Electronic arts latest instalment in the long running need for speed series introduces a completely new concept to the arcade racing genre.

A storyline!

 

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh, but certainly no other racing game I've played in the last 10 years has accomplished the feat of infusing a good driving game with a decent storyline.

 

The basic premise of the game is a race across the US, and through the various stages you race against your fellow races, the police and even the mob are out to kill you!

 

To begin with I thought this game was going to be epic. quite literally Skyrim with nitrous, 3000+ miles, 200+ opponents and a varied selection of cars from lowly Golf gti to Aston Martins and Lamborghinis.

 

The game captures some basic statistics as you progress and quickly I realised my maths was poor or something funky was happening.

The run took me a little over two hours to complete as per the games timing and my average speed was 132mph which means I actually covered 260ish miles, less than a tenth of the journey I've purportedly covered.

 

Don't get me wrong, it was a great 260miles, the best I've had since Grid, but I can't help feeling kind of cheated.

 

I was looking forward to the grind of interstates and stopping for 'gas', perhaps its just my inner mmorpg coming out, but the post Run challenges seemed to be something they added just to fill out the game.

 

I stopped playing after doing a few of them, without the goal of completing "The Run" it became "Need for speed: Bored Now"

 

To sum up, a nice diverting game, with good gameplay and a storyline second to none, just a shame EA forgot to include the other 2740 miles!