My Review of "The Run"
Posted: 17 Nov 2011, 13:31
Hi guys!
My little review based in my gameplay (at the momment, I'm at Stage 5)
Straight to the point: this game sucks pretty bad. I mean, BlackBox seems never to understand that the game is not dependent of a story, not even Need For Speed. The story...is just terrible. If you don't believe me, take a look at the Metacritic review scores:
http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/ne ... un/results
For PC is getting a 73 (and BlackBox was aiming for a 90 lol) but for other consoles like Xbox360 and PS3 is getting a 63-64 (pretty low score for an "AAA" game).
Graphics:
The graphics? Pretty decent but the only thing that amazed me are the character details, believable if you ask me. About the cars and environment, pretty standard even though is using the Frostbite 2 engine to render. I think they need to work a little bit more in the environment, mainly because it still feels like a lifeless road most of the time (except at highways which reminded me Undercover for a reason), but overall pretty good DETAILS here and there.
LACK OF ANTIALIASING!!! You have to manually set the AA from your video card control panel, which is pretty dumb for a 2011 (*console port*...console port *cough*) game. The game is graphically cool but with all the jagged borders....forget it! And guess what? 30 FPS cap? What the...
Gameplay
Gameplay is sometimes like "wow!", but 95% of the time you're forced to just do what the scripted race wants you to do. If you fail for a centimeter, you go back to the last checkpoint and it gets frustrating that the game isn't giving you a chance to actually correct the mistake there, not a whole checkpoint behind.
Also, AI catch-up AKA Rubberbanding is back, so you can bring a 370z fully tuned but still a WV Rabbit or an AE86 can catch you up at high speeds and no matter if they crash...come on!!!! seriously
I noticed that the game also tries you to pull you into "action", but most of the time you're distracted by elements like traffic, explosions, cinematics, and so on....now I ask myself: What was the point of a NFS? watch scripted races? explosions? chicks in a gas station? I tought it was just RACING. What I mean is that most of the time I get distracted by tons of elements that have little to do with racing, but I guess it was inteded by BlackBox and their concept.
Police pursuits are...dull. I'm not asking EMP's, dropping spike strips, helicopters dropping things from air....but those are so scripted that is predictable what will happen in the next checkpoint when the police chatter begins.
Overall the gameplay is just like "meh" most of the time, but I have to be honest and some small tiny parts of the sequences are actually cool and I smiled briefly, but as soon as I was on the road..."meh" was again there.
Handling:
Dull. All I have to say, even with an Xbox360 pad, game handling still feels awkward. I don't know if it is a mix of Pro Street and Hot Pursuit, but in corners cars actually struggle so much to turn that the AI when doing the same is like "poiting and laughing at you" because they don't seem to have any problem related to acceleration or being affected by the physics. At highways, controls are pretty precise for that type of road, but just for THAT road. I managed to get my Porsche 911 GT3 to drift around corners but before that, I was really struggling to turn without loosing so much speed and traction. I don't think a HP arcade system would have been a better idea, but a little bit of grip and proper acceleration would have been fine.
Audio:
A little bit to say actually: pretty good action music that sometimes matches perfectly the situation, but still I hate racing with hip-hop when chased by cops or when there's a momment of concentration (especially at crowded highways). It's ok for menu, but for in-game action...hell no, I give it a pass. Good electronic music and that stuff, and that's it.
Car sounds....good. But I still prefer Forza Motorsport 4 in that part, cards sound 5x times more realistic. But in this one, there are pretty dull car sounds, compared to Criterion's last HP.
PC Performance:
Obviously, this Frostbite 2 engine is a PC native. But this time I feel and I believe it was a "PC engine ported to console but again re-ported to PC". There are some little bits of stuttering here and there, but nothing serious. Also, the menu is designed for consoles. Video calibration? wtf! Last thing we needed was a "Press START to begin" (Crytek anyone?). Anyways, it's "smooth" most of the time, but loading times are "insane".
My PC is:
Intel Core i7 930 @4.1 Ghz
MSI X58M Motherboard
6GB Corsair DDR3 TwinX Platinium
Zotac GTX 570 +Amp! 1280MB @900/2000/2200
And still I wait over 20 seconds to get into 1 stage that is really short like 3-8 minutes. BF3 which is a heavier game, loads a little bit faster than this game...optimization here? I guess.
And those are most of the things I have to say right now. BlackBox seems not been able to get the things straight as they promised. The idea is cool but badly executioned, apart that the idea was taken already by Split Second and Cruisin' USA...so for me was like "predictable gameplay and content".
A shame, I really think they should re-re-re hire some new guys at BlackBox and give it a new shot...if they are considered by EA in the next title of course.
See ya!
My little review based in my gameplay (at the momment, I'm at Stage 5)
Straight to the point: this game sucks pretty bad. I mean, BlackBox seems never to understand that the game is not dependent of a story, not even Need For Speed. The story...is just terrible. If you don't believe me, take a look at the Metacritic review scores:
http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/ne ... un/results
For PC is getting a 73 (and BlackBox was aiming for a 90 lol) but for other consoles like Xbox360 and PS3 is getting a 63-64 (pretty low score for an "AAA" game).
Graphics:
The graphics? Pretty decent but the only thing that amazed me are the character details, believable if you ask me. About the cars and environment, pretty standard even though is using the Frostbite 2 engine to render. I think they need to work a little bit more in the environment, mainly because it still feels like a lifeless road most of the time (except at highways which reminded me Undercover for a reason), but overall pretty good DETAILS here and there.
LACK OF ANTIALIASING!!! You have to manually set the AA from your video card control panel, which is pretty dumb for a 2011 (*console port*...console port *cough*) game. The game is graphically cool but with all the jagged borders....forget it! And guess what? 30 FPS cap? What the...
Gameplay
Gameplay is sometimes like "wow!", but 95% of the time you're forced to just do what the scripted race wants you to do. If you fail for a centimeter, you go back to the last checkpoint and it gets frustrating that the game isn't giving you a chance to actually correct the mistake there, not a whole checkpoint behind.
Also, AI catch-up AKA Rubberbanding is back, so you can bring a 370z fully tuned but still a WV Rabbit or an AE86 can catch you up at high speeds and no matter if they crash...come on!!!! seriously
I noticed that the game also tries you to pull you into "action", but most of the time you're distracted by elements like traffic, explosions, cinematics, and so on....now I ask myself: What was the point of a NFS? watch scripted races? explosions? chicks in a gas station? I tought it was just RACING. What I mean is that most of the time I get distracted by tons of elements that have little to do with racing, but I guess it was inteded by BlackBox and their concept.
Police pursuits are...dull. I'm not asking EMP's, dropping spike strips, helicopters dropping things from air....but those are so scripted that is predictable what will happen in the next checkpoint when the police chatter begins.
Overall the gameplay is just like "meh" most of the time, but I have to be honest and some small tiny parts of the sequences are actually cool and I smiled briefly, but as soon as I was on the road..."meh" was again there.
Handling:
Dull. All I have to say, even with an Xbox360 pad, game handling still feels awkward. I don't know if it is a mix of Pro Street and Hot Pursuit, but in corners cars actually struggle so much to turn that the AI when doing the same is like "poiting and laughing at you" because they don't seem to have any problem related to acceleration or being affected by the physics. At highways, controls are pretty precise for that type of road, but just for THAT road. I managed to get my Porsche 911 GT3 to drift around corners but before that, I was really struggling to turn without loosing so much speed and traction. I don't think a HP arcade system would have been a better idea, but a little bit of grip and proper acceleration would have been fine.
Audio:
A little bit to say actually: pretty good action music that sometimes matches perfectly the situation, but still I hate racing with hip-hop when chased by cops or when there's a momment of concentration (especially at crowded highways). It's ok for menu, but for in-game action...hell no, I give it a pass. Good electronic music and that stuff, and that's it.
Car sounds....good. But I still prefer Forza Motorsport 4 in that part, cards sound 5x times more realistic. But in this one, there are pretty dull car sounds, compared to Criterion's last HP.
PC Performance:
Obviously, this Frostbite 2 engine is a PC native. But this time I feel and I believe it was a "PC engine ported to console but again re-ported to PC". There are some little bits of stuttering here and there, but nothing serious. Also, the menu is designed for consoles. Video calibration? wtf! Last thing we needed was a "Press START to begin" (Crytek anyone?). Anyways, it's "smooth" most of the time, but loading times are "insane".
My PC is:
Intel Core i7 930 @4.1 Ghz
MSI X58M Motherboard
6GB Corsair DDR3 TwinX Platinium
Zotac GTX 570 +Amp! 1280MB @900/2000/2200
And still I wait over 20 seconds to get into 1 stage that is really short like 3-8 minutes. BF3 which is a heavier game, loads a little bit faster than this game...optimization here? I guess.
And those are most of the things I have to say right now. BlackBox seems not been able to get the things straight as they promised. The idea is cool but badly executioned, apart that the idea was taken already by Split Second and Cruisin' USA...so for me was like "predictable gameplay and content".
A shame, I really think they should re-re-re hire some new guys at BlackBox and give it a new shot...if they are considered by EA in the next title of course.
See ya!