Need for Speed ProStreet

Its better to wait for a Price Drop

Reviewed by kngzmexican on November 22, 2007  |  report this review

It can't be easy to be a game developer in charge of releasing a new game in a series every year. People don't want the same game over and over, yet they're unhappy if the game strays too far from the established formula. EA deserves credit for trying something different with Need for Speed ProStreet, but the new direction of the series fails to live up to the level of the previous games. There's still a solid racing experience here, and the online component of the Xbox 360 is quite good; but the game's premise is uninteresting and the in-game advertising is over the top. In the end, ProStreet is just another decent but uninspired racing game.

Unlike the last two Need for Speed games, which told the story of an underground street racer through campy yet entertaining cutscenes, ProStreet follows the legal street racing career of Ryan Cooper. The game still uses cutscenes to try to instill some story into the proceedings--something about Ryan getting dissed by a big-time street racer--but it's uninteresting thanks to terrible voice acting and unlikable characters. Ignoring the story, it's your goal to head to different events, dominate them, challenge the best of the best, and then take on Ryo, the man who disrespected you after your first race.

Thanks to the sheer number of race days you'll need to win, it will take a long time to get to Ryo. Each race day consists of a number of different events. Most of these will be familiar to anyone who's played previous Need for Speed games. Grip races are standard races with eight cars on the track, and your goal is to finish first. Other events have you trying to get the fastest time or highest speed through checkpoints, or the best time out of your class of cars. Drift racing is back, but has been revamped and is actually fun this time around since you don't lose all your points for going off the track. You'll also be doing a lot of drag racing. It's fun for a bit, but gets old quickly thanks in no small part to the preceding minigame in which you have to heat up your tires--it's lame, and you have to do it before each of the three rounds. While there's no shortage of events, there isn't a whole lot of variety. Many of them feel the same--you just want to go fast. This makes the game grow old quickly, a problem when there are so many events to slog through before you reach the end.

The game also grows tiresome because the action on the track just isn't that exciting. Some of the later cars you unlock, like the Lamborghini and Zonda, are superfast, but for the first 50 races you'll be racing some rather pedestrian vehicles. Since you're on a track there are no shortcuts, so many of the courses end up feeling the same, especially since a "new" course is just an old one with a few different turns. Most importantly, there are no cops. Getting chased by the five-0 was easily the best part of the last few games, so its omission here is huge. Damage plays a more pronounced role this time aroun