Need for Speed: The Run vs Need for Speed Undercover
Need for Speed: The Run is a racing game (2011) while Need for Speed Undercover is an open-world racing game from EA Black Box (2008).
Quick answer: Need for Speed: The Run has the higher Metacritic, 69 to 65.
Need for Speed: The Run
What each one is
Need for Speed: The Run is filed under Racing. In contrast, Need for Speed Undercover under Open-World and Racing.
Need for Speed: The Run is a 2011 racing video game developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts. It is the eighteenth installment in the Need for Speed series and is Black Box's final entry in the series before the studio's closure in April 2013. Following an extensive marketing campaign, the game was released on November 15, 2011, for PlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360, Nintendo 3DS and Wii.
You never thought it would turn out like this. An all-out chase where you're the hunted. And the hunter. Now you must get behind the wheel and risk everything to infiltrate a ruthless international crime syndicate and take them down.
Story, characters and reception
Plot
Black Box version Jack Rourke ( Sean Faris ), an experienced street racer, finds himself in serious trouble with the Mob due to a massive debt with them. After narrowly escaping being crushed within his car at a scrapyard in Oakland , due to his failure to repay what he owes, Rourke evades his captors by stealing one of their cars. Heading to San Francisco, he makes contact with his friend Sam Harper ( Christina Hendricks ), a fixer who arranges his… (Wikipedia)
Reception
Reception Need for Speed: The Run was met with mixed reviews. Aggregating review website Metacritic gave the PlayStation 3 and Wii versions 64/100, the Xbox 360 version 68/100, the Nintendo 3DS version 65/100, and the PC version 69/100. The first review was published by Game Informer , which gave the game 7. (Wikipedia)
Plot
Maggie Q portrayed the character of Chase Linh, the game's main antagonist towards the end of the story. Setting The game's story and events take place in the fictional region of the Tri-City Bay, mainly during the daytime between sunrise and sunset. The region consists of four boroughs - Palm Harbor, a downtown city district; Port Crescent, an industrial port that also houses a naval base; Gold Coast Mountains, a mountainous region of observatories and… (Wikipedia)
Reception
Reception Reception of Undercover was mixed. There were complaints about the game's easy difficulty, repetitiveness, and poor texture maintenance. The IGN review went as far as recommending the game's rivals such as Rockstar Games ' Midnight Club: Los Angeles and EA's own Burnout Paradise . (Wikipedia)
At a glance
| Need for Speed: The Run | Need for Speed Undercover | |
|---|---|---|
| GamingPickz Score | — | 6.5/10 |
| Steam rating | — | Mostly Positive (75%, 8,006) |
| Critic aggregate | 69/100 | 65/100 |
| Price | Unknown | Not listed |
| Install size | — | — |
| Steam Deck | Untested | playable |
| Released | 2011 | 2008 |
| Developer | — | EA Black Box |
Prices and Steam ratings are read live and move over time.
Need for Speed: The Run vs Need for Speed Undercover, point by point
Each facet side by side. A round is marked won only where a figure settles it; feel and "which is better" carry no mark, because no number we hold decides them.
Genre and premise
Need for Speed: The RunRacing gameNeed for Speed UndercoverOpen-world racing gameWhat each is filed as. Each game describes itself in full above; we do not judge a premise.
How it plays
Need for Speed: The RunNo descriptive tagsNeed for Speed UndercoverRacing, Open World, ActionThe tags players apply most, in order of votes. A read on feel, not a verdict.
Reception
Need for Speed: The Run ✓Metacritic 69Need for Speed UndercoverMetacritic 65Metacritic's critic aggregate, from the game's Wikipedia reception where it was never on Steam.
Content and scale
Need for Speed: The Run—Need for Speed Undercover8,006 reviewsReach and footprint, not quality: more reviews or a bigger install is not a better game.
Price
Need for Speed: The RunUnknownNeed for Speed UndercoverNot listedRead live from Steam and subject to change.
Need for Speed: The Run takes 1 of the marked rounds to 0. That is only what a number can decide, not which you will enjoy more.
Which to pick, by what you want
- The better reviewed of the two: Need for Speed: The Run (Metacritic 69)
Where they differ
RacingOpen WorldMultiplayerActionAutomobile SimDriving
Tags players apply to one game and not the other.
Difficulty and who each is for
By the tags players apply, Need for Speed: The Run is middle-of-the-road on difficulty. Need for Speed Undercover is middle-of-the-road on difficulty.
System requirements, side by side
| Need for Speed: The Run | Need for Speed Undercover | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum GPU | — | 128 MB |
| Minimum CPU | — | Intel Pentium® 4 |
| Minimum RAM | — | — |
| Install size | — | — |
Can your PC run them? Check each against your own kit: Need for Speed: The Run · Need for Speed Undercover.
Accessibility features
Steam store pages declare 0 accessibility features for Need for Speed: The Run and 1 for Need for Speed Undercover. A declaration is a floor, not a review.
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Common questions
How different are Need for Speed: The Run and Need for Speed Undercover in scope?
Need for Speed: The Run lists little scope data. Need for Speed Undercover has drawn 8,006 Steam reviews.
Is Need for Speed: The Run or Need for Speed Undercover better?
Neither carries enough reviews for us to score it reliably, so we do not call a winner. The table above shows what each does have.
Which is cheaper, Need for Speed: The Run or Need for Speed Undercover?
One or both do not have a current listed price, so a straight comparison is not possible. See the table above.
Should I get Need for Speed: The Run or Need for Speed Undercover?
Need for Speed: The Run has the higher Metacritic, 69 to 65. It also depends on what you want: the "which to pick" section above calls out which is cheaper, lighter on storage, better on a Steam Deck and the safer bet by weight of reviews.
Do you rank one above the other for a fee?
No. Neither game, nor anyone else, pays for placement or a verdict here. The order and every figure come out of the same public data the rest of the site uses.
Related comparisons
All comparisonsHow we compare, and what we will not do
The GamingPickz Score is a composite of player sentiment (adjusted for sample size), the critic aggregate and popularity, computed by the same code every ranked list on this site uses. The Steam rating label is Valve's own, reconstructed from the positive percentage and review count. Prices are read live. We do not write an opinion of which game is "better": we report the numbers and say which wins each measurable question above.