A great game in the Need for Speed series.
The Bad: Cars are not too detailed and the music player box gets in the way of the map.
In this console port to the Sony PSP, the game gets the sandbox driving around in the console versions and replaces that with a jump into a race style game. The game still has its customization and tuning the car to make it faster and control better.
NFSU Rival has several racing modes. Including the classic circuit race, knock-out where the last person to cross the finish line is KO or knocked out. Other modes include Rally Racing in which you switch cars every lap. Nitrous run is a race against the clock as you must go through gates and it is a race against time, your nitrous oxide and time is replenished as you go through the gates. Street cross races are races that use your handling more then speed to win. The last racing mode is drag racing, this racing mode you shift and can’t hit anything to win.
The game still bears customization and tuning your car to your like but is stripped down to the console versions. In the console version you were rewarded for having your car as sweet as you like but in this game it doesn’t matter, so go crazy with your car as you like. The tuning as the car plays a major role in the game, for you need it to be a fast to win. Upgrading you car parts in kept simple so you know what you are doing. Once you buy the upgrade it is applied to all your cars, but you need to go through the menus to apply to the car.
Once again, the series bears licensed cars. You unlock cars by winning events, but to use you need to spend your hard earned upgrade points to buy the car. Each car is different so buy the car you want wisely. As for the AI cars, well they are lacking their intelligence. That is because the wreck all the time and just get in your way like you weren’t there. So the AI can be annoying, but not all of the AI cars are like that.
The game is a racing game of course so it would be smart to use the control disk rather then the D-pad. Your car has several controls: gas, brake/back-up, nitrous, and the emergency brake, which has no use unless you want to use it for a reason. Upgrading you handling on you car impacts the control on your car so get used to the car every time you upgrade.
The game contains wireless play and it is useless. The game requires you to have two games if you want to race your friend or a random person in a room. Or you can do a mode wear three of your friends and you or three random people can pass around one PSP to see you can do a race in the quickest time. The games could’ve had improved wireless capabilities but were ignored.
The sound in the game is good. The sound of the car is pretty good when you rev the engine and shift gears, but while your car is racing the sound sounds a little fake, but doesn’t affect the game at all. The real music in the game is a good selection but no great. The music is what you expect in a racing game though. You can listen to the music from the pocket trax ( is what EA calls it) but the feature is dull and a waste of your PSP’s battery life.
This game should be a great game for fans of the racing genre and the of the games brethren. The game is a great port and gets ride of the big city from the console versions.