Need for Speed: The Run

Genre: Arcade Racing

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Online), StreetPass Supported

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Review:

Need for Speed: The Run is an Arcade-style Racing Game released on PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo 3DS in 2011. This game has players in a high-stakes race across America, with the mob closing in on one side and the cops on the other, with the race winner promised $1 million.

So let’s start there. I cannot recall the last time I felt that the story truly mattered to a Racing game, but I can definitely say that this game’s story is not one of those rare occasions. Featuring poorly-written stock archetypes spouting cliches, this game’s story is fed to the player using hand-drawn still-frame scenes in between levels. The voice actors try the best here, but with the eye-rolling dialogue and overall terrible story, you’ll likely find yourself skipping all of this before long.

Thankfully, the presentation during the actual gameplay is pretty good. While the cars themselves merely look okay, the levels you zoom through look superb, with some nice lighting effects and a good level of detailed, all as you’re racing through them at high speeds with smooth framerates. This results in a game that is one of the better-looking Racing Games on Nintendo 3DS.

Unfortunately, the gameplay needs some work. Drifting controls take some getting used to, and the game frustratingly feels the need to switch the camera around at times to show off something or to force the player into an annoying quick-time event. However, if I had to point to my biggest frustration to the game, it’s the way it handles damage and “lives”.

Your car has a life bar that’s depleted by each impact. This has no outward effect on your vehicle that I notice, and it’s easy to lose track of this when the health bar is in the lower-right corner of the screen, meaning that you could just be cruising along and get the tiniest tap from a police car that causes you to instantly crash and need to respawn. What’s frustrating is that this element of the game seems highly inconsistent – you could have a head-on collision with oncoming traffic that forces you to respawn, but leaves you with a sliver of health for some reason, causing you to have to respawn again shortly afterward when some other vehicle cherry taps you to death. Making things worse is the way the game penalizes you with a life for failing one of the quick time events, an absurdly harsh penalty in a game that’s supposed to be about, you know, racing.

As a result, Need for Speed: The Run is a game that looks great, but features gameplay that fluctuates from fun to frustrating to infuriating. This may be one of the better-looking Racing Games on Nintendo 3DS, but you have better options when it comes to finding Racing games that play well.

tl;dr – Need for Speed: The Run is an Arcade-style Racing game about a high-stakes race across the US. The game’s visuals are nice, but the gameplay is marred by quick time events and a frustrating health/lives system. This game is not without its charms, but you have better options on Nintendo 3DS.

Grade: C+

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