- Publisher: Electronic Arts
- Release Date: Nov 15, 2011
- Also On: 3DS, PC, PlayStation 3
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Nov 21, 2011Need For Speed The Run is a good racing game that I was hoping would be great, and instead wound up being greatly hurt by its difficulty and lack of content. It's disappointing to see a Need For Speed game that isn't worth full-price and really is better as a rental, but that's the case here. The Run mode can be beaten in a day, and there simply isn't enough other content here to warrant a full-priced purchase. It's a short-lived, but incredibly exciting thrill ride that I'd recommend paying $30 or so for if you must own it, but not $60.
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Nov 30, 2011Overall Need For Speed: The Run is a solid game, with a few tweaks and maybe a deeper racing map it could of been sublime.
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Nov 30, 2011If you are a Need for Speed fan, or a racing fan in general, I would recommend checking this title out. You might want to rent it first though to make sure you enjoy what the game has to offer before spending your hard earned cash.
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Nov 28, 2011The very short "campaign" mode of this NFS is balanced by the wealth of extras and the enjoyable gameplay.
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Nov 17, 2011The game is way too short and there isn't enough to its narrative to get even close to being interested in playing it again. While there are some cool moments, I generally found myself getting too bored or frustrated with the races and the game's conclusion only made the story even more pointless.
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Nov 17, 2011It comes to a halt too frequently, but when it's speeding along, Need for Speed: The Run makes cross-country racing a joy.
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Nov 23, 2011It's a rather enjoyable experience that I think racing fans will enjoy. Of course, the resets and other inconsistencies will rain on your parade to the point of becoming frustrating.
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Nov 16, 2011You'll find moments of driving glory nestled among a lot of filler or arbitrary 'story', and it's these nuggets that make you wish for the series to return to its successful past. Or, if you're like me, you'll just look at the game as another entry in a respected series that perhaps takes too much unnecessary precedence over EA's better arcade racing franchise, Burnout.
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Dec 20, 2011The Need for Speed franchise has taken a hit to the jaw with The Run. It is not the most perfect game in a technical sense, and although the plot does give it a bit of a twist, it's certainly not enough to hold the attention of regular fans of the franchise.
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Nov 30, 2011What's here is entertaining enough, but you can't shake the feeling that the end product could have been so much more fulfilling with just a little more conviction and/or development time. Whatever their reasons though, I'll be crossing my fingers for a sequel; the concept is brilliant.
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Nov 23, 2011The premise for Need for Speed: The Run is good, but it is plagued by so many issues that it is hard to appreciate the things that it does well.
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Nov 17, 2011The problem here is that The Run fails to really come together to form a solid package.
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Nov 14, 2011All this awesome racing action gets somewhat lost amid the nonexistent story, the dumb/scripted AI, the lack of options, and the overall shortness of the game. The Run is not a marathon racing game, it's a quick and dirty drag race.
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Jan 9, 2012Need for Speed: The Run was designed to raise the bar for the racing genre, but while setting up the supports, the game must have slipped and wound up with the bar clonking it on the head. While there's great fun to be had in online competition, everything that was supposed to be different and special about The Run is flat-out garbage.
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X-ONE Magazine UKDec 8, 2011Feels haphazardly designed and inferior to Hot Pursuit in every way. [Issue#79, p.80]
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Nov 27, 2011Need for Speed: The Run is a case of a good premise not quite realized.
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Nov 25, 2011There's nothing terribly wrong with The Run - it just doesn't feel entirely put together. Still, it's light years ahead of Undercover, and I'm anxious to see where Black Box can take the series next.
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Nov 18, 2011The Need for Speed series made quite a name for itself in the arcade driving genre with Hot Pursuit, the previous game. Developped by another studio, The Run isn't as rich as was its predecessor, and also suffers from some issues with its AI, playability, and extremely short solo play. All this combined makes it a little disappointing, but its far from being a complete failure. The Autolog and multiplayer save the day.
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Nov 16, 2011You can throw all the technology you like at a game, but that will never be enough to gloss over fundamental design flaws.
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Nov 16, 2011The Run's attempt to use a cross-country road race to break free of conventions comes packaged with a few crippling flaws, the biggest of which is simply that even with its tense moments and high-powered supercars, it's just not as exciting as it should be.
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Nov 15, 2011Racing across the USA for a cash prize is a great concept, and perhaps there's a Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay collaboration in there somewhere. Or possibly there's a sequel that can inject some variety and fun into proceedings, rather than a succession of thankless, exhausting rubber-band races against faceless opponents and stereotypical rivals. Need for Speed: The Run does generate some memorable highlights, but they're simply too few and far between.
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Nov 15, 2011The Run certainly isn't terrible, and a big improvement on Black Box's previous effort, Undercover, but it needed more moments like the avalanche and less monotonous freeways. With the campaign over in an afternoon and the rest of the package failing to offer anything to keep you playing, The Run is some decent throwaway fun that will be forgotten as soon as you move on to something else.
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Nov 14, 2011The journey across America is beautifully rendered, capturing the varied landscapes spectacularly as you travel over the Sierra, across the Great Plains, and head towards the East Coast. The quality of the movies is very good too, and the characters' faces are nicely rendered to convey emotion. But the story and the gameplay just don't hold up their side of the bargain, and the game ends up falling short of its considerable potential.
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Nov 14, 2011Need for Speed: The Run's biggest problem is how much it has in common with a real drive from one end of the US to the other. There are a few bright spots here and there, but it's mostly full of unexpected stops, lots of flat tires, and too many assholes on the road. This isn't the worst Need for Speed, but it can't place against other, better racers from the last year.
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Nov 15, 2011The Run takes an awkwardly serious approach to its story, eschewing the over-the-top fun and wackiness of its clear inspirations -- movies like the Cannonball Run series and classic arcade games like Cruis'n USA --to deliver a cross-country campaign that's sometimes exhilarating, but often frustrating and surprisingly banal.
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Games Master UKDec 13, 2011What should be an epic race with huge scale and freedom is short-lived, disjointed and linear. [Jan 2012, p.64]
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Nov 22, 2011Need for Speed: The Run fails where it was supposed to be stronger: its story mode is embarrassingly short, with gameplay problems like the automatic resets each time you even slightly go off-course, and with a dull and badly developed plot. What's left is a frantic and spectacular arcade racer with a solid online multiplayer, but lacking enough variety and content.
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Nov 17, 2011In the heat of battle, Need for Speed: The Run generally serves up a solid and speedy arcade racing experience, with expectedly steady controls and physics. But it's consistently undone by painful rewinds and a dull campaign marked by predictable events, not to mention technical issues.
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Dec 22, 2011Plain and simple this game isn't very good. In fact, it is very close to bad, which is such a shame because of what an awesome idea the core of this game is, and the bar set by last years stellar NFS Hot Pursuit.
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Dec 5, 2011Need for Speed: The Run is a true black sheep trying desperately to fit in with its siblings, but simultaneously getting so much so very wrong.
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Nov 27, 2011Playing The Run is akin to hanging around the worst sort of braggart: It makes promise after promise it knows it can never keep.
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Nov 17, 2011Quotation forthcoming.
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Nov 17, 2011The bad car physics and the horrible A.I. destroy what could have been a great racing game.
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Nov 16, 2011Need For Speed is back to being a bland, middle-of-the-road racer - one so uninteresting it's hard to get too upset at th e shamefully short running time.
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Nov 15, 2011As it stands, we've rarely been so bored when travelling at 150 miles per hour, less inspired by a police chase or less interested in the plot of a videogame. In the end, the game's only held together by staples of the series, namely a huge complement of cars and no-nonsense grippy physics. That's just enough to elevate it to the status of competent racer, but definitely not enough to earn a recommendation.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 96 out of 194
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Mixed: 44 out of 194
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Negative: 54 out of 194
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Nov 16, 2011
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Nov 15, 2011
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Nov 15, 2011