Here’s my review of Need for Speed: The Run, a racing game developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts, for Official Xbox Magazine. It also appears in the forthcoming January 2012 print issue. I’m a fan of several series entries and awarded the last two (Shift 2 Unleashed and Hot Pursuit) a 9.0 or equivalent score in reviews, but this one really fell flat for me. Punishing and inconsistent resets, bad storytelling and characters, and a generally unremarkable campaign really killed whatever promise this game had. The racing mechanics are fine, but the core play is buried by everything else.
