Need For Speed ProStreet Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

It's all about the drifting baby.

EA have recently begun to spend a lot more time catering for the mobile market, and I have to give them some props. There are a ton of racing games out there and not all of them good, so to enter with such a solid title is a good achievement. Not that people who play Need for Speed need on the consoles would have any doubts, as it's a brilliant and well respected title there. But to make the transition to mobile is a tough one and often a hard nut to crack.

EA have gone for the very wise route of pushing the graphics and also adding a few nice elements to the gameplay. The game looks stunning and is right on par with some of the top graphics in the car game genre. I played it on a K800i and while the looks have a touch of the polygon about them, they are clearly of the console variety. We're not talking PS3 here, but a solid PS1 or early PS2 variety. Remember, this is a mobile handset we're talking about which is why the game shifts in at a hefty 654k, just over half a meg.

The reason for this is the detail on the cars. There are 8 cars in the game ranging from a prototype of the new Skyline (!!!!), BMW M3 E92, Chevy Corvette, 2007 Shelby GT500 and even the legendary AE86 from the Initial D racing anime series. With each car lovingly recreated and looking beautiful on the tracks, the game hits the spot right from the get go.

The racing is well designed also. EA have opted for the simplest control system where the car auto accelerates. All you have to do is concentrate on the steering with left or right. In addition, you have your nitros (this is a street race after all) which you engage by pushing up, so the whole racing experience is pretty intuitive. What makes this game a little bit more special is that there are a few extra features such as slipstreaming behind cars and even drifting.

Taking a good racing line is essential and rewarded by fast lap times (you'll even get a message telling you your line is good), but it's not as fast as drifting. I think in real life a racing line will win out, but you'll be able to come out of corners faster if you drift (I own a Japanese sports car but have never tested this theory) however it's the other way round in this game. When you hit a corner pressing 5 or the main button will put you in drift mode and a meter will appear on the screen. You have to keep the pointer in the centre of the meter and not let it hit the red spots on the far sides. Keep it in the green and you'll earn some green in the form of extra cash for the race. This really is the best way to make money and will also replenish / increase your nitros. Increasing your nitros will mean you can engage them a lot more in the race which means faster lap times and ruling the streets.

But you can't forget that this is street racing so you'll have to contend with other racers and even other drivers on the road. When you're racing this is quite easy to do, but when drifting, it becomes much harder not to crash, so you have to decide if you're good enough. If you want to make your cars good enough, the cash from winning races and drifting can be used to soup up your car up to four times in each of four categories, top speed, acceleration, handling and nitros. Giving 8 cars as well, means you can be playing the game for quite a while!

Apart from the graphics, the sound is reasonably well represented, there is a brief tune when loading and on the menus which is quite funky but never loops. Then there are sound effects of acceleration, tyre screeching (drifting) and crashing (drifting going wrong) in the game. The controls are really simple too and the fun of drifting is a really nice element that has been incorporated into the game. It's not often you see two methods of taking a corner, and one of those looking particularly sytlish!

The game plays well, but the review copy we played was far too easy. Slipstreaming and overtaking people, especially around corners, becomes fairly standard once you've souped your first car up a bit (you have to start with the AE 86). There are 3 stages to play and 3 tracks on each stage. 9 courses in total sounds like a lot, but each course takes about 4 minutes to play so that means you can finish all the courses in about 36 minutes. This should give you enough cash at the end of career mode to purchase a more decent car, and I plumped for the 2007 Shelby as it looks almost the same as my car in real life. I was expecting more tracks once I went back to career mode with the Shelby, but there were none, so I found myself playing the end track over and over again as firstly it gives the highest prize money and secondly I kept trying to beat my fastest lap time.

I certainly enjoyed playing this game and although it's a bit too short and easy as mentioned above, I did find myself wandering back to it every now and again to see if I could build up enough cash to buy the GT-R. If there were more tracks and it was harder, this would be a superb game as opposed to a great game.

Fast, fun and furious action, a little bit let down by the longevity.