Need for Speed: ProStreet

Plot

The game begins where a former street racer known as Ryan Cooper enters a challenge day and wins it with a Nissan 240SX. Ryan is mocked by Ryo Watanabe, the Showdown King who drives a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X.

He then moves on to Battle Machine, a famous race organization, and dominates it. He then moves onto Showdown Chicago, promoted by Super Promotion and the best organization is introduced, the Super Promotion; there are other organizations in each specific event such as the Noise bomb for drift, G Effect that are a circuit crew, ROGUE SPEED which is for drag, and Nitrocide for speed runs. Each organization has a top race team, Apex Glide, Touge Union, Grip Runners, Aftermix, and Boxcut, respectively. Ryan dominates the showdown and moves onto React Team Sessions. He then moves onto another Showdown again promoted by "Super Promotion" and dominates it. He then receives invites to elite organizations of the four Kings of Drag, Drift, Grip and Speed challenge after breaking a certain amount of specific records in each race mode. He beats them and earns their crowns and dominates enough organizations and showdowns to face Ryo. Ryan beats him and the Apex Glide team leaves Ryo. Ryan then becomes Street King by beating the kings and Ryo.

Gameplay

Need for Speed: ProStreet has taken the series in a different direction of gameplay. All racing in ProStreet takes place solely on closed tracks, making ProStreet the first game in the series since Need for Speed II that doesn't animate illegal racing. The performance tuning feature is enhanced, compared to previous versions, especially Autosculpt. Unlike Carbon, where only certain body kits can be autosculpted, this can now be applied to all body kits, including stock bumpers and wide body kits. Furthermore, some adjustments through autosculpt impact the car's aerodynamics.

In ProStreet there are four different game modes: Drag (a race in a drag strip, point to point), Grip (similar to Circuit races but with four different types of Grip races available), Speed (similar to a Sprint race) and Drift.

Other than game play itself, ProStreet features detailed damage modeling, unlike previous Need for Speed games (except for High Stakes and Porsche Unleashed) where damage is relatively little or non-existent altogether. The new damage system introduces more depth of damage (except on the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and Wii versions, where the damage modeling has been scaled down due to the limited processing power, so the damage is similar to the previous titles) where any object in the game world has the potential to inflict cosmetic damage breaking off pieces of the car such as the hood,bumpers,side view mirrors, light damage, or heavy damage which reduces performance of a car, and even has the potential to total a car immediately after impact.

ProStreet features customization of cars. The changes affect the aerodynamics of the cars, and players can test them in an enclosed chamber called the "Wind Tunnel" (only on the PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360 versions).

The Speedbreaker does not return for ProStreet (as the game lacks a police presence; the Speedbreaker was mostly intended for police evasion, however it returns for the Nintendo DS version of the game).

Customization

Players have a wide variety of decals, vinyls, and paint colors, all very similar to the previous games in the series. Additional extras have been added as well. Players have a huge variety of body modifications, such as rims, hoods, body kits, exhaust tips, spoilers and roof scoops. The Autosculpt feature, which was first introduced in Need for Speed: Carbon, is featured in ProStreet and plays a significant role in terms of car performance. Although there are more parts to autosculpt in the car, the autosculpting method is for the most part the same. The hood, roof scoop, front bumper and spoiler can all change how a car performs in a race. Autosculpt can affect everything, from a car's handling to its downforce. ProStreet now allows you to modify stock and wide body kits as well as hoods, roof scoops, wheels, spoilers etc. A new feature called the Windtunnel is introduced on the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game. It is not available on Wii and PlayStation 2 versions. The Windtunnel, along with Autosculpt, can affect a car's performance.

Locations

Many of the races take place on well-known roads. Locations include Chicago (Meigs Field Airport; now disused), Nevada, Europe, Tokyo Docklands (Daikoku Futo parking area), and the Autobahn (A100 Berlin ring road). The Texas World Speedway, a real track in Texas used by the SCCA and in the 70s NASCAR, and also the Infineon Raceway, available in the NASCAR configuration as "GP Circuit" and AMA configuration as "Long Circuit". The game also includes many other real world tracks such as Portland International Raceway and Willow Springs International Motorsports Park in the USA, Autopolis and Ebisu Circuit in Japan, and Mondello Park in Ireland. The tracks are the same in all versions of ProStreet.

Online

Online modes are not featured in the PlayStation 2 and Wii versions. However the PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC versions feature online mode. Unlike previous Need for Speed titles, it is much more integrated into the game; as long as a player is connected to the Internet and logged in, his/her in-game progress is recorded for the purpose of online leaderboards. A player's custom-built car can also be shared online via blueprints, with the creator being given credit whenever their car setup is used for a leaderboard. Online features have been discontinued.

Development

The official title was leaked several months before the official announcement. Soft Club, the Russian distributor of the game, unveiled the name and release date of the game in February 2007. EA had not until the official announcement on May 31, 2007, given any clue about the game's title.

Soundtrack

On September 7, 2007 Junkie XL released a single entitled "More" in conjunction with Need For Speed: ProStreet. JXL was asked to compose the score of the game, the game also included 34 songs as part of its soundtrack.

Expansions

The Collector's Edition is available at the EA Store for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 unlocking 5 more cars and 4 more career race days.

An expansion pack branded by Energizer Lithium is also available. It adds 16 cars (2 free and 14 purchase) and 2 tracks. This also disables all cheats for the game.

Reception

Need for Speed: ProStreet has received mixed reviews from critics. Game Informer and GameSpot have cited the lack of police in the game, the handling of cars being unrealistic, and the fact that ProStreet strays away from its traditional roots of street racing as reasons for the ratings, as well "an overload of in-game advertising and a higher hardware requirement (causing poor sales on the Windows version)." IGN.com mentioned the common complaint that all of the cars had shoddy performance and terribly unrealistic handling. videoGaiden lambasted the game in its 2007 Christmas special, having harshly criticised its predecessors in the previous two years. The main criticism was that the game was as lacking in substance as the previous installments, but also lacked the high production values of those titles. These were the lowest ratings ever in the series despite higher sales of the next game, Undercover. The PlayStation 2 and Wii versions were also criticized due to missing content, downgraded graphics and frame rate issues.

Need for Speed: ProStreet has sold 2.4 million copies in the United States.

Advertisement controversy

The advertisement of the game was met with criticism for featuring topless models in certain ads. UK promotional material for the game featured in The Sun advertised the game with its Page Three Girls, Becky Rule and Amii Grove posing topless. Electronic Arts claims that the ads "slipped through the proper EA approval process." As a result, the ads have been removed.