Chicago’s Kennedy Expressway is impressively re-created for a span within The Run.

Thanks to the stellar, sim-leaning Shift 2 Unleashed and the thrilling, Burnout-like Hot Pursuit, Need for Speed has demonstrated a dramatic rebirth of late. But The Run hearkens back to earlier entries with a story-driven affair populated by notable actors and bold set pieces, plus loads of street-ready licensed cars. Though its fundamentals are largely sound, the resulting experience is alarmingly flat, with structural and technical issues that derail the adventure.

The Run’s narrative campaign follows Jack Rourke, a skilled driver who enters an illegal cross-country race, hoping to use the reward to settle bad bets. Starting in San Francisco, you’ll race to New York with numerous stops along the way, including Vegas and Chicago. The scenery and terrain are fairly diverse, too, ranging from winding mountain descents to tight city blocks.

Frantic button-mashing will save Jack from a helicopter’s hot lead.

Though The Run boasts a couple of exciting moments across its roughly five-hour trek — notably one in which you’ll swerve around falling rocks and snow during an avalanche — the use of bite-sized races robs this massive journey of any sense of scale. Besides time trials against the clock, most events task you only with passing a handful of selected foes before reaching a marked point on the track, making gameplay feel pretty much like that in any other high-speed, point-to-point racer.

The events feel lightly scripted to provide tense moments involving other racers and occasionally police cruisers, depriving the game of a much-needed sense of unpredictability. More distressing, however, is the fact that many races lose momentum due to the punitive rewind system, which automatically pulls you back to the last checkpoint after you crash or leave the main track. As a result, you may lose upward of 45 to 60 seconds of progress in the event — a hugely aggravating situation that can suck all the air out of a hectic skirmish.

Such an approach may best serve the narrative, but regrettably, there isn’t much here to serve. The barebones tale never develops its characters or delivers notable twists, and the on-foot sequences — in which you’ll tap prompted buttons to jump between rooftops or fight off cops — appear sparingly and add little to the experience. While the Frostbite 2 engine (from Battlefield 3) delivers some startlingly beautiful backdrops and effects, it shines inconsistently, with frequent texture and environmental pop-in, along with choppy and unpolished cut-scenes.

Despite notable voice actors, Jack and Sam are one-dimensional characters.

Completing stages in The Run opens up individual Challenge events that re-purpose the tracks with varying objectives and more vehicle options; both these events and the main game post scores to Autolog, letting you constantly compare times with friends. Eight-player online races offer up optional personal and group objectives (like passing five other racers) to net extra XP, as well as a pre-race bonus wheel that unlocks perks for top finishers. The online proceedings are fast and fun, but a jittery framerate and odd vehicle animations persisted in our sessions, plus competitors complained of spawning into walls and hitting invisible objects.

In the heat of battle, Need for Speed: The Run generally serves up a solid and speedy arcade racing experience, with expectedly steady controls and physics. But it’s consistently undone by painful rewinds and a dull campaign marked by predictable events, not to mention technical issues. With so many excellent racers on Xbox 360 — including a few in this franchise — there’s simply no need to indulge in one that irritates as often as it delights.

The Frostbite 2 engine at work.

Publisher: Electronic Arts • Developer: EA Black Box • ESRB: Teen • Multiplayer: 8 on Xbox Live • Achievements: Simple • Cost: $60

On Xbox 360

+ Solid core racing model, with stellar controls and physics.

- Lacks scale of large race, and forced rewinds are painful.

- Inconsistent visual quality, plus snooze-worthy storytelling..

? Can we finally ditch Need for Speed storylines?

5.5