earn medals and obviously to get big with your friends through the now inevitable Autolog and extreme spam on your wall. Electronic Arts' exceptional statistics comparison platform specifically dedicated to its driving titles and born with Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit returns with force and with some minor additions also in The Run. The entire single player campaign is strongly intertwined with the feature and allows us to see our position at the end of the race compared to those of our friends. But not only considering that in the middle of the race the overlays will give us back at a glance the times made by the other players in individual parts of the track, so as to stimulate both replayability and the hard decision on whether or not to use a rewind to face maybe better a badly set curve.

In terms of classic multiplayer, the title allows you to face in sixteen contemporary players most of the tracks already seen in single player in simple classic or elimination races. In this sense, we note the lack of game modes that are certainly more engaging and unprecedented than those seen in the single, such as police team competitions against thieves since the differentiation is resolved only in the classes of cars that can be used to participate in the competition. In part, this rather basic offer is offset by the possibility of playing multiplayer the challenges mentioned above which in some cases allow less experienced players to reach certain secondary objectives by collaborating with each other. The whole system is in fact based on rewards and prizes that can be collected not only by reaching the podium but also by earning medals during the race and even through random draws among the participants. In short, everything is in the name of maximum usability and in this sense the use of rewinds is exemplary, which become in effect real respawns that can be used in a limited way during the competition.

PlayStation 3 Trophies

The game offers 37 trophies including 2 gold, 24 silver and 10 bronze, in addition to the inevitable platinum. The gold ones relate to the completion of the single player campaign and the victory of the trophy itself during the random multiplayer draw while the silver ones are related to the completion of stages and some challenges. Finally, bronze trophies are unlocked by earning levels as a driver.

Missile! Missile! No, it's a BMW ...

The graphics engine used for Need For Speed: The Run it is the much-praised Frostbyte 2, already used for Battlefield 3. With such potential behind it, the guys at Black Box have indulged themselves, and created all kinds of locations, some of which (especially the snowy ones) of quality. The cutscenes are also beautiful, very well animated. Excellent display of programmers' skills, but not flawless. The inexperience with the engine has in fact led to some imperfections, including pop in phenomena, sometimes poorly defined textures, some flickering too many, and rare occasional crashes. Nothing that spoils the experience that much either way. The sound was successful, with good voiceovers and absolutely epic music.

The soundtrack greatly improves the gaming experience and, even if certain themes are repeated several times, they are so galvanizing that they are always welcome. For lovers of customization we have bad news. In the Run you will not be able to modify the cars at will as happens in many other titles of the genre. Each car has three or four fixed bodies, with predefined color schemes. Both the bodywork and the colors are often beautiful, but those who love spending hours remodeling their four-wheelers will be disappointed. Another drawback is artificial intelligence, which does not shine for skill and is challenging to beat only for the superior performance of the rival cars. In certain events, then, the behavior of the computer seems even scripted, since after a reset it happens that the computer reuses the same identical strategies or makes the same mistakes. Cortina the main campaign, which runs between five and six hours. The multiplayer, the challenge mode, and the various goodies offered by Autolog, however, increase it considerably. Provided that the style of play takes you enough.

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Need For Speed: The Run is a good racing game, fast, spectacular, exciting at times and with good replay value especially in multiplayer. But it is also a half misstep, which fails entirely to be the Hollywood experience for which he was passed off at the time of the announcement. If you love the series and racing at full speed with the beard of realism, make it yours. If you want something deeper and more varied, you are bound to look elsewhere.