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Reviews |  |
Reviews provided in partnership with Crispy Gamer. Need for Speed ProStreet (Wii)
Honk if you love EA!
Positive
Solid racing action
Varied challenges
New Race Day structure keeps gameplay fresh
Negative
The DJ
Poorly designed grafitti-centric menu screens
Progression is occasionally confusing
The Verdict: Try It
Hot: Solid racing action; Varied challenges; New Race Day structure keeps gameplay fresh
Not: The DJ; Poorly designed grafitti-centric menu screens; Progression is occasionally confusing
By Scott Jones
Though you probably haven't polished off 2005's Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and likely haven't even purchased a copy of 2006's Need for Speed: Carbon yet, EA wants to cram yet another Need for Speed game down your cramhole.
The once vaunted racing series currently suffers from a chronic case of Didn't the Last One Come Out Last Month Syndrome.
DTLOCOLM -- which is also sometimes also referred to as Madden-ification -- is a disorder that affects many games each year. The main symptom: an inability to distinguish itself in any remarkable way from what came previously.
The biggest difference is that ProStreet is not built around a model/actress in hot pants, as the two previous Need for Speed games were. To its credit, EA has changed up the formula this time, stripping out the model/actresses from Most Wanted and Carbon -- digitized versions of Josie Moran and Emmanuel Vaugier, respectively -- along with the perenially annoying, not to mention just plain misinformed, yo-what-up-dawg street vibe that has permeated the series' recent offerings.
ProStreet is EA's attempt to get back to basics. It's not the overcooked, overly ornate affairs that Most Wanted and Carbon both were. The idea here is less style, more substance. ProStreet is about smoking your tires, finessing curves and tinkering with your car. And it's a step in the right direction.
The game's Career mode starts you off with two gratis hoopties in your virtual garage -- one for speed, and one for drag racing -- and then turns you loose on what appears to be a sanctioned street racing circuit. Gone is the outlaw, 'Smokey and the Bandit' meets 'The Fast and the Furious' spirit found in recent Need for Speed games. No longer are you racing through rain-slicked city streets beneath shimmering neon, weaving in and out of traffic, with the cops on your tail. In ProStreet, from start to finish, you're confined to closed tracks, complete with grandstands, race officials and checkered flags.
Because of this, the game lacks the organic, go-anywhere feel of the recent NFS games. There's no faux city for you to tool around in, no shortcuts to learn, no canyons in which to race, and no special part of town where you're 100-percent certain you can lose the cops. And because of this, the game lacks any real sense of place. In ProStreet, races start -- 3, 2, 1, screech -- you drive, and when it's all over, you're kicked back out to the menu screen.
Races come in four self-explanatory varieties -- Grip, Drift, Drag and Speed -- with each variety being further divided into sub-varieties. But aside from Drag and Drift, which change up the game's control scheme somewhat, most of the time you'll simply be putting the pedal to the metal by holding down the gas button -- the 2 button on the Wii remote -- until your thumb cramps up.
In order to progress through the game, you'll need to participate in a series of Race Days -- discrete series of events -- centered around a specific location. On any given Race Day, you could be challenged to drive in a Grip race, two Drag races and a Time Attack race (get the best lap time). The idea is not to simply place in these races but to -- using the vernacular of the game -- "dominate." You need to win, and win big in order to dominate a particular Race Day. Dominate enough Race Days, and you'll be invited to one of the four elite racing organizations where you can square off against the game's top racers (or 'Kings,' as the game calls them). Races against Kings ostensibly function as the game's boss battles.
Between Race Days you can click over to your Garage and upgrade your vehicles, adding nitrous, better tires, exhaust packages, flame decals on the sides, etc. all in the name of giving you an edge on the next Race Day.
ProStreet, like all recent games in the series, features real world Cadillacs, Mazdas, and Nissans, to name a few name brands. And forget bulldozing your way through races as you've done in years past. In ProStreet, even the slightest fender bender results in damage. Do enough damage, and you'll total your ride, and won't be able to finish the race.
The game's control scheme borrows a page from the Excite Truck playbook: turn the Wii remote sideways, use the 2 button for gas and the 1 button for brake, and tilt the controller to turn. (During Drag races, I had to point the controller at the screen, twisting it back and forth to steer, while using the B button to do my accelerating.)
I didn't feel terribly confident in this setup at first, since the Need for Speed games generally require more precision than Excite Truck's strapped-to-a-rocket type gameplay. My take: It's not great, but it works well enough.
The Wii version's graphics are a step up from what you'll find on the PlayStation 2, though they're a long, long way from the smooth-as-glass high-end visuals you'll see on the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Also, the frame rate stutters here and there for some reason. And online gamers, beware: The Wii version of ProStreet doesn't support online play. At all.
But beyond that, ProStreet commits three sins, and while none of them make the game unplayable, all three seriously handicap the game.
The first is the game's DJ. Seriously, I'd rather sit next to Kathy Griffin on a five-hour flight than have to listen to this guy. To make him even more annoying, because he's supposed to sound like he's talking through a grandstand loudspeaker, most of what he says sounds like this: RAA RAAA AWWW YEAH RAH WON'T RAAH FINISH LINE RAA RAAA IT'S GOING DOWN TODAY, FOLKS. Dear EA: Instead of including a DJ, next time, just ship the game with a vial of ants to dump down our chinos. Thank you.
Number two: The Career Map is designed to look edgy and "rad," like a tattoo or a piece of graffiti. There's a skull! Look, a cartoonish bomb! But mostly, it is a bit of ornate bullshit (apparently leftover from Most Wanted and Carbon) that is nearly impossible to navigate.
Finally, ProStreet's greatest sin is that, overall, it's a very bland, very dry affair. That doesn't mean it's necessarily bad. It's not. In fact, ProStreet is more than competent. The racing action, though repetitive, is solid fun. Yet, something seems to be missing at the game's center. The problem, I think, is that it never feels like anything is really at stake here. There's no real drama, no emotion. I won races. I lost races. And, unfortunately, my reactions to both outcomes were virtually indistinguishable from one another.
I'll say it what I'm sure some of you are thinking: I really miss the cops. Nothing like a good old-fashioned smokies-on-your-tail jaunt to get the blood going, you know? Without the cops, without any inherent drama, you're doing nothing more than going really fast in a souped-up Mazda.
And that's really not enough for me anymore.
This review was based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher. Copyright © 2007-2009 Crispy Gamer. All rights reserved.
Scott Jones
2008-01-31
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