Need for Speed: The Run has a prologue level of sorts that establishes protagonist Jack's situation - a guy in trouble with the wrong people, looking for a way out. He finds it in a cross-country race with a purse of 25 million dollars. But where The Run really begins is in a warehouse garage off the Embarcadero in San Francisco. You pick a car and roar out onto the street, greeted by the light of an early morning in the city. It's not exact, by any means, but developer Black Box nails the feel of San Francisco's streets well. And then crazy sh*t starts happening all around you, in the best way possible, as more police cars than I think San Francisco actually has are chasing you and dozens of other cars toward the Golden Gate bridge, and...

It makes an impression. Need for Speed: The Run starts out so well that I coasted on that high for about 45 more minutes before I realized the game I was playing just wasn't very good.