Empire at E3 2011: Day 2 - Need For Speed: The Run

Empire at E3 2011: Day 2 - Need For Speed: The Run

Posted on Thursday June 9, 2011, 10:02 by David Scarborough in Infinite Lives

Last year’s Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit introduced major innovations to the franchise that cemented it as the ultimate racing franchise. Autolog allowed you to competitively take on your friends online without having to be in the same race, tracking details across all of your online play. Stats, times and challenges were all available, as you were constantly up against your Friends List vying for racing domination.

Need for Speed: The Run reintroduces the feature but takes it into the single-player campaign, as you race across America on the run from the mob. It’s a more focused title, this time developed by Black Box, that puts as much focus on Hollywood thrills as it does plunking the player in some of the hottest cars in the world.

The technology behind the game impresses, using the same tech as Avatar for motion capture to recreate all the nuances of the human face. A bit odd for a driving game, really. It’s because The Run takes you out of the driving seat and onto the streets in a series of cinematic sequences that rely on quick reflexes to survive.

Playing through the level and it’s not an overly impressive addition to the Need for Speed franchise. Glorified QTE sequences appear as the cinematic on-foot action reaches specific beats such as jumping over rooftops and escaping overturned cars. But it doesn’t have a massive impact on the gameplay and the animation technology doesn’t add a massive amount of polish.

Luckily the driving is every bit as exhilarating as you’d expect from the series. I’m in a Shelby Mustang, rocketing through the streets of Chicago, avoiding an attacking helicopter overhead and trying my best not to smash into everything (with no success) in sight. We’re swerving through tunnels, avoiding exploding vehicles and skidding around corners in one of the best looking racing games on show. It’s a brief demo that amplifies the white-knuckle thrills of Hot Pursuit and implements them into a more focused narrative.

It remains to be seen whether Black Box can manage to pull off a compelling narrative in a racing sim. If you had to levy a major criticism, it’s that The Run coasts on the tail of Hot Pursuit too much rather than creating its own signature identity. It’s a lot of fun, though and with a lack of racers being released this year it’s likely to be another hit in the NFS series.