My thoughts on: Need for speed: Prostreet

Before we begin, let’s take a journey back a good week to see how this review suddenly came about. Last week, I had published my review on Tokyo Drift, and ever since that upload, I had received up to 10 new followers, and a lot of up votes and positive comments from other CTzens. I then realized that through this app, I am able to express myself and what I believe in through reviews. I am able to really let loose and go out and be myself, regardless of what the topic is, or what my true opinion is. This app really can listen to you and give positive feedback when you open yourself to it. So, my next “My thoughts on” was going to be about what I thought was the best NFS in the franchise, Hot Pursuit. I was destined to express my love for this game and show why this game was king. I had everything ready for the review, until I stopped by my local library during my Pokémon Go walk, and I saw they had Need for Speed: Prostreet for rent (Our library lets you rent games by the way), and I decided to pick it up and give it a shot. I then went home and started playing it at about 8 at night. Then, I didn’t stop until 3 in the morning. This game was a massive surprise ever since I had put it down in disappointment years ago (Then again, it was the Wii version..). Then, later that week, on Thursday, I dropped everything and went to my local GameStop and bought it on the spot. Then, every day at work, I would contemplate everything about what to do next. How do I make a Viper pop a wheelie? What should I buy to replace the Roadrunner with $100,000 at my disposal? Shouldn’t I buy something 4WD for the Speed events to prevent excessive over steer like with the Viper before? Thoughts would race through my head, like as if I was playing Gran Turismo 4 and deciding whether to buy a Corvette over a Viper. It’s something I’ve never really felt for an NFS game before, or even after. Prostreet was so good, that I had to take my review for my all-time favorite NFS game and put it on hold for a week. It was so good, it shelved my favorite game for a week. For that, it’s worth a talk. So, how is this game so addicting?

The career: This game revolves around the (amazing) idea of race days. These consist of several races that you need to finish to “win” the race day. If you get first in, let’s say 4/5 races however, you “Dominate” the race day, and it’s an incredible feeling to do so. The overall career centers around 3 different organizations. Battle Machine is beginner, React Team Sessions is intermediate, and then Super Promotion, which is hardest. Then you have 5 different “kings” each representing a different race type. There are 4 different types, Grip, Drift, Drag, and Speed, and to beat each king, you need to beat them at their own game, by winning their own organization. The Grip organization is G-effect, and the king drives a BMW M3 E92. The Drag organization is Rogue Speed, with the king driving a Ford Mustang GT. The Drift organization is Noise Bomb, and the king has a Mazda Rx-7, and the Speed organization is Nitrocide, with the king driving an epic looking 65 GTO. They all, however, bow to the “Showdown king” Ryo Wantanabe, with 4 different Evo X’s for each type. To beat him, you need to beat all the different kings, and then beat him in 4 races with 4 different types of cars, each representing a different event type. You need to beat him in all 4 to beat the game. It’s long, challenging, and incredibly fun to do. With that thought, you need to manage 4 different cars, each representing a different race type. I think that, on top of the race days, the fact that you need to manage 4 different cars makes the career all the more fun, because it acts like a serious challenge, because we’re so used to just using one car through out. It’s a great idea, and I really want a developer or publisher to realize how good of a premise this is, and develop a new game around it. If anyone will do it, I hope it’s Code masters, but we’ll see.

The cars: The list is great overall, each with great modeling, and all with epic damage modelling. Each one you can drive straight into a wall, and see the entire front end bend to the wall. It’s the same all around, and really helps show just how good the models really are. It also really helps that the list is overall really good. The cars range from old and new muscle, like Corvettes, Mustangs, Camaros, and even older muscle cars like the 69 Roadrunner, to plenty of JDM. Cars like the Mazda RX7 and RX8, Nissan Skyline GTR R34, and the new GTR, with the auto show prototype, Nissan Z’s and Silvia’s in typical fashion, and others. But the best part for me is the exotics, like the Pagani Zonda, Ford GT, Lamborghini Murcielago, and plenty others like it. The bad part is that a lot of the best cars are behind DLC. Cars like the Bugatti Veyron, Koenigsegg CCX, and even a McLaren F1. The list becomes even better, when you pay $20 for it. Despite that, all the cars are great to use and customize to your will. Each car has auto sculpt, which lets you customize certain panels, and other bits, but this time for aerodynamic benefit. Drag and downforce play an essential part of this game, and it’s all part of the detail that makes up a greater picture. Overall, it’s a great, and detailed list, if only you didn’t need to pay more for some of the best cars.

The Tracks: The tracks however, are all here and all part of the package. It also helps that they’re all fantastic, in their own way. Each one can be picked apart and enjoyed for the little details, and can lead to discoveries unlike any game ever. I had no idea that Infineon had a drag strip in the middle of the course before I played this game. I had no idea that the side roads near the Ebisu race track were so amazing looking. The track list isn’t just astounding, but really unique and helps give a certain atmosphere to every race day. Places like a Chicago Airstrip, Nevada desert highways, Mondello park, and even Tokyo’s own freeway system. To think some people decided to close down a segment of Tokyo highway just to race cars for the day sound like so much fun. Some of the race tracks were so good, they put them into NFS: Shift. Race tracks like the Tokyo Docks, and Willow Springs, all make an appearance in SHIFT nearly 2 years later. That just goes to show how good the race tracks are.

The race types: This however, is the meat of this game. There ae 4 different types like I listed before. Grip, which is the straight up racing we’ve come to expect. There’s Drift, which are closed sections of road that you have to drift. There’s Drag, which is just straight up quick fun.The Speed events, however, are the best part of the game to me. They consist of long and enduring races where you race on closed highways and charge at corners and hills at up to 250mph. Because of this, crashes are frequent, creating a new obstacle on top of the rest. This part of the game is where most of your money goes down the drain, if you’re not careful. This very reason is why this part of the game is the best. You get a great sense of panic during the race, whether it’s a massive jump, a bump in the road, a corner being hurled towards you at 200 mph, or a group of drivers getting hurled at you at 210. Either way, it’s a rush that leaves you breathless, but at times frustrated, but it makes it all the more satisfying when you win. Overall, the different race modes hold different opportunities and help make this game as amazing as it is.

The soundtrack: Oh boy, here we go. Junkie XL plays a major part of this game and is responsible for about 5 brand new songs for the game. For those of you who don’t know what Junkie XL is, he is the musical genius behind the Mad Max: Fury Road soundtrack, and even had a hand in the amazing Batman v. Superman movie soundtrack. Put simply, he knows his way around a song, and it shows. Other than that however, not many artists are that notable in my opinion, but at the same time, so many songs are memorable. Whenever I would play The Crew and hear “Wolf like me” by TV on the radio pop up, I would always get excited and remember my Viper that pulled a 7 second ¼ mile. It’s one of the best soundtracks for a racing game, and this is the best song to me. While we’re here, I’d like to say that the overall sound design is amazing, and helps give each car drama as it’s being driven to hell and back. On top of that, this game has the best announcers in a racing game ever. People like Jarod DeAnda, who is an official announcer for Formula D, John Hindhaugh, who has been hosting Radio Le Mans for a long time, and JBird who hosts NOPI events. They always bring energy and excitement to each race day and help act as icing on the cake for the overall sound design.

The cons: Ok, so gone on how I’ve gone on about how this is pretty much the embodiment of perfection in a now $20 game, but if that’s the case, then why isn’t this game my all-time favorite game ever? Well, the biggest problem with the game is the one thing it needs to get right to be playable. The one thing this game gets so wrong is the handling model. It feels awful at times. Now, keep in mind, it’s not the worst thing ever. It’s not impossible to play, it just feels like an arcade game trying to handle like a sim, and it’s something that didn’t need to feel like that. It could’ve felt arcade-like Carbon before it and still felt playable. This game just tries too hard to feel like a sim, and it really helps ruin parts of the game, like certain Speed events or even certain cars. I drove the Golf GTI for the first showdown and after that race, I never picked up a Front engine car for the rest of the game, because its plagued with so much understeer. It also doesn’t help that all the FR cars feel really loose at times, making going in a straight line feel impossible. Other times however, it’s not a problem, but sometimes, it’s still considered a problem. Also, and I don’t know if it’s just me, but part of this game feels really easy. I managed to beat 10 Grip records and win a spot in the first Grip king race, still in the starter car, while still in Battle machine. I was in one of the slowest cars in the game, on the first part of the game. Did anyone else manage to beat the 10 records while using the S13 you got in the beginning? I might’ve been just me, but it all feels easy at points. I also beat the drag king with my 7 second car, but at the same time, he had managed to pull only 9 second runs throughout. I managed to beat who was supposed to be the fastest dragster in the game by 2 seconds. Matter of fact, certain Super Promotion drags usually had only 10 second cars for some reason. Overall, this game can feel frustrating at times, while incredibly easy at certain points. It’s bizarre, but doesn’t subtract from the overall game too much.

Conclusion: This game is the biggest surprise I’ve seen in a long time. The astounding career, the epic cars with amazing damage modeling, the epic and detailed list of tracks, and the varied types of races, including the incredible Speed events make this game a diamond in the rough. It’s funny that this game was given mixed reception from corporate reviewers from IGN, Game Trailers, and Game spot because it deviates from the police based gameplay of past installments. Really? That’s the biggest reason why this game got mixed reviews? It tried to be different and introduce new gameplay elements, but all it got was stupid criticism from ridiculous critics. That’s one of the reasons why I started doing these “My thoughts on” posts. I wanted to give my full thoughts on games and movies, and put my spin on them, and try to offer as much detail as possible, regardless of whether or not it looks cheap or bad, because even in a bad movie or video game, there can be some good things to see within the bad. This game is proof that you shouldn’t listen to corporate reviews and go by your own opinion, or by someone who gives their full, detailed opinion, rather than someone who would describe the whole game or movie by a number.

Thank you for reading! If you would like to see more reviews from me, drop a like, and follow me to see more. If you also want to request a game or movie for me to check out, drop it in the comments and I might check it out. Also, out of curiosity, post your fastest quarter mile time, and the car you used. I’m really interested.