Need for Speed ProStreet

"The Wii Needs Speed"

Need For Speed has been a pretty successful racing franchise for the past five or so years. Most of the games have are based street racing, outrunning the cops, and/or an open world of driving. While EA has been able to use this formula to make great driving games, the company seems to have strayed into a different direction, a direction similar to that of PGR and Forza Motorsport in their most recent game, Need for Speed Prostreet. I'll talk about this more later.

Graphics:

The graphics on the Wii version are obviously not nearly as good as the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. However, I cannot quite say that the graphics are good for a Wii game. There are just average. The cars are pretty detailed, but they just aren't...crisp, for the lack of a better word. The textures on the ground look decent for a Wii game, though (except for at Texas). The technical graphics can sometimes be an issue during the beginning of a race, though. Another important note is that this game looks terrible on big screens.



Sound:

Let's just clear things up right off the bat: the sound track just is not very good. A lot of the songs just don't seem to fit the Need For Speed stile. One other major annoyance is the announcer in career mode. There are three diffferent announcers for the different tiers, and all of them have either grating voice or terrible accents.

The sounds on the track, though, are a different story. The engines sound quite realistic, and you can tell significant differences between the different cars. So, overall, the sound is not too bad.

Design:

This is where the game really strays from the original Need For Speed concept and starts to migrate towards PGR and Forza Motorsport. Instead of street racing in an open world, you are now a legal racer. There are no cops chasing you, which was probably more fun than racing in the past couple of games. And instead of an open world, we have race days. These are around four, five, or six races all at the same location. While there are still Drag, Drift, Speed (a high-speed version of Sprint races), and Circuit (now called Grip races) events, a lot of them are repetitive, as locations are revisited, and a lot of the tracks have just a few different turns. Drag is probably the most repetitive, as there is hardly a difference between the different kinds of drag races.

There are a couple design flaws, specifically in career, too. The career, while thematic, is difficult to navigate.

Fortunately, customization is quite detailed. You can make a car that is nothing like what anybody else has. So, in general, a revamped design in this game was really not for the better.

Gameplay:

The controls for this game are similar to most other Wii racing games. You hold the Wii remote sideways and steer the remote like a wheel. While this is a good concept, there are only a few minor flaws. First, the game does not always pick up turns that involve you tilting the Wii remote at over a 90 degree angle. Second, because the B button is used for nitrous, you may occasionally hit the button accidently, wasting one of your rounds of nitrous.

Speaking of which nitrous has been changed. Instead of gaining nitrous in the middle of a race, what you start out with is what you get. The way it activates is different, too. By pressing B once, an entire round of nitrous will be used up. The change here is not that great.

While you are racing against five other people during races, this is two racers less than on the PS3/360 version. And this is even less than in Forza Motorsport games. Online play is not in the Wii version, which is a major bummer.

Despite all of these negative comments about the gameplay, the game is somewhat addicting if you like a straightforward racer.

Conclusion:

Overall, Need For Speed Prostreet is a pretty lousy racing game that is, for some reason, quite addicting. If you enjoy straightforward racing games and don't care about how previous Need For Speed games have been, I recommend this game. For everyone else, try to wait till the 2008 installment of Need For Speed.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/12/08

Game Release: Need for Speed ProStreet (US, 11/13/07)