Need for Speed ProStreet

Very needy indeed, Paul discovers

I was sat at home last night watching TV and trying to convince the remote control that its batteries hadn't run out when it occurred to me that when it comes to trying to control something people like to feel they're able to push things to the limit. For example, I know that pressing extra hard on the buttons of my remote isn't going to make a blind bit of difference if the batteries are dead but it makes me feel like I'm in some way encouraging them to respond, like I'm eking out every last ounce of power from those faithful AA's. That sense of pushing a limit is true in games as well, we've all pressed extra hard on a gamepad's buttons in the hope that it'll somehow make us jump further, fire faster or dodge quicker. Of course it doesn't really work, but it makes us feel more involved in the process when the whites of our knuckles can be seen.

Unfortunately for the Wii, that's one area it's otherwise excellent motion control falls down and driving games in particular are going to suffer. Take Need for Speed ProStreet for example, in a game already blessed with less than wonderful handling on other formats, tilting the Wii remote like a steering wheel feels even less responsive than it should for the simple reason that you get no real sense you're pushing the car as hard as you can. While people may moan that the handling is un-responsive on other formats they're at least able to really feel how unresponsive it is because they've got they're analogue stick slammed hard against the unmoving plastic of the game pad and the car's still turning like an oil tanker. On the Wii you're left flailing around turning your arms into some kind of human corkscrew in the vain hope that possibly at some point the car will respond as it should and you'll feel like you've hit left or right lock.

I don't pretend to be a petrol head but I've played enough driving games in my time to know that unless we've been lied to up to now by our games, high performance cars handle a whole lot better than this. Heck, my aging Ford Puma handles better than this! Unfortunately for this latest Need for Speed game, by coming to market with such a horribly unresponsive driving model, the quality of the rest of the game becomes almost pointless. After all, who's going to buy a driving game that's almost un-drivable? While I'd love to think the answer to that is 'no one' I've no doubt that the particularly irritating blend of urban street racer chic EA have infused into the whole thing will still pull in masses of people who think putting strips of blue lights under their supped up Fiesta's is a good idea.

It's not just the control scheme that's got worse though, gone is the open ended city environment of old that fitted in perfectly with the illegal street racing theme of earlier games. In ProStreet all the races and challenges take place at strictly legal organised race days and generally on proper race tracks. This move away from the excitement of racing around a city complete with short cuts and police has managed to nullify a large part of what used to make Need for Speed games fun. Instead you're left with a series of race days which all boil down to a collection of events grouped together that you need to 'dominate' in order to unlock the next one and so on. There's some half arsed plot about being an up and coming driver gaining a reputation and working towards a drive off against some pro driver who was rude about your skills at the start of the game, but frankly it's so dull and poorly realised you'll be skipping through it within a few cut scenes.

The events you take part in are a mixture of standard races (inexplicably called 'Grip races') time trials, high speed challenges, drift racing and new to ProStreet, drag racing. The fact that you don't really need to steer in the drag events make them probably the most enjoyable part of the game because you actually feel in full control for a change. However, even this brief positive is hampered by a bizarre change of control scheme. For the drag events only you have to switch to pointing the remote towards the screen, accelerating with the B button and change gears at the appropriate time by shaking the remote backwards and forward. It's not that it doesn't work, it's just weird that the developers couldn't find a way of working the shaking to change gear idea into the same control method the rest of the game uses.

As has become the norm in NSF games, a lot of time and effort has gone into the car tuning and modding side of things. The autosculpt features that allow you to alter the shape of your cars body parts is all present and correct, in fact since the racing itself is so miserable this design-a-car element is a welcome bit of fun for those still willing to persevere. The only problem with all the game's wealth of options tweaking is that all the faffing about in the world isn't going to make the fact that getting behind the wheel of your newly kitted out beast and actually driving the thing remains a painful experience.

Stood still the game's not too bad to look at, of course it's not up to the high-res sheen of the 360 and PS3 versions but it's not terrible either with car models that are more detailed than you may have expected. Unfortunately in motion things aren't as good, the frame-rate has a habit of dipping noticeably once things get busy and things also get worryingly jaggy on the track which can make seeing the next corner a bit of a struggle.

Any thoughts of at least wringing a little fun out of things with some online multiplayer action are soon dashed due to the fact there simply isn't any. Apparently Wii owners aren't worthy of such luxuries.

If this was any other series than Need for Speed and if it didn't contain all the background rubbish then the fact that this was a driving game that was horrible to drive would be enough to consign it to the bargain bins from the off. Unfortunately we live in a world where brand names guarantee sales and looking 'cool' is more important than actually being, you know, any good. By losing the open city nature of previous games and restricting you to organised events the series has lost a large part of what was fun about it in the first place. Add to that the fact that the driving itself seems to have become horribly broken since last year and suddenly you're left with a game that's relying solely on its image to shift copies. The fact that it'll probably still top the charts in a Christmas season that see's titles like Metroid Prime 3 and Super Mario Galaxy competing for shelf space is a sad indictment of how, even on the Wii, rubbish will sell if you market it well enough.

40%

By Paul Newcombe