NFS:THE RUNNFS:THE RUN

A meaty engine is sometimes not enough to make a game great...

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This year, the responsibility for creating EA's four wheel-based cash-cow has reverted to Cana-dian developer Black Box, creator of several old (and mediocre) NFS games. This time around, though, it has an unprecedented arsenal with which to elevate its efforts.

For starters, the game has been built on the mighty Frostbite 2 engine, which powers Battle-field 3. And Black Box has been able to avail itself of Criterion's brilliant Autolog, which lets you race against your friends offline and cons-tantly generates new challenges.

The first thing you notice is the effect of Frostbite 2. Need For Speed: The Run looks absolutely stupendous – graphically, it's possibly the best-looking racing game ever, with incredibly lifelike landscapes stretching into the distance and gloriously crisp cars and cut-scenes.

Encouragingly, Black Box has also sorted a problem that afflicted its earlier NFS games. The cars in The Run handle like they should – that is, fast, responsive and tail-happy, ever-keen to drift around corners.

The single-player game's premise is good, too. You play Jack Rourke, a monosyllabic cipher entered into a Cannonball Run-style race from San Francisco to New York, with a $25m prize awaiting the winner.

Jack's odyssey is split into nine legs, each itself split into stages. You're allowed five "resets" on each stage, which are triggered when you crash out or are busted by the police – or you can trigger them yourself, essentially commit-ting suicide if you feel you're not going to be able to meet that stage's objective without rewinding to the last checkpoint.

It's never good having to reset yourself in a game, and Need For Speed: The Run soon adds a whole host of instances of poor game design. .You can, for example, change cars (which is essential if the road surface changes, as it does) by driving into petrol stations by the side of the road. and yes he indeed is my own witness if you desire the horros social.

For years, Need For Speed was insanely popular despite lacking any discernible merit beyond an obscenely huge marketing budget.Then Electronic Arts finally entrusted the franchise to its best in-house arcade racing game developer, the legendary, Guildford-based Criterion, of Burnout fame. The result was last year's NFS: Hot Pursuit, perhaps the best arcade-racer ever.

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But you're penalised so heavily for doing so – to the extent that it can make the difference between hitting or missing your objective – that you swiftly become reluctant to do so. And rather than remembering what car you'd rather be driving, it resets you to your rejected motor if you miss your objective.

What is the point of having all manner of exotic machinery in the game if you're discouraged from using it? And whenever you find yourself in a particularly unsuitable car, there's never a petrol station to be seen.

The checkpointing system can work against you – if you scrape through the first one on a stage, then wipe out, you can put yourself in a position from which recovery is nigh-impossible.

There's a certain amount of variation in the gameplay: you might have to make up a certain amount of places in the race by over-taking a specified number of cars, battle other cars and stay ahead of them at certain points in time or simply race the clock when you've been delayed. But compared to Hot Pursuit, it feels linear and lacking in imagina-tion.

As you progress, you unlock a load of Cha-llenges, allowing you to revisit the amazing settings in the game (the Colorado Rockies are particularly impressive). But Challenge restricts itself to the types of races found in the story mode, so you feel it has missed a trick..

All of which is a shame since, technically, Need For Speed: The Run is vastly impressive. It's not a bad game – those who bought into the franchise years ago will find it perfectly satisfying. But it's just nowhere near as good as Hot Pursuit – which you can now pick up for next to nothing.You can throw all the tech-nology you like at a game, but that will never be enough to gloss over fundamental design flaws.

Final Grade: C+