More than that, though, my biggest problem with The Run is the lack of options. But even some tracks that should be amazing, like the final battle race in New York City, are entirely underwhelming. To be fair, they mostly match up with the areas of the country that are boring, too (sorry, the Midwest). Which is why it's a shame that so many of the tracks in The Run are boring. The Rockies, Yosemite National Park, San Francisco, even the New Jersey Turnpike are all lifelike and well detailed. In fact, The Run has some of the most gorgeous and interesting set pieces I've seen in a racing game.

The locales are definitely best part of this Need for Speed. They'll crash into other cars, police will target only you, and they'll miss shortcuts, even if you enter one right in front of them. On the Normal difficulty the racer AI is, well, kind of dumb. The driving can feel floaty at times, but the car classes perform differently, and getting a good time can largely depend on good car choice. It's very rare that the same type of race repeats twice in a row. You'll go from a standard eight car race, to a checkpoint time attack, to a one on one mountain drifting battle, to a cop chase. There's a good balance of different race types. Throughout the campaign, the scenery and gameplay constantly change as you race from coast to coast.