Need For Speed: The Run

[MechDeus]

That is certainly better than the previous gen, which was basically Need For Speed Hot Pursuit (lol) and Outrun 2.

Ignoring four Burnout games? GTFO

[GohanX]

I knew someone would say that! Burnout doesn't click with me for some reason. It's fun multiplayer, but since I play mostly single player it doesn't hold my interest for more than a half an hour. I honestly found it odd that Criterion made Hot Pursuit and I loved it.

[Joust Williams]

PGR4 is the best racer this gen. And then HP maybe.

[Chux]

PGR4 was pretty rad. Shame we didn't play it all together like we did 2, and to a lesser extent 3.

[Dipstick]

I tried the demo a week or so back and... it was better than I was expecting, although I was expecting the game to be garbage. I would probably give it a go as a rental when things slow down a bit. I like how absurdly over the top the game is, especially if the set pieces they use are as good as the one in the demo where they have you racing down a mountain in the middle of an avalanche. It doesn't handle as well as Hot Pursuit did (and it's not as loose either, which means you actually have to brake at points).

Excluding ports of previous gen games, that puts us at about one decent racer a year, and one really good racer every several years. That is certainly better than the previous gen, which was basically Need For Speed Hot Pursuit (lol) and Outrun 2.

I hope you're haunted by the ghosts of Bizarre's past. The first two Project Gotham Racing games were amazing; I honestly can't say if any of this generations arcade racers are good as PGR2 was.

The Rallisport Challenge games were also really, really good -- too bad that's a series we're never seeing again (especially with DICE making billions with the Battlefield games).

[James]

I just started playing a copy for review tonight. I'm amazed at how incredibly awful this game is. Tell me it gets better?

Seriously, I've only been playing it for 45 minutes and have already turned it off in disgust/annoyance. No manual, no in-game option to see which buttons do what, no way to fix the buttons to do what you'd like them to, no way to change car once you've started the race, even in subsequent sections. And that waterfall in the panning shot of the valley for the second stage was just embarrasingly terrible. How can so much be wrong in such a short period?

James

[Andrew]

Most of the reviews I read said that it starts out decent but just gets worse and worse. If you're hating it right out the gate, that does not bode well.

It's a shame--earlier in the year, this game looked like it had serious potential.

[bVork]

Keep playing it. You're almost halfway through! No, I'm not kidding - my completion time was two hours and thirteen minutes. Oh, and the PC port is locked at 30 fps with no antialiasing.

[James]

360 version, thankfully. I spent the rest of the evening with Saints Row 3, and I'll give it another shot tomorrow. Boy oh boy I can't wait for the next QTE! It's the gameplay wave of the future!

James

[kingoffighters]

I just got Hot Pursuit and it is pretty awesome. This, OTOH, sounds like a steaming pile of dog shit.