I’ll start by saying I don’t think there’s been a genuinely good NFS game since the first one I played on PlayStation and 3DO, and that was about 500 years ago in 1994. Nearly all since then seem to have had frame rate problems or bugs and glitches, all seem to possess a general lack of polish, but despite this, sales always seem to be unjustifiably high. Over the years a few exceptions have managed to be playable and addictive, despite never really threatening to invade Gran Turismo or Project Gotham’s lofty towers. These occasional forays into NFS have almost been my “guilty pleasures” – I knew these games weren’t good but still with all EA’s license-buying power and the developer’s undoubted ability to model a sexy car and make it look sexier they just had to be played from time to time. They’re also the only place you can drive a Porsche that hasn’t got a RUF badge on it, as EA continue to sit on the licence and misuse it, like the fat kid who owns the only inflated football in the neighbourhood.
So along comes this year’s offering, Pro Street. Yes, this year’s gimmicks are that you can damage your cars significantly (and have to pay for the damage – more on that later) and that they’ve taken the racing (presumably in some uber-ghey effort to be more PC) off the streets (well actually they haven’t, they’ve taken the traffic away). Yes, several tracks are set on “closed” public highways, and these are probably Pro Street’s finest moments because they manage to scroll along quite smoothly with a great sensation of speed and without many frame rate jitters or graphical glitches. Which is more than you can say for most of the rest of the game’s racing…
So on to the review. Firstly, let’s say that the cars look great, and for once in a NFS game they look good both in the selection menus and in-game. They won’t blow you away if you’ve seen PGR4 or the Gran Turismo 5 vids, but they look detailed, curvy and desirable even very close up, so (ahem) kudos for that. In keeping with recent NFSs, there are dozens of customization options, both in terms of performance tuning parts and body kits, and most of the add-ons look great, and along with the best paintjob/decal/vinyl editor this side of Forza allow you to completely personalise your rides. This is Pro Street’s good side without a doubt, the off-tarmac options are great.
Pro Street steals outrageously from an idea from Codemaster’s Toca Race Driver series and has you playing as character called Ryan Cooper (anyone remember Ryan McKane?), another young lead-foot, but this Ryan wants to beat the 4 challenge kings and his big rival Ryo (a real showoff in a Lancer Evo) to become be the king of the streets. At the point where you have to actually select a race day/event things start to go awry. The race menu is best described as “skateboard chic” – in other words it looks like shite graffiti. Amazingly though so vivid it hurts the eyes it’s actually hard to see what you’re selecting because some dumbass thought that highlighting lime green menus in yellow would look “cool”…
There are 4 distinct types of racing in Pro Street; Grip (circuit racing), Drift (slide your way to a big points score), Drag (¼ and ½-mile strips) and Speed (drive like the devil is casing you on public highway sections). Oh dear, first comes the grip racing. But before I start to sound like too much of a doomsayer I should say that the racing itself is pretty good, the AI cars are competitive, they try and pass each other, make mistakes all on their own and do a lot of things other racers’ AI opposition don’t do. The Grip tracks vary from real circuits like Mondello Park (and what a waste of tarmac that is) to fictitious ones on a dockside, and there’s a nice variation. The handling is possibly the most realistic yet in a NFS game, with understeer snapping to oversteer heavily apparent, but powersliding possible. This obviously varies hugely from car to car and I don’t want to get too bogged down, but in some cars it feels just right and in others just plain wrong. Some physics feel right and others WRONG. When you slide gently sideways into a gravel trap and flip over in a completely unrealistic fashion, resulting in a “Totaled” car and an expensive repair bill you’ll most likely be furious. Much of the time the steering seems to lack finesse and controlling some cars is hard because of this, but it’s also hard because the frame rate is awful. It ranges from smooth-ish 30fps to extremely juddery – every time you take a turn or slide it drops which makes judging every turn harder than it should be. After a couple of races you’ll more than likely be wondering how the heck this game and Burnout Paradise can come from the same publisher.
At first the Drift racing seemed a complete mess to me. Already done so well in other games, this showoff mode requires you to induce a powerslide and keep it going as long as possible, over a short course. A game of this nature needs a game engine to remain smooth when a car is thrown sideways, and handling that convinces you that you’re controlling powersliding skidding car on the verge of a spin. Get a decent setup and this skill becomes quite enjoyable, and scores that seemed impossible are soon within your reach. But the frame rate jitters are always just around the corner the scoring system never seems to make any sense.
The Drag racing hasn’t really moved on a lot from the first time it appeared in a NFS but is still my favourite part of Pro Street. Car setups actually seem to make a difference this time, but after the satisfying burnout sequence before a race (featuring some amazing smoke effects) it’s still mostly about timing you gear changes and hitting the nitrous at the right moment. There’s also a wheelie competition this time around. This is also the only event to be completely free from frame rate problems.
The Speed racing is most like old-school NFS, blast from A to B as fast as possible along a rolling public highway, but this time without civilian traffic (yawn). The danger here is that the cars are so fast that they’ll occasionally take off on the humps and bumps, with some spectacular results. But even in these 200Mph+ crashes no wheels come off, despite scenery getting mashed and every panel on the cars being ripped off – Burnout Paradise has nothing to worry about on the cool-looking crash front.
Even with all the gripes the overall look, sound, feel and atmosphere of Pro Street kept me playing it for a while, and like most racing games occasionally races would produce an incident I’d have liked to see again. But there are is no replay mode – in a racing game, in 2007. No replays. Um… why? You can upload screenshots to EA’s Pro Street website and view/download them (if you can successfully negotiate EA’s maze of websites, register, link your gamertag and give them your Mum’s maiden name and your Dad’s inside-leg measurement), but where are the replays? With the detailed damage modelling (although it’s a bit over-the-top at times) and the amazing tyre smoke (without doubt Pro Street’s finest graphical moment) they surely intended to have a replay mode and pre-race intro scenes obviously use the game engine, so presumably it was bugged and they didn’t have time to fix it. Shame.
Despite the whole “race day” having a good feeling about it, mainly thanks to an amusing MC/commentator and his constant babbling and cleverly pertinent comments, for some unfathomable reason you can’t tune a car once you’re there, any adjustments must be made by backing out to the garage menu, and this is clearly ridiculous, and the more you think about it the stupider it is – if there’s one thing that petrolheads do at a race meet it’s tinker with their cars. Also the much-vaunted damage and actually having to pay for it is virtually made pointless by an easily exploited bug that means you can get free repair tokens. The online racing could have saved this game from total mediocrity but even that is slow to join, slow to load and clumsily applied. Races suffer from lag and the same frame rate problems – only the drag racing remains playable online. The ability to share blueprints could have made this a must-play racer but the clunky lobby system and unpleasant racing experience will mean only hardcore NFS fans and Achievement junkies will stick it out – but then, they’ll tolerate anything.
I’ll end with some other minor grumbles like the fact that a modified car will take a full 10 seconds to load and appear in your garage menu. At the start of a race sometimes cars will just ‘drop in’ like they’ve just spawned there. Or the simple fact that there are no in-car views. The first ever NFS had dashboard/steering wheels all modelled so why the heck can’t a 2007 version have them? It’s just another indication that Pro Street needed more development time and as such is another in a long line of EA games that could have been good, but looks and feels unfinished.
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