I've read the terrible reviews of this game. But I really wanted to love this game. I am a BIG racing game fan; as people who read this blog and my site might all ready know.
The game takes a good stab at doing a few new things. First, they take the player and the racing off the street and on to the track. There are plenty to choose from, too bad they all look more or less the same except for the changes in signage. This game really could have benefited from the whole ice level, water level, lava level formula that have worked so well over the years for action games and platformers.
The game allows you to customize your cars to a degree but most of the changes are cosmetic or just plain formulaic like having five different types of tires to choose from that all do the same thing.
The vinyls and other visuals are much more Need for Speed 3 rather than Most Wanted. The autosculpt just doesn't seem to be that big a deal anymore and the damage that has been activated really is nothing more than a nuisance. By the time I'd played a couple hours of the game I was all ready bored of spending petty cash on repairs.
The main career difficulty is a little to easy for anyone who is used to driving games which is certainly a new thing for the Need for Speed series.
The graphics are pretty good especially compared to most other driving games of the non-simulator type out right now. Games like Dirt and Forza certainly look better than Need for Speed Prostreet but they do so much that Prostreet isn't willing to do. The damage models in each work better and certainly effect performance much better.
What could have saved Prostreet were the variety of modes and ways to get through the game and of course battle against the different areas kings of the road. But maybe I lost something in the convoluted non-existent story but the whole thing never really seemed to matter that much and the rewards; at least for the first half of the game seemed kind of pointless.
I would really like to see the series go back to it's Most Wanted past and not continue in this silly street event format. Or at the VERY LEAST create more of an atmosphere around the events. They are barely even window dressing for the game. Every race seems to take place on an overcast day on a more or less road course style track. The drift tracks could be a little bigger and there could be a little more tutorial if the game is going to make you pay for your repairs even if your just restarting the race midway through.
The ironic part of Need for Speed Prostreet is that it is probably the best casually built racing game this year. Problem is that it has no hardcore tuning. Any racing game about tuning that has a drag mode that you cannot change the clutch seems a little insane to me.
The final problem with Need for Speed Prostreet is kind of a amorphous one. The game has no soul. There is really no depth to the style or theme of the game. It is just a whole lot of flash that adds up to very little in the final analysis. There are plenty of things wrong with Need for Speed Prostreet and if it wasn't from the Need for Speed guys doing it it would be just another no name crappy racer. You want white knuckle casual style racing play Burnout Paradise. You want customization, play Forza Motorsport 2. You want arcade racing, play Need for Speed Most Wanted, again. But you won't find any of these experiences in Need for Speed Prostreet, at least not a satisfying one anyway.
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