Need for Speed ProStreet (PSP)

Step on the gas and blow by this one.
3/19/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 2

How do you take the joy out of illegal street racing? Easy. Make it legal. The Need for Speed series has made a name for itself by delivering serviceable tuner-world racing for the past million or so years. With the latest version of the series, Need for Speed ProStreet, though, the action has been taken off the nighttime highways and thrown into legit racing circuits. The result is an ultra-generic racer made for a console that's already busting at the seams with ultra-generic racers. Need for Speed? Hey, what about a need for fun?

Not sure exactly what the folks at EA and Black Box were thinking when they decided to yank the undercarriage neons and hot, yet dangerous chicks from the venerable NFS series. Yes, it does make it a little more distinct from EA's Burnout games, but that's about it. In ProStreet you're unleashed on a dozen-plus real circuits (and their numerous variations) to play a bunch of permutations of get-there-first racing. Forget about a vast and open-ended romp through a dark and gritty underground driving culture -- and if you're looking to be chased by the police, your only real option is to try to swipe the game from your local GameStop.

Just like last time around, the PSP version of things is a completely different animal when compared with the big console take. Unfortunately, whereas the handheld version of NFS: Carbon bested its big brothers in a lot of ways -- a better storyline, better use of your wingman teammates -- here things are decidedly less impressive on the handheld. Unlike the big-screen ProStreets, which throw you into a semi-story-driven game that revolves around multi-event "race days," here you plod your way very linearly through race after race, unlocking and winning new cars and upgrading your ever-growing stable of wheels along the way.

To its credit, ProStreet does try to introduce a new element on the track. The wrinkle in this latest NFS is Driver Intuition. It's basically the ability to see the optimal turning line. The better a driver you become, the more you'll be able to use this feature that can be toggled on with the circle button. Following the line during a race gives you a slight speed boost. It's an interesting enough premise; it just doesn't pan out all that well.

While the game does a good job at purporting to focus on -- and reward -- finesse driving, in a lot of ways it's a facade. Yes, there's the aforementioned ability to check out the optimal driving line in real-time while racing. There's also a post-race screen that lets you check out -- lap by lap -- how you did when it came to actually hitting the right line. Unfortunately, during the actual racing, you can get away with all sorts of BS driving tactics. Can't find the right line? Who cares? You can always bumper-car your way around tight chicanes or take a shortcut and scoot across the infield.

On the plus side, you'll get to do all this questionable driving in a mess of different rides. The game lets you roll in dozens of muscle cars, sports cars and tuners. If you're looking for more than just graphical variety with your car choice, you may be let down. Unlike the bigger consoles, which let you get down and dirty with your performance tuning, here you're left with just a few options, and since the game isn't all that stingy with the money that it tosses you for winning, it doesn't take too long to max out the performance upgrades. The result is that just about any car -- front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive -- can be tweaked to handle like a four-wheel drive dream. It takes a lot of the challenge out of things. You rarely get the rush of trying to wrestle a car that might just be a little too powerful for you to control.