Need For Speed: The Run (2011) - Every PC Rally Game
0Need For Speed: The Run by EA, 2011.
I know it's possible to run this game at refresh rates greater than 30 fps, but if you disable V-Sync in-game (in order to do that), the smoke and particle physics go crazy, with dense, fast smoke shooting off at 45 degree angles! So I stuck to regular 30fps V-Sync lock here!
The Need For Speed series has dallied with rally racing before, and not just with the US rebranding of the V-Rally games. In the original The Need For Speed title there's an unlockable rally mode (covered in another video on this channel), as well as some rally content in Need For Speed: World.
Need For Speed: The Run is a cross-USA Cannonball Run style cinematic racing game (with ill-received cut-scenes and quick-timer events!). I've disabled the music here, to make it more "rally", which loses a little bit of impact!
Car-wise, there's a Subaru Impreza (shown here both in NFS and rally variants), a Ford Focus RS (again here in NFS and rally variants) and an Audi Quattro. The XBox 360 and PS3 versions had some additional Italian themed DLC, which included a Lancia Delta Integrale, with a rally version, but that DLC never made it to the PC.
Handling-wise, it leans on the heavy side, with a nitro and slipstream bar, which can be combined to drift around other cars. Many cars do over 200mph (including all the rally cars here!).
I had to include the avalanche stage, as it's one of my favourite racing game moments in any game, even if it looks more risky than it actually is! I think the only trick this game missed, cinematically, would be a tornado on the plains level (there's a storm but it's in the distance, and when you're under it the lightning flashes have no sound effects!).
Speaking of the sound, it's a bit weird, getting louder and quieter (even in this race-focused mix here), with some sounds crackling a bit.
The biggest issue of this game is that it lacks a Quick Race mode, so you can only select cars graded Tier 4 and 5 in the main story mode, with a side selection of Challenges being locked to certain Tiers/cars. You can only access all the vehicles in multiplayer mode, and the choice of cars is often chosen by someone else! So there's perfectly raceable cars in the game that you just can't use in single player mode!
Overall the game got sufficiently bad reviews (coming after the 2010 reboot of Hot Pursuit and Shift 2 Unleashed), that Black Box (the makers of this and most Need For Speed titles in the past, under other names) was sidelined into running Need For Speed: World, then, eventually shut down.
This is part of the Every PC Rally Game playlist, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYDobL0b26ugFuXASCIC9qmFb9_k4_fqU