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Need For Speed ProStreet

Need for Speed ProStreet

User Rating:

ESRB: Suggestive Themes
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre(s): Sports / Racing
Home Page: http://www.ea.com/nfs/prostreet/lo...

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By: Jarno Kokko Jan 02, 2008

Not bad, but not a "Need for Speed"

Racing down a closed highway at Ridiculous Speed shows the fairly muted motion blur effect very well.

Overall, the game is very much a mixed bag. Many players have ripped it apart for being "worse" and "simpler" than the previous NFS titles, but I'm not judging it by that record - ProStreet has very little to do with them as far as the gameplay goes, so complaining that the game has no driving in city streets is a bit beside the point. Nobody complained that Gran Turismo didn't allow you to drive freely around a city, so why should it matter here? The gameplay is not perfect, but the quibbles I had with it were minor, and the underlying meat - driving in races - is fairly good.

The selection of racing games on the PC, at the moment, is also fairly limited. When you compare it to the latest Forza and Project Gotham Racing titles on the Xbox 360, there is little reason to hug ProStreet - it's decisively playing in the little leagues when compared to them. But you can't buy PGR or Forza for the PC, and when lined up against similar PC titles available today, it's not a bad showing. You should first drop the expectations, though, as it is decisively not a Need for Speed game (no matter what the box says); then take a look at what's on offer, which is: a competent track racing game with arcade-style physics and pad-based controls. Nothing amazing or groundbreaking in any way, but still fun and quite playable on it's own right.

You do need a quite modern system to play it on, as the game degenerates into an unplayable mess on older systems. If your computer can't maintain 30fps, you have to drop down visual settings and/or the resolution, otherwise you might feel the sudden urge to join the online crowd who are panning ProStreet for being an undrivable mess. Is ProStreet the best driving game around? Definitely not, but on the PC, the selection is limited, and among that crowd ProStreet is a fairly good one.

Summary of YouGamers Hardware Testing

The publisher of this game state the following specifications for their minimum and recommended requirements:

Component	Publisher's Minimum	Publisher's Recommended
Processor	Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz	Not specified
Memory	512 MB
Graphics Card	DirectX 9.0c card with Shader Model 2.0 support
Graphics Card Example	ATI Radeon 9500 series / NVIDIA GeForce 5950 series
Free Disk Space	8.1 GB
Net Link	Not specified

To learn more about how YouGamers performs its hardware testing, click here. Through our extensive gameplay and hardware testing across the full spectrum of PC configurations, YouGamers suggests that one should use the following guidelines for an appropriate minimum and recommended setup:

Component	YouGamers Minimum	YouGamers Recommended
Processor	AMD Athlon 64 3500+ / Intel Pentium 4 3400 MHz	AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ / Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
Memory	1024 MB	1024 MB
Graphics Card	ATI Radeon X1800 GTO 256MB / NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB	ATI Radeon HD 3850 256MB / NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB
Free Disk Space	8.1 GB	8.1 GB
Net Link	Broadband for online play	Broadband for online play

Scores

To learn more about our scoring methodology, please click here.

Gameplay	84	Plays fine on a gamepad, and most of the modes are enjoyable - just don't jump in expecting free-roaming gameplay like in the previous NFS titles, and don't expect to drive using a wheel.
Graphics	85	Looks fairly good, but doesn't exactly set the world ablaze with amazing graphics. I guess the best word to describe the visuals would be "competent". Plenty of product placement and ads plastered all over, but they mostly fit the theme of the game.
Audio	72	You will either lover or hate the "trendy" music. I hated it, but I must admit the production values are there, and it's pointless to fight over music tastes. Voiceover acting quality varies, with the script being pretty cheesy all the time.
Technology	73	It works, with no major problems, but somehow the engine doesn't look like it should need all the resources it's gobbling up. A fairly high-end PC is required, and the game doesn't scale for the older systems.

OVERALL

For the series fans, probably a disappointment - you really should ignore the whole "Need for Speed" part of the title, as it's there just for branding. As a stand-alone racer, a competent console conversion; maybe a bit repetitive in the long run, but still a fair effort from EA.

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Patches and Updates

We tested Need for Speed: ProStreet with the v1.1 patch installed. This patch added support for LAN play, and included a "Coca Cola Zero Booster Pack" that adds two cars - 2007 SEAT Leon Cupra and 1969 Plymouth Road Runner. The pack also includes two extra tracks - Porsche Leipzig test track and the Tokyo Expressway track set in Japan. The patch also adds directories and files for a number of other cars, including such drool-generating monsters as Bugatti Veyron and McLaren F1, but currently it appears that only way to drive these cars is to hack your save games. It's likely that EA will be publishing an additional "content pack" on the PC later in the spring - otherwise, why include them in the files if they are not accessible?