ProStreet driving off in a new direction, I'd say ProStreet was so close, yet so far.
dissed
Truthfully this is my first Need For Speed game to play and been watching and reading the reviews and videos. It seemed like a great turn for Need For Speed to get into Sim racing.
Now, from the videos/trailers/teasers, Need For Speed ProStreet seem very proud of their Damage and Smoke programming.
The damage effects were somewhat impressive (but not perfected yet as most racing games know this) and when the "Light" and "Heavy" damage seem pretty spot on, unlike some Xbox360 exclusive sim racing titles. Where that when you do damage it, ProStreet says it affects your performance in the race. Which doesn't feel like it at all. But at least they had an idea that damages do affect it and after crashing into a wall at 204 km/h into a wall... again from another game, with damage effects and crashed into a wall at almost about the same speed, the car somehow survived and managed to continue the race.
The smoke is also good but can be annoying at times. Yes Need For Speed shows it off how it follows the wheel as it creates air around it, spinning the smoke as well. On the redline, if you put your car into gear you can create smoke. On the Drag races and the preliminary screeching or "barking the tires" for grip, a lot of it appears almost blocking as much as a third of the screen and I, at least want to see the rims that I picked out to spin for me.
The car selection is great from Acura (Honda owned) to Volkswagen with additional cars that you can buy off the PlayStation Store and the Xbox Live Market (is that what it's called? sorry I'm a PS3 gamer for now). Which is great as that Downloadable Content is becoming popular. But what disappoints me overall is the cars as paid Downloadable Content, instead of working through the game and unlocking them (which starts out with a few of the cars). So that would mean if I had the cash and a mind of an idiot to spend that money just to get "ahead". Pure laziness for the gamers.
When I first thought of buying the game, I had a friend that told me that the cars handled like boats. That friend is into arcade driving. So I wasn't really surprised. The handling of the cars resembles the real life cars to an extent... that it doesn't. Other reviewers had said it doesn't resemble to real handling as some of them drive those cars and I believe them as I drive a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X but not in those speeds... yet. In ProStreet, the Evo screeches at every turn trying so hard to get some grip, which is the same with the Audi TT. The Cars are rendered and viewed beautifully, better than it's previous titles which I cannot complain about because it's that sort of game, Arcade Style. The decorating is great as well, with a variety of shapes which you could fuse together with your own creativity to make more shapes, colour scheme is is just like the MS Paint easy to use but hard to remember if you want to match shapes to combine to each other.
The menu from my view, is "grafiti-fied" which is good, almost portraying the stereotypical life of a street racer (the non-professional street racers). The menu is straight forward and Online Integrated. The Controller format for PS3 is great and I love it, the touch sensitive R2 and L2 buttons, like really stepping on the gas and brake. The right joystick used as an stick shift, fabulous, I have never thought of that and always thought of flappy paddles gear shifters (behind the steering wheel) as R2 and L2.
The Marketing of ProStreet have been criticized immensely because there's just too much and it's everywhere. I don't even know if Nitrocide is a real street racing company (forgive me, I am a car enthusiasts really) but it is everywhere. Even with the vinyls, about 120 aftermarket companies are there as stickers.
Tuning the cars are a little bit iffy and hard. Only those who understand what the parts are and where they are can actually fully tweak, tune and understand the cars performances to it's peak. Anybody can do it really, by just reading the info about that part and telling you what it does if you increase it or decrease it. Yes anybody can do that, but that hard thing is making all the parts work together to tune it almost perfectly for the race.
I think that is all I can rant about so, Overall, I think EA knew that ProStreet was not going to sell very well to it's arcade-illegal-street-driving fans and customers, hence the overuse of Aftermarket, um... marketing. Filling half the screen of advertisements plus with the paid Downloadable Content. To me, I think they were not really thinking about their usual customers for now and are moving forward towards another set of customers, moving towards realism and simulators. Making path for, I guess the "main course", Need For Speed Shift. Maybe ProStreet is like Gran Turismo's Prologues.
I actually like this game, even though I know it's faults but I adapt to them and know what's wrong with it's steering. I have knowledge whether if it understeers or oversteers and will have to adapt to those turns but I really, really, really enjoy it. I won't play it like everyday, maybe like twice a week saying "mmm I fancy drive". I love Need For Speed so I will support it all the way. But! Rent it First, If I had the ability to rent here in Hong Kong I would, sadly there is nothing like a GameStop here. Need For Speed ProStreet was not a regret-buy but I am now afraid for Undercover because of the reviews I have been reading from the gamers but GameSpot seems to like it in a way or reminiscing. Shift will be a buy for me.
Need For Speed have heard your cries to make a Most Wanted 2 or Underground 3 and came out with something like it called Undercover (Under - referring to Underground and Cover - referring to cops for Most Wanted) and you all were sadly disappointed by it but it's the same developers and the same franchise! would it be any different if they called it Underground 3 or Most Wanted 2 but the same storyline?
Need For Speed ProStreet gets an 8 from me (which was first a 9), because I love cars but really it's because I enjoy driving the cars and finding the apex in the turns, carefully driving your car like you actually earned it and trying to be professional at the same time. Before I played this game every other day just to finish the career but after that, now what? So it's now a leisurely high speed drive for me once or twice a week.
(I hope I won't get deleted because this is my first review)