Need for Speed ProStreet Review

BY Nicholas Rego | POSTED: 06 December 2007

Need for Change perhaps?



Most developers know when they have pushed a game title to its limits. Very few games have more than three games in their series, and any series that goes on for too long will most likely being to bore gamers. With the latest instalment in the Need For Speed series, EA has clearly run out of ideas for the game, and what results is a rather run-of-the-mill racing game with a few minor changes.

Need for Speed: Prostreet strips away the free-roaming design of the previous two games, and instead thrusts gamers into a series of Race Days. You start off quite typically as a rookie racer, and you have to win a series of events in order to unlock more races and locations. This formula has been used in nearly all the NFS games, so EA gets zero points for originality here. The game offers various modes during a Race Day, such as a standard three lap race, drag races, drift challenges, speed thrills and grip races. Each mode has its own unique criteria in order to place first – for example, the speed races have you racing through checkpoints to clock up the fastest lap time, while the drag races test your ability to gearshift properly. It all sounds like fun, but most of it is just recycled material from the previous NFS games. The career Race Days offer a bit of a challenge, as you can rack up a lot of points and cash by winning events against the AI racers. You can then spend your heard-earned cash to tweak your ride’s appearance and performance, again nothing new to the NFS series. Included once again is the ability to sculpt your car’s body parts, which will affect air resistance while you drive, thus either slowing you down or helping you to go faster.

Its not until you actually start racing do you find that no matter what you do to your car, it feels like you’re driving in a bathtub. The game offers “Racing Assistance” as a way to help out new racers by automatically braking on sharp curves, but with this turned on, you’ll often find yourself driving at breakneck speeds only to come to a sudden screeching halt as you do a turn at 40kmph. With the option turned off, there is still a major issue controlling your car, as it will quite happily veer around the track despite your attempts to get things under control. None of the cars handle realistically, and some drive as if they are on rails. The racing element is totally ruined, and even NFS fans will begin to feel the frustration after a few laps around the track. Given the poor control scheme, your car will be colliding with pretty much everything on the track, and like a proud Spartan soldier, your car will bear its scars until you get it repaired, which you can do by either spending cash or using a Damage Repair marker. Most of the time you can get away with entering a race with a slightly damaged car, but if you hood has gone missing, you might want to think about getting a replacement.

If you’ve managed to play NFS: Prostreet on any of the other consoles, you will notice just how bad the PS2 version looks. Even with the feeble blur and shading effects, the game looks very average. The tracks offer a decent level of detail, but the cars often have jagged edges, and the framerate stutters a bit when there is a lot of debris on screen or if you crash into something. The audio is quite good, with some good EA tracks accompanying the frantic racing. There is a commentator babbling in the background during race breaks, which makes for a sometimes humorous distraction. The game includes split-screen racing for another friend to join in the action, but the biggest drawback of the game is the inability to play online, a feature that works well on the PC and next-gen consoles.

Frankly speaking, if you’ve played any of the NFS games before and are looking for something new, don’t expect to find it in this version. With recycled gameplay, unresponsive controls, and mediocre graphics, the PS2 version of this game lacks the fineness seen on the 360 and PS3 versions. With nothing really exceptional to offer gamers, it looks like the NFS series is finally coming to an end.