The newly announced instalment in EA's racing franchise - Need for Speed: The Run - will use Frostbite 2 as its base.

Frostbite 2 has rocketed to fame after its graphical horsepower and capabilities were shown off in footage from Battlefield 3, which it also powers.

The Run is being developed by Black Box, and continues the cops vs racers war in a similar fashion to Criterion's Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit from last year. However, this time around the central focus is that of 'The Run'; an illegal cross-country race from San Francisco all the way to New York City. Players will have to "weave through dense urban centers, rocket down icy mountain passes and navigate narrow canyons at breakneck speeds", whilst keeping an eye out for law enforcement.

Need for Speed: The Run is expected November 15 in the US and November 18 in the UK.

The newly announced instalment in EA's racing franchise - Need for Speed: The Run - will use Frostbite 2 as its base.

Frostbite 2 has rocketed to fame after its graphical horsepower and capabilities were shown off in footage from Battlefield 3, which it also powers.

The Run is being developed by Black Box, and continues the cops vs racers war in a similar fashion to Criterion's Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit from last year. However, this time around the central focus is that of 'The Run'; an illegal cross-country race from San Francisco all the way to New York City. Players will have to "weave through dense urban centers, rocket down icy mountain passes and navigate narrow canyons at breakneck speeds", whilst keeping an eye out for law enforcement.

Need for Speed: The Run is expected November 15 in the US and November 18 in the UK.

I am in favour of the RPG-ification of all things. I want points for successfully waking up in the morning, points for getting my legs through the right holes in my trousers, points for not falling over and voiding my bowels on the way to work. Shift 2 has the right idea: it gives me points for everything.

I overtake another car and the invisible car god of the sky gives me 20 points. I stymie a rival’s progression through the pack by weaving my multi-thousand dollar machine in front of his, and he gifts me another ten. All points from my benevolent driving lord go toward Shift 2’s career mode, and fuel a healthy and compulsive unlock schedule that makes me want to swear undying fealty to my new car god and kill all unbelievers.



Points spill forth from all Shift 2’s orifices. Winning races or getting the fastest lap on a time attack session will typically give the largest rewards, but they don’t satisfy quite like the mid-race prizes. On default settings, Shift 2’s tracks are lit up by a racing line of green chevrons: follow them perfectly and you’ll tot up XP. Each course has mini achievements – leading for a lap, or following the line through every corner – and the points-haul is chunky.

Connecting solidly with the racing line and sticking to it adds an extra frisson to an already tense game, but the wayward handling model makes the process more complicated than it needs to be. Shift 2’s default camera mode is in the racer’s helmet. Slightly Mad studios have artfully recreated the sense of climbing into a turbocharged tin can and getting knocked about so hard your vision swims, but in doing so, it feels like they’ve tied Shift 2’s cars too closely to your on-screen hand movements.



Let’s take turning left as an example. On a Xbox 360 pad (and for the love of new magic sky god, do not attempt to play with a keyboard - controller or wheel only), pushing the stick slowly to the left has one of two outcomes: a yank on the wheel that realigns your car at least ten degrees, or nothing at all. As an experience, the helmet cam is breathtaking – being close to the tarmac with the noise and speed feels properly dangerous. But to win races, I had to switch to the behind-the-car camera, or suffer as my guesses about the way my car was facing were proved wrong. Mastering a race from further out, Shift 2’s all-or-nothing handling can be studied, judged, and reasoned with. Car type and quality make a huge difference, necessitating some minor grinding. I was having problems finishing on the podium in one of the game’s early C-class races, using a cheapo front-wheel drive Nissan. Much swearing later, I hocked it and used some extra cash to pick up a four-wheel drive Impreza, adding a few technical-sounding tweaks from the garage along the way. Popping back into the same race, I slipped my competitors on the first corner and giggled all the way to the top spot.

Shift 2’s sheer weight of stuff – from mud-ring circuits in a VW Golf to Bugatti duels at the Nurburgring – gives it a deep bag of appeal. There’s an array of fiddly details for car geeks to poke at, and a range of control-difficulty settings that allow you to tailor races to your ability. The only downside to such a complete package is that it demands so many hours of acclimatisation before the cars start to make sense

Criterion have posted news of a new patch for the PC version of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit that claims to fix "47% of the top ten problems reported." These mostly include fixes for players having problems running the game with Radeon graphics cards, but also include tweaks to DirectX performance. You can read the full patch details below.

Criterion announced the patch in a post on their website, listing the following updates.

"Fixes account for almost half (47%) of the crashes caused by the top 10 problems reported by our users. Specifically, crashes and rendering problems on ATI Radeon X1300, X1550 and X1800 graphics cards have been addressed. Fixes are also included for Intel embedded graphics chipsets such as the Intel GMA 500, Intel GMA 600 and Intel GMA X3000 which are running older graphics drivers."

The patch can be dowloaded right here.

A whole stash of NFS: Shift 2 details have been released concerning auto-log, helmet cams and, of course, cars. Read on for the latest news, along with a new trailer and plenty of screenshots.



Developer Slightly Mad Studios has revealed to Joystiq that the Autolog system that was first seen in NFS: Hot Pursuit is now 'Need for Speed DNA'. The system will appear in Shift 2 in a more-or-less identical design, but will sport extra features that will not only provide track times for unique events, but also segregate data based on quick race tracks, race types and automotive disciplines. This essentially means that Autolog will be more than just a system that throws down your friend's times regardless of how, or when, they set them during their career.




Slightly Mad also revealed that a rewards scheme would be introduced, with players of Hot Pursuit being awarded the Pagani Cinque Roadster racer and Lamborghini Reventon police car in Shift 2 when they log in.




Over at IGN, the guys have been looking at the game's helmet-cam, which puts players right in the head of the racer. More than just in in-car camera, the helmet cam will move with the head of the driver, being drawn from side to side as the car takes corners and the driver is hit by G's. As the car comes up to higher speeds, the edges of the screen will become blurred to simulate the tunnel-vision effect that drivers suffer when racing.



Here's the new trailer, highlighting some of the features:

Criterion have released a second patch for Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, and it's one worth getting excited about. It contains three new cars! Read on to learn more.

The second patch contains the Bentley Continental Supersports Convertible, the Lamborghini Murciélago LP 650-4 Roadster and the Dodge Viper SRT10 Convertible Final Edition. After the news that the PC version of Hot Pursuit wouldn't be receiving DLC, players may have feared that no new cars would come their way; the fact that we're getting three new vehicles for free is welcome news indeed.

Aside from offering new cars, the patch also fixes:

Flickering graphics after Alt-Tabbing out of the game and back.

Controller configurations sometimes failing to save correctly.

Steering response dead-zone when playing with steering wheel controllers.

Player car engine audio volume too low.

Some issues with CPU performance.

Rare crash issue when entering the Career map screen

The latest Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit video shows off some of the hyper-competitive networking features the game will game will have. Essentially, it's going to start a four-wheeled war with everyone on your friends list. Check out the video below.



The new features will include a Facebook style 'wall' that will let you post comments, screenshots and race videos to your friends. The game will also track your race times and compare your performances with others on your friends list. If someone beats your best time on a certain track, the game's omniscient 'Autolog' service will send you an update so you can immediately respond and take back the number one spot. As the man says, "there's nothing more powerful than beating a friend."