Need for Speed: The Run Sucks

Brent_Justice

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Official NFS: The Run Sucks Thread.

I am highly dissapointed in this game. Consolitis game mechanics ruin yet another game. I pre-purchased this game, and have stayed up all night for you guys, to deliver a gameplay performance and IQ article in this game. I've put time and money into it, and it almost isn't worth it. I'll go ahead and write up a 1 page preview, so it gets main page coverage, and I will editorialize on my experiences there. However, I don't feel this game deserves a full writeup, there isn't anything to talk about.

1.) Game is capped at 30 FPS, yep, no way around it. You can disable VSYNC (why is this option even there) but its game engine locked at 30 FPS, FOR A RACING GAME.

2.) It has no in-game AA options, AT ALL. Being based on Frostbite 2 (same as BF3) it can support deferred AA and post AA. In the game config file you can change these options, but there ARE NO OPTIONS IN-GAME WTF.

3.) Controls are horrible. I can't even map the keys I want on my keyboard. This game was made for gamepads in mind.

4.) Controls are horrible in the sense of car control, its just not good.

5.) I was reading that if you follow the storyline its only about a 2 hour game.

6.) Autolog, nuff said.

This game had so much potential, the graphics are quite nice thanks to Frostbite 2, but the console game mechanics absolutely ruin this game.

Another one bites the dust, hard. Good job.
 
I'm sorry to hear that bro. I haven't touched a NFS game since Hot Pursuit 2? I believe, way back on the PS2, the series just hasn't lived up to it's legacy in subsequent years, I honestly can't think of a single NFS game that has been good since.

This is why I rail against consolitis so much, but true change will only occur when people vote with their wallets, and in order to make a change like that happen, we need a massive education outreach to PC gamers everywhere, and it has to start somewhere.

Once game companies determine that PC gamers are NOT willing to buy PC games full of consolitis, they will either shape up, or go out of the PC gaming business entirely. If that situation happens, then other small studios will step up, and fill the void.

Remember, there were studios that were once upon a time, not as big as they are now, and they produced some great titles, you might have even heard of them, Call of Duty and Warcraft.

Blizzard, EA, and Activision can all be replaced by a small studio (or studios) willing to give PC gamers what they vote for with their wallets.

It will take a top to bottom cleansing of the PC gaming landscape to make that happen.
 
That stinks, on all counts. I don't get how they bungle huge things like this! I would have enjoyed an article and probably bought if they hadn't, but now I will stay clear. Ea blew it. It's like they forgot bad press spreads as fast as good.... /boggle.
 
There are driving games where the keyboard controls don't suck? In all of the driving games I've ever played, the keyboard controls were vastly inferior to the analog sticks on a gamepad such as the XBox360 controller. I would never bother playing a driving game with just a keyboard and mouse.

However... a 30 FPS cap on a driving game is always an absolute deal-breaker. WHY would you DO that?
 
You know Brent, now that I think about it, I think that developers are trying to intentionally limit what people can do with the graphics options just like Apple does with their hardware. Place the average user in a sandbox they know the game will work in, and limit the PEBKAC.

Good idea in theory, but your average PC gamer (not the farmville or WoW crowd, but your average intelligent PC gamer) is capable of tweaking options to suit their machine's capabilities. Towards that end, lately we've had to tweak the .ini files for games like Skyrim, Fallout, etc, etc, to get the most out of them.

Sounds like game companies are making us work to do anything with their games as far as tailoring our experience goes.

That should definitely be condemned.
 
That stinks, on all counts. I don't get how they bungle huge things like this! I would have enjoyed an article and probably bought if they hadn't, but now I will stay clear. Ea blew it. It's like they forgot bad press spreads as fast as good.... /boggle.

I can't really show performance in this game cause all the graphs will be flat lined at 30fps, no video cards will stand out from the other. All of our graphs will just be a line at 30fps. I'll talk about playable settings in the preview, and show some screenshots, other than that, this game doesn't deserve much of our time.
 
lol 30FPS, no graphics options, and awful controls? They just want you to have the full console experience.
 
I don't even know what AA setting its using. In the PROF_SAVE_body config file, it says that AntiAliasingPost is at value 3. I have no idea what that actually means. I'm guessing its FXAA, since that is what it is called in BF3, PostAA. But I have no idea what value 3 indicates? FXAA High? probably. But no way to know for sure. No in-game AA options AT ALL.

I just did a graph of performance on GTX 580 SLI, its a straight line at 30 FPS. No point in doing any fraps runs in this game.
 
30 FPS? ewww... not getting it.

Oh well, still have the Shift 1 for my NFS fun :)

And it seems that NFS won't be much hit on console either. On PC it doesn't have any decent driving games competition, but on consoles it will go against Gran Turismo 5 / Forza 4.
 
I don't even know what AA setting its using. In the PROF_SAVE_body config file, it says that AntiAliasingPost is at value 3. I have no idea what that actually means. I'm guessing its FXAA, since that is what it is called in BF3, PostAA. But I have no idea what value 3 indicates? FXAA High? probably. But no way to know for sure. No in-game AA options AT ALL.

I just did a graph of performance on GTX 580 SLI, its a straight line at 30 FPS. No point in doing any fraps runs in this game.

Pretty sad that they get this incredible piece of technology from DICE and shit all over it.
 
I can't really show performance in this game cause all the graphs will be flat lined at 30fps, no video cards will stand out from the other. All of our graphs will just be a line at 30fps. I'll talk about playable settings in the preview, and show some screenshots, other than that, this game doesn't deserve much of our time.

Sorry, I meant I would have enjoyed an article had the game been done properly :). I agree it doesn't deserve your time at this point.
 
Heard there's no editing/modifications of your cars...too many restrictions.

Perhaps IGN gave an honest review cuz Brent's preview seems on par with them (6.5). Too bad, I've been waiting for another game like NFSMW and it's been one failure after another. That's when the NFS franchise had my attention--my full attention.

On the bright side, I hear the graphics do look nice. Reaching I know.
 
This line of games from EA is supposed to be arcadey and the Shift line more sim-like, however consolitis and the need to thrill the casual gamer every second means that most of these console turds have poor driving models/wheel support/control schemes.

RACE07{$5-$6 on Steam} is a virtual masterpiece of a game if we judge it by the criteria of driving model/wheel/support/control scheme/GFX options and let's also throw in a MP as good as Iracings as well.

One might have predicted that as we advance technologically, people would be forced to deal with complexity, and the prospect of an endless stream of idiotic low grade games would be laughable, however, ordinary games for simple minded ADD afflicted folk with spectacular GFX are becoming the norm.
 
Not surprised. Brent, the truth is, most of these software titles are money grabs with no real passion or artists behind them. BF3 was clearly a labor of love that took a good few years to get to us. What a lot of people don't know is that the people behind BF3 have deep deep roots in gaming. All those guys came over from the Amiga 20+ years ago. They also used to be huge into hacking and the demo scene. All I can say is that EA must have paid them all very well along with some great incentives for all of them to still stick around.

Sadly, that's not the case with 90% of the titles out there.

People really should expect nothing but crap most of the time. All the money is in consoles, we all know that. This game never ever had a chance. With all due respect, I am puzzled at how surprised you seemed to be that it had "console aspects" lol. Brent, some solid advice from an oldskool gamer, the next 9 out of 10 PC titles you play with most likely have deep seated "console" roots.
 
Not surprised. Brent, the truth is, most of these software titles are money grabs with no real passion or artists behind them. BF3 was clearly a labor of love that took a good few years to get to us. What a lot of people don't know is that the people behind BF3 have deep deep roots in gaming. All those guys came over from the Amiga 20+ years ago. They also used to be huge into hacking and the demo scene. All I can say is that EA must have paid them all very well along with some great incentives for all of them to still stick around.

Sadly, that's not the case with 90% of the titles out there.

People really should expect nothing but crap most of the time. All the money is in consoles, we all know that. This game never ever had a chance. With all due respect, I am puzzled at how surprised you seemed to be that it had "console aspects" lol. Brent, some solid advice from an oldskool gamer, the next 9 out of 10 PC titles you play with most likely have deep seated "console" roots.

If only DICE was as passionate about expedient patching.
 
I'm not surprised. NFS was ruined a long time ago. The Shift games are great, but they are so far removed from the present day ideals of the series that I don't consider them a part of it. The hot pursuit reboot was decent, but I think every other NFS title in the past 8 years or so has been trash. They really ran this series into the ground, which is a shame. The classic NFS games were the glory days of racing in the 90's
 
BTW, I'll have my article done in a few hours, since I can't show performance, I took 5GB of screenshots, the game looks good, too bad its performance is capped, and it has no AA control.
 
wow....i was going to wait for a review....but Brent you just saved me some money.

I am sorry you pre-ordered such a shitty console port :/
 
If only DICE was as passionate about expedient patching.

honestly with the amount of fixes in the next patch, i'm willing to wait. the game is playable without the fixes all be annoying but i'd rather have 1 big update then 100 small ones just to annoy the crap out of me.


There are driving games where the keyboard controls don't suck? In all of the driving games I've ever played, the keyboard controls were vastly inferior to the analog sticks on a gamepad such as the XBox360 controller. I would never bother playing a driving game with just a keyboard and mouse.

However... a 30 FPS cap on a driving game is always an absolute deal-breaker. WHY would you DO that?

dirt 3 has by far the best keyboard controls i've seen in any recent racing game. all be it the games setup to be more arcade like then an actual sim racer at least the cars are 100% drive-able with a keyboard.
 
Im so pissed about this game, I shoulda cancelled my Pre-Order. I love need for speed shift 2 it looks great and plays great on my G27 so i thought this was going to be a winner. Man burned again! Im never pre-buying a game again. Now if i can get Skyrim to run right on my Tri-Fire setup id be all set.
 
Im so pissed about this game, I shoulda cancelled my Pre-Order. I love need for speed shift 2 it looks great and plays great on my G27 so i thought this was going to be a winner. Man burned again! Im never pre-buying a game again. Now if i can get Skyrim to run right on my Tri-Fire setup id be all set.

11.12 Early Beta's with Cap4 works for skyrim.

Also this helps as well http://donotargue.com/cfg-makers/skyrim/
 
Watching gameplay videos for this, I knew it was going to be bad. It literally looks like San Francisco Rush with how unrealistic/arcade like it is. They took the hills of San Fran for example and made the streets like 10 lanes wide which huge curves and stuff. Incredibly silly.

We desperately need a game with the overall gameplay ideas of the non-Shift NFS games (running from cops, street racing, etc) but with a halfway realistic driving model a la Race07, Forza, etc.
 
BTW, I'll have my article done in a few hours, since I can't show performance, I took 5GB of screenshots, the game looks good, too bad its performance is capped, and it has no AA control.

Brent -

take this opportunity to draw a line in the sand with these developers. PC gamers are tired of getting shafted on half baked ports.

We want FOV options, AA options, no FPS caps

I am so tired of buying games and realizing I hate it or cannot play it because of these few features that need to be incorporated into a PC game. I cannot play COD MW3 because the FOV is so tight I get headaches... add to that the 91 FPS cap in MP. To cap a game at 30 FPS is ridiculous, I almost purchased this yesterday but ended up buying Saints Row 3 - I'm so glad I did!

Hardocp is a big enough website that when you guys write a bad article about something - people will listen. We can pester devs through Twitter and Facebook, something we couldn't do a few years ago so at least we have a line of communication - but it's time someone puts the word out there PC gamers are tired of garbage, we want a few key features and if they cannot provide those then don't bother. Quit blaming piracy for lowered PC sales and realize the developers releasing garbage is the reason PC gamers aren't buying as much as we used to. I look forward to your article and hope you can deliver a clear and concise message not just to the developers of NFS The Run but every developer that doesn't understand the PC gaming communities.
 
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Official NFS: The Run Sucks Thread.

I am highly dissapointed in this game. Consolitis game mechanics ruin yet another game. I pre-purchased this game, and have stayed up all night for you guys, to deliver a gameplay performance and IQ article in this game. I've put time and money into it, and it almost isn't worth it. I'll go ahead and write up a 1 page preview, so it gets main page coverage, and I will editorialize on my experiences there. However, I don't feel this game deserves a full writeup, there isn't anything to talk about.

1.) Game is capped at 30 FPS, yep, no way around it. You can disable VSYNC (why is this option even there) but its game engine locked at 30 FPS, FOR A RACING GAME.

2.) It has no in-game AA options, AT ALL. Being based on Frostbite 2 (same as BF3) it can support deferred AA and post AA. In the game config file you can change these options, but there ARE NO OPTIONS IN-GAME WTF.

3.) Controls are horrible. I can't even map the keys I want on my keyboard. This game was made for gamepads in mind.

4.) Controls are horrible in the sense of car control, its just not good.

5.) I was reading that if you follow the storyline its only about a 2 hour game.

6.) Autolog, nuff said.

This game had so much potential, the graphics are quite nice thanks to Frostbite 2, but the console game mechanics absolutely ruin this game.

Another one bites the dust, hard. Good job.

1) and 2) No legitimate excuses for this.

3) Complete non-issue for me considering I own NFS: Most Wanted, Carbon, Hot Pursuit and GRID on PC, and I never felt the need to switch back and forth from gamepad control in-game to mouse control in menus -- I just stick with gamepad throughout. Note that I'm someone who has complained long and bitterly about the poor mouse navigation in Skyrim, but we're talking a racing game here, not a PC RPG.

4) Hmm need more details here.

5) Yikes! I hope they didn't intend to make multi the primary gamemode and ended up making a half-ass effort at the SP campaign.

6) Terrible experiences with Autolog in Hot Pursuit myself, it never seemed to stay logged in and was constantly warning about "lost connection" to the EA servers.

All-in-all, I was less than pleased about this game being unavailable via Steam distribution, but I could have seen past that if the game itself was really compelling, but that doesn't seem to be the case, so all the more reason to avoid it. Back to Skyrim I guess.
 
Thanks for the heads up. I'll be sure to ignore this one. Maybe if they patch all of the console limitations out of the game I'll revisit in the future.
 
If it wasn't for gamepads sucking balls for FPS games....I would take a very hard look at dropping PC as my gaming platform. It is sad that so many games that have such great potential are getting put through the crapper for the PC.

Do the control suck even with a wheel/pedal combo?
 
No surprise honestly, Blackbox hasn't made a decent NFS game yet in my opinion. The only NFS games in recent years that have even been worth playing are the SHIFT series which were developed by Slightly Mad. I only had mild interest in this game due to the Frostbite 2 engine being used but now it appears that even that isn't worth the price of admission.

EA should stick to letting Slightly Mad develop their NFS series and leave the other devs out.
 
What a shame, especially after last year's surprisingly good Hot Pursuit. EA needs to stick with what works.
 
Good.

My wallet is happy to hear this since I was kind of tempted if I heard that it was Most Wanted on steroids with the juiced up Frostbite 2 engine.
 
Lol control are exactly like Hot Pursuit 2010, I play with a 360 gamepad and for real, the game is real Easy. So if you have so HP2010 experience it will be the same. this is not a SIM, it's an Arcade game, NFS game always been. (except SHIFT series).

Never been disconnected from Autolog.. ever..

NO AA and 30 FPS do sucks. Maybe Nvidia will do like Hot Pursuit and make the one in the drivers work (they did in Hot Pursuit). But the CAP sucks.

The graphics are good and would be tons better with AA. The characters are very well do for Real Time Graphics.

Btw i run that game with 2 GTX 460, i get 36-39% GPU utilisation because of the 30 FPS CAP. So i guess i could easily run that game at 60FPS...

BTW Skyrim is Capped too, to 60FPS, but NVidia user can unlock that by forcing VSYCN to OFF
 
AA auto-enables in this game based on detection and auto-configuring, I think it turns FXAA on, so first you'd have to figure out how to turn that OFF, before you could mess with forcing AA from the driver control panels.

Skyrim isn't "capped" it is just that VSYNC is turned on by default. This game, NFS The Run, is game engine capped at 30 FPS, has nothing to do with VSYNC.
 
AA auto-enables in this game based on detection and auto-configuring, I think it turns FXAA on, so first you'd have to figure out how to turn that OFF, before you could mess with forcing AA from the driver control panels.

Skyrim isn't "capped" it is just that VSYNC is turned on by default. This game, NFS The Run, is game engine capped at 30 FPS, has nothing to do with VSYNC.

What are you opening the config file with?I did it with notepad but its garbled.I did try changing refresh rate to 120 but no dice.
 
AA auto-enables in this game based on detection and auto-configuring, I think it turns FXAA on, so first you'd have to figure out how to turn that OFF, before you could mess with forcing AA from the driver control panels.

Skyrim isn't "capped" it is just that VSYNC is turned on by default. This game, NFS The Run, is game engine capped at 30 FPS, has nothing to do with VSYNC.

Humm ok.. i know that i don't have any FXAA on, on my system. you can use Inject FXAA and have real FXAA on and it's very apparent. There's screenshots on Guru3D.

Yeah i know it's VSYCN but it seems that ATI user can't turn it off, so it's almost like a Frame Cap for them :p

The thing is, there's a VSYCN option in The Run, witch have no purpose whatsoever LOL!
 
Well this sucks. I saw the commercial for this game just last night and told the wife "hey that looks like a cool game". Oh well, thanks for the heads up. Guess Ill play another round of Dead Space 2 while I wait for Deus Ex 3 to come down in price.
 
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