"You're not trying to get first, you're trying to make up ground," Need for Speed: The Run producer Alex Grimbley explained to me during a demo session in midtown Manhattan last week. Rather than putting priority on being the absolute first during individual races, The Run focuses on an overall place in a cross-country race, amounting to roughly 200 miles of in-game track spread across the US. And yes, it'll allow you to go back to individual areas and work on improving track times.

"Get to 101st by the time you make it here, get to 50th by the time you make it to Chicago, get to the top 10 by the time you make it to New York ... so this is a different take on a sprint race," Grimbley continued.