Boy was this game something else or what?
- Story: Amazing
- Graphics: Stunning
- Soundtrack: Great
- New game mechanics: Awesome
- Michael Bay movies turned into a game: Hell Yeah!
- Challenging gameplay: Yes!

Joguei pela primeira vez na minha jogatina da saga NFS, e sinceramente? O jogo me surpreendeu, e muito. Ele não é a melhor experiência do mundo, mas só o fato da Blackbox ter tentado algo diferente, acabou até que me divertindo bastante.

A gameplay no começo é bem truncada, ainda mais se você estiver acostumado com a gameplay dos NFS mais recentes ou mais antigos, mas depois que você pega o jeito, a sensação de velocidade que você tem em alguns mapas acaba te mantendo preso no jogo.

Mesmo sendo de 2011, o jogo até hoje continua LINDO e agradável aos olhos, cada lugar que você passa tem uma estética diferente, os que mais me chamaram a atenção foram o da neve e a parte de outono.

A soundtrack dele não é péssima, mas também não é a melhor coisa do mundo se for pegar em comparação a do Heat e a do Unbound.

Em relação a história, não é péssima, mas também não faria muita falta se não existisse. A única coisa que é interessante mesmo é o conceito da "The run", que é no mesmo nível da Blacklist de MW2005, e acabou me prendendo ao game.

Não é o melhor NFS de longe, mas ele facilmente entrou pros meus favoritos da saga, já que ele acabou me pegando de surpresa e me divertiu tanto quanto os clássicos da era de ouro que eu joguei. Se não jogou ele e gosta bastante da franquia, tenta dar uma chance! :)

While I think the game's concept is interesting and novel, I'm disappointment at the lack of general stakes in the actual gameplay, the only real consequence with losing a section is having to do the last section again, which I think kinda boring and is not making full use of the potential of its premise. And for a game that pretty much relies on its story to keep its player interested it's story was generic and pretty boring. I think a game like this could be improved if one of the two previous points were standouts in this game. So while the game itself is pretty middling to bad, I can appreciate what it was going for and I think a game of the same general premise could work in the future.

Need for Speed Retrospective #18

At this stage, EA was desperately throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. And to be honest, The Run was such a breath of fresh air, I'm quite sad it didn't stick.

The story about a bland white guy and a large-chested redhead sidekick somehow playing the Mafia by participating in a transcontinental race was obviously nonsensical, but serviceable enough to sell the constant feeling of being on The Run. With the thundering music, the camera eerily close behind the car, police sirens approaching from behind and full-blown avalanches rolling in from the front, The Run was an action-packed blast from start to finish. I don't trust anyone who says they weren't excited playing this.

The Run sure is a slim package. It's short, there's zero customization and all cars are basically the same, but that's not the point. They set out to create a cinematic experience and for me, they nailed it. I just wish the game had been a little more successful. Imagine what could have been. We could have gotten a dozen Fast and Furious level bonkers cinematic driving games in this series.

The Run could the first ever NFS game that I finished in one day, it is very short but it's unique and very underrated.

Gameplay
In this game you only focus in one race, starting from 10 stages in different american states, while the last one is the east coast. The gameplay does not get boring, the atmosphere changes every time like the weather, and the rivals are gonna give you a bad time. I found myself dying so many times in a single run so don't be like me and take your time with this game if you find it a bit hard. The rubber banding is not that bad but sometimes you will lose the track of the road for no reason at all lol. Also during the cutscenes theres quick time events that are not that hard so no complains there and the police is not bad at all if you know how to escape a road block, but the I found the npcs to be AGAIN the most annoying like every NFS game ever.

Story
The story is about jack, a young man who gets in trouble with the mob. He's highly in debt and needs the money to pay them. He finds a huge race across the USA with many racers ahead. With the help of Sam Harper jack gets in the race and races till he wins. In the race there's time events where the protagnist needs to cross the drivers in a time limit. Your first rivals are 2 girls, Nikki and Mila and then you will face Cesar DeLeon and Calvin Garret which was the hardest rival in my opinion but in the end was easy. In the storyline you will need to change cars as well, the police will be after you all the time but after you escaped the mob cars and destroyed the helicopter you will need to go visit Uri, he's a mechanic and a friend of Sam and he will help you get a fancy car. You will revisit some rivals but your main antagonist is Marcus Blackwell, the man who does not only want to win the 10 million race but take Jack out as well after he witnessed his escape in the car crusher. After you are done with Calvin there's only one racer and that is Marcus, a last 15km race till the winning price, you get separated from him and you take the underground way and after you are back to surface you take your time and get down to the winning point after Marcus's car gets destroyed in the chase. After winning you meet again with Sam and she asks you again if you want another race to call her but now you are free from the trouble and that's where the story ends.

Conclusion
The Run is a interesting racing game, but I warn you only piracy works if you want to try this game for the PC, the game is off digital fronts and that's the only way to play it. I didn't had problems with it but some minor crashes happened even at the end before the credits rolled but it was fine, was it better than hot pursuit 2010? nah, the characters are forgettable and even if hot pursuit didn't have a story it felt better, this one only has a storyline and that's about it even tho it was the last ea blackbox release.

Terra meter: 60%

Story/narrative - 2/5
Gameplay - - 3/5
Sound/music - 3/5
General presentation - 4/5
Overall enjoyment - 3/5

I was fully expecting the newfound appreciation for Need for Speed: The Run to be entirely made up of people fondly remembering a game they played when they were 12, but this is a great example of a game's qualities overshadowing its flaws.

The game is agressively linear, but the sheer diversity of the visuals, track layouts and objectives in missions keep it interesting all throughout its length.
The short length may be dissapointing to some, but I love how you can count the moments where the game slows down in one hand.
The story may be awfully generic and clumsily told, but getting to see the placement of every one of the hundreds of racers you speed past as you drive coast to coast is a premise I never knew I desperately wanted in a game.
The game's difficulty spikes up and down wildly, but getting to choose the difficulty level at the start is infinitely better than the sleep inducing challenge most of Blackbox's games present.
All of the faults are enough for me to be unable to say The Run is an amazing game, but I get the feeling I'll only like the game more in the future, because I can see myself replaying it just as often as all the other arcade racing games that don't waste a minute of your time doing meaningless races to give a sense of progression.

This has to be the clunkiest racing game I've ever played. The controls are slow and the gameplay feels like you're sliding on the street's surface.

The story is nonsensical and very dumb, I don't even understand why they bothered writing a story to begin with. Also, the Quick Time Events are such a pain, they ruin the entire game.

The car customization isn't good but it just exists, you can paint your car and select between few body kit parts which I find lazy, I wish I had more control over my car.

The challenges are decent but could've been better. This game desperately needed more content, because it feels pretty bland.

I don't recommend this game at all.
This is probably the worst game I've ever played that I can remember.

Final Rating: "Horrible" ~ 2/10.

Need for Speed: The Run was a bit of an ambitious project. Even back in 2011 the Need for Speed franchise had gotten long in the tooth, releasing 17 games in as many years. The Run itself was the second of two NFS games to be released in 2011, with Shift 2 hitting shelves in March of that year. The franchise was in need of a shakeup, and that’s what the Run sought to do. Instead of being set in a single city, the Run’s campaign takes players on a massive Cannonball Run-style transcontinental race and tries to offer a more “cinematic” experience it, styling itself as a playable big-budget Hollywood action movie. Unfortunately, it’s not a good one.

The Run’s driving is honestly a blast, the sense of speed here is genuinely incredible and the cars handle well. The problem here is how the game’s attempts to be “cinematic” interfere with the actual racing. Sometimes it works well, you’ll get great setpieces like racing down a snowy mountain during an avalanche, jacking a police cruiser and outrunning mobsters, and zooming down a subway tunnel while avoiding getting flattened by trains. Other times though, you’ll be pulled out of the race and your vehicle and made to do some of the lamest quick time events I’ve ever seen in a video game. Even without that though, the races are oddly rigid. Attempt to cut a corner, you’ll be placed back on the road, as if the game is demanding you play it the “right” way.

The actual story? In this game’s efforts to imitate Hollywood action films, it forgot to copy any actual good ones. One-note characters, bland dialogue. The player character Jack Rourke has a friend guiding him throughout the entire race except not really, because during the two rarely interact with each other during a race, just tons of dead air where there could be banter, bonding moments, something. There’s also these Rivals, whose bios are shown on the loading screen before you race them, but I’d hardly consider them part of the game’s cast. Sure they have names and faces, but they’re not voiced and beyond racing you have no interactions with them. It makes me why they’re even here in the first place.

I was pulled to The Run because of its unique concept and I really, really wanted to like it, but it’s just fine at best. I had fun but I can’t really recommend it.

I only made it halfway through the game, I'm sure that when they made this game the producer knew it was a stupid game and they released it this way, if not they really have something to worry about. All you do in this game is a single player race to get to the checkpoint on time and a race where you have to pass 6-10 people and finish first.You play the same 2 things over and over and over again.The roads change,the maps change,the opposing vehicles change but everything else is the same. To change vehicles, you need to see the gas stations that appear in some sections and enter there in the middle of the race.You don't have a garage, you can only change vehicles when you find this place.You can't make an upgrade to the vehicles.Even if you change vehicles, almost all of them have the same top speed and acceleration. The only difference is their appearance and handling. In such a situation, why would you choose a vehicle with bad handling? On a dirt surface, the lamborghini gallardo or subaru impreza goes the same way, it goes the same way on asphalt. There are stupid cutscenes all the time and I don't know why but there are a lot of quick time events in this game.And these are not even in the vehicle but on foot.You are running away from the police, you are attacked by dogs and you get rid of them with a quick time event.What a good innovation for an NFS game. It's what we've been waiting for for years! Apart from that, you can't change the controls of the vehicle from the in-game settings, you have to go to the main menu and change them there. Vehicles are immediately wrecked even in a simple accident and you expect to return to the checkpoint with a loading screen. Even simply sideswiping things like walls or other vehicles can cause serious speed loss.The cops are a complete disgrace, they come from across the road and they come in front of you at a moment like a kamikaze and make you willingly have an accident. After a certain time, it becomes so annoying that you have to maneuver accordingly by remembering where the police will come out and break in front of you at any moment in the mission you play over and over again.It is very difficult to drift, go to the very outside of the road to take a turn and break the steering wheel, and at the end of the bend, continue on the road with nitro because as soon as you pull the handbrake, the spin out happens and the vehicle stops.A stupid part of the game is that it's not clear whether it's an arcade game or a simulation. In an arcade game, it is normal to have an accident and shorten the road, and this is tolerated. The player is allowed to have an accident as much as possible and is often rewarded with this score. Here, if you pass the rival vehicles without hitting them, you earn xp twice as much as you did by hitting them. If you go off the road for a bit, the game immediately teleports you back before you can use your own shortcut. . However, the game is all about police attacking you and speed, so it is not clear whether it is an arcade or a simulation. There are no side and rear mirrors.The only thing I like is the graphics and the opportunity to play with your favorite vehicle. Other than that I didn't enjoy this game at all and I think I played it enough to give me something different but I definitely didn't find what I wanted.

Normally a new entry into a video game series means progression, building on top of the games that came before. This is not the case for ‘Need For Speed: The Run’. By this point in the series, EA’s sales of the Need For Speed games have been dropping by 1 million sales each game. Either they reduced the available resources allocated to the NFS games or they just dropped the ball here. Not saying they took nothing from the previous games, there are similar features, but, like, 3 of them.

EA Black Box moved more towards an action and racer game rather than an action/racer game. Now featuring Quick Time Event cutscenes. Yay! What every gamer loves and wants! Especially in a racing game. The story is daft, you play as Jack Rourke who must win a coast to coast race across America to pay off the Mob and save his life. It’s that good.

Straight away the game feels as though it was made with the core focus on mobile gaming as that is what it feels like. A completely stripped down game that someone could control with limited on-screen buttons on their phone. The gameplay lacks character. There are only a handful of different races and each one boils down to the same thing. Reach the end before any other opponent. Sometimes you’re accompanied by police chasing you but that is more of an annoyance than a threat. Unlike the previous games if you fuck up you have 10 retries to start from the last checkpoint, after that you need to start the race over. The opponents aren’t hard, if you lose a race it is probably because of a mistake you made.

The game is a very linear style where you progress to the next race straight away without having to navigate menus. After each race you unlock instant upgrades, new challenge modes, new cars or profile badges. The only people who would get excited by profile badges are the same people who buy NFTs. Each race was short and relatively unexciting. I did appreciate the varied scenery as you cross America, keeping each section fresh and not too repetitive. There are a few races for example one up a mountain where you need to escape an avalanche. That was exciting.

From Underground to now, the NFS series has thrived on showcasing cars, letting you customise them, get right up close and personal but now it feels much less so. Yes you get to race a few different types but most of the time you’re looking at them from the rear as you race them. Your cars are picked from a lineup every so often and that is the only time you get to actually sit and look at the cars is only so often. You can change your car you are driving at no extra cost but you need to do this mid race, but only if there is a petrol station. Whoever thought this was a good mechanic needs their head examined.

I often judge the NFS games on the music as Underground set such a high bar and games that came after also had a decent soundtrack. ‘The Run’ has music, you just cannot hear it as the car’s sound effects drown it out. There are no settings in the audio menu to fix this. There is a “Film Experience” slider but fucked if I know what that does.

At a 4.5 hour playtime for the main story this is one of the shortest NFS games. I don’t know what went on when EA released this. Did they have a busy year and just squeeze this game out to adhere to their yearly release schedule? Who knows.