E3 2011 Hands On and Off – Need for Speed: The Run

Need for Speed seems to be a solid brand once again, after the success of the rebranded Hot Pursuit from Criterion and of the more recent Shift 2 Unleashed, and publisher Electronic Arts seems to be determined to keep the momentum up with the incoming Need for Speed: The Run.

I saw the game today at the Electronic Arts stand at the 2011 E3 and the game, which is being worked on by old racing hands at Black Box, seems pretty interesting, although a bit uninspired at times.

The idea behind Need for Speed: The Run is that the main character is forced to run from San Francisco to New York and does so while racing to stay ahead of the mob and the police.

The developers are saying that the game includes more than 325 kilometers of road, all of it based on the real world, although with a lot of modifications designed to make the racing exciting and attractive.

The Frostibe 2 engine, borrowed from DICE, makes the game look pretty impressive, even if more work needs to be done before launch, and the character models also benefit from some new capture technology.

When I tried the E3 2011 Need for Speed: The Run demo I found the game somewhere between the simulation and arcade space, trying to accommodate as many player preferences as possible.

The team is trying to put a spin on the racing genre by taking the main character out of car at certain points during the game in order to deliver a change of pace but the out of the car sequences shown were basically Quick Time Events chained together, with a developer confirming that all of them will be powered by quick button presses.

Fortunately the out of the car segments make up just about 10 percent of The Run.

The racing feels solid, if a bit easy at times, and it remains to be seen if the fugitive driven narrative can deliver another racing game hit with Need for Speed: The Run.