Others say...

"Another weak Need for Speed title"
EA's mediocre machine has churned out another snooze-fest with an abnormal amount of product placement.

You are a potential client of many corporations. Electronic Arts lets you know this from the very first time you pop in the ProStreet disc. Yes, there will be pandering. Of course there's stereotyping of the "import culture". It's got everything you expect in a modern NFS game from an annoying announcer that won't shut up to a music selection consisting of only current pop songs. It's obvious that the game was developed by a committee of suits who are using it simply as a mechanism of further sales.

I suppose there's an in-ad game in here as well. I'm not sure what EA was attempting to do in the game when it comes to car control and physics. It seems like the developers played a game with decent physics like Forza 2 and then emulated it in the worst possible way. There's a poor mash-up of arcade and simulation physics in here and the result is an unsatisfying "feel" when driving. FWD cars will oversteer when you increase the throttle after turning off all the assists (to do so requires a trip down a few menus). Light to moderate braking doesn't lighten the tail of the vehicle as expected. Unfortunately, your choices for control range between simple button mashing and an uncontrollable mess.

Some of the race modes are unfairly designed (such as Sector Shootout). This is because whoever sets the fastest time on a particular section of the track gets all the points for that section. The problem is that you will always start at the pack of the pack and thus the lead AI vehicle will consume most of the points on the first run around the track. There are times when you will compete against vehicles significantly better or worse than your own car which makes the game feel cheap all around.

There's a nice selection of cars but winning races doesn't earn you much money and thus you won't be able to afford them using in-game currency. Which brings up another issue: Micro-transactions in-game. When your car is damaged you can spend real money to repair it. If you want a new car or more modifications you can buy it using real money. I believe it's fairly obvious why EA made it hard to earn in-game money. They want you to reach into your pocket and pull out a little bit more green. Apparently, shelling out the money for a video game up front isn't enough as now we are expected to pay to enjoy the game as well.

I'd avoid this stinker and select something more enjoyable.

"ProStreet Rules!!"
This game is totally cool! I have spent hours and hours playing and tricking out my rides. It is totally realistic, Go for it!

"ProStreet isn't so sweet"
I think it's fair to say ProStreet is almost as big a disappointment as Carbon. Most Wanted brought us a great environment, good (albeit cheesy at times) cop chases, but most importantly: a game that, when you played it, felt n smooth and creamy - opposed to choppy and slapped together.

But lets quickly examine the pros:
1) Car detail - the 360 (and surely the PS3 as well) pumps out some amazing detail. Tread on tires, creases on the panels, and even the inside dash - can't go wrong.

2) Car upgrades and tuning - Very precise (or so it seems). Customize each aspect as you like it - and they even give you a "test" to estimate how you will function on the road. Great for shaving split seconds off your race time.

3) Works nicely with a racing wheel.

The cons:
1) Track Racing - I think the most obvious downfall of track racing is the ease of - and over use of - using the same piece of track for about 300 different races. And prostreet does this perfectly - EVEN WHEN AT DIFFERENT BATTLE MACHINES (supposedly different geographic locations). And all the other cons with track racing follow too: plain and similar backgrounds, lack of excitement, no traffic, and certainly, no cops. Lastly, Nascar has some great tracks - boring, in my opinion, but many love it - which is probably better suited to the track lovers.

2) Informational Messages - I'm just plainly sick of EA's tree hugging "don't race" messages, this is a game not a defensive driving course - save it! I also imagine their "don't race on the street" message has something to do with the track racing the game is based on, and their lame attempts to convey the gratification of local race track notoriety - bah! Not so important, but feels good to vent about. :)

3) Car damage - I'm unsure if this is a good thing, a bad thing, or just out of balance. Let's just say it's not horribly hard to rack up a repair cost twice the value of the income from the race - especially since YOU pay when THEY hit YOU. They attempt to offset this with repair markers, but the whole system feels off - decide for yourself.

4) Cash or microsoft points? - So how do YOU want to spend your hard earned real life currency? If you have enough, you can simply buy your car - and its upgrades! Microsoft points are interchangeable with game cash, the average car cost is about 200 MSP - roughly $2.50 US. I imagine the question that EA answered with this feature was, "How can we make money off people renting the game?" Heck, lets take it one step further: Exactly how much do you think the upgrades will cost, in both game and real world currency, for that car you couldn't afford in the first place? I'm guessing the real genius of this plot unfolds at precisely this point - when you realize you your in-game check book can't balance the costs and you start waving around your credit card for more MSP.

5) No Cops - But why should there be any? It was only the BEST feature of Most Wanted - and Carbon took a stab at butchering this aspect by implementing nothing but straight roads, where losing cops isn't realistic, likely, or even fun (imo, anyway). The cop chases, which for me was the defining aspect of replay value - was probably replaced by the xbox live online portion.

So let me sum this game up quickly: Your driving your choice of many real world cars around a variety of tracks that pretty much all look the same, you cross the finish line a few times as #1, you dominate a "race day" - which wins you a few bucks and a choice of 6 prizes - many of which, part-wise, you probably already own (mostly lvl1-2 for a while). When you're done, you begin the same thing over - at a new "battle machine," with strikingly similar backgrounds, but probably one major difference: off the road... is SAND not dirt... Or dirt, not a fence...

No short cuts, no speed breaker (not entirely horrible, mind you), very little variety, but great looking cars. Are you ready? o=


"Great Game!"
I'm an adult who plays the occasional game to unwind or with friends. I don't own many games and I don't play very often. But this game is so much fun, not only did I buy it, but I was motivated to write this review.

I haven't been a fan of racing games in the past. -They become boring too quickly where everything is the same but the graphics. So I stopped playing them and therefore cannot comment on or compare to any other racing games.

I'm amazed with the subtleties in performance between all the different cars. And I'm really impressed how much the game lets you modify your car, not only the looks with graphics, paint and add-ons, but with engine tuning and fiddling with the aerodynamics. You really can notice the difference on the track! Faster parts bring dangerous speeds and the need to tune everything just to keep yourself on the blacktop.

The game is actually hard to beat and still fun to play a second time.

Finding the right cars for the right tracks and getting them tuned to your liking will steal more of your valuable time than you'll likely admit to your friends.

The downfalls: In story mode, the bosses are really pretty easy. If you have the skills and the right cars to get to the bosses, you crush them with hardly any effort. And as with most story modes, when you do beat the game, you are left craving more (more cocky jerks to win pink slips from) *EA has already come up with a couple solutions to extend our game-play in addition to racing on xbox live.

My suggestion... Buy it. It's one of the few games I've played that is worth the giant price tag.

"WE DON'T NEED A RACING SIMULATOR!!!!!!!!"
This game is a racing simulator, like gran turismo or Forza. The problem is that Need for Speed NFS is supposed 2 be arcade-like. Its not supposed 2 be realistic. I love great graphics, but I want another Most Wanted or Underground. I felt Most Wanted was the best by far. The free roam and the cop chases were amazing. In ProStreet, they took out everything that made underground 2 and Most Wanted great. THERE IS NO FREE ROAM AND NO COPS. The smoke sucks to. For some reason, the game doesn't give the sense of speeding like Most wanted, Underground 1 and 2, and Carbon gave. I didn't like Carbon much because of the layout, the streets became annoying since there was no looped freeway. It doesn't look realistic at all, it would be better if they took it out. The races are very routine and boring. The announcers become annoying as heck. The reason I gave it a 2 for fun is the customization and the selection of cars. I also like that it does have daylight. BUT SERIOUSLY PEOPLE, NO COPS NO FREE ROAM= NOT NEED FOR SPEED!!!!!! If i wanted a racing simulator, i would have gotten Forza 2 which I have. But I was wanting an arcade like game without the overdone powerups and completely idiotic jumps like midnight club. I wanted something inbetween midnight club and Forza2, and Most Wanted was that, but Prostreet is not.