Electronic Arts' classic racing series, Need For Speed has not been great for many years now. Many a racing game has surpassed it in almost every way, but it has never been bad, boring, or repetitive. The series blows out all three at once on ProStreet, marking the moment the Need For Speed series fell asleep at the wheel.
Recent iterations of the game offered up a story to add a little drama to the races, allowing you to drive around town to get from event to event; exploring and dodging cops along the way. ProStreet scraps all but the story portion of recent Need For Speed offerings. Although, ProStreet's 'story' makes that of Super Mario Brothers look as deep as BioShock. Your name is Ryan Cooper, and you are looking to drive your way to fame by out driving the 'kings' of the five racing types in the game. That is about as deep as it goes.
The game constantly talks about 'street racing', but other than the asphalt under your tires, you are not about to hit any streets in this version. Unlike previous versions where you could get into chases with the cops and attempt to outrun them, your only driving is actually during the races against other cars, which all occur on organized, secluded tracks. Gamers must select the event they want to compete in from the strangely branching career map that looks like the bastard child of a gang tag and a prison tattoo, and are then automatically transported to the 'race day' event.
Even though the race day events each purport to take place in different parts of the country, without reading the details you would have no clue. Either Portland looks eerily similar to Chicago, or vice versa. More likely, the developers got dangerously lazy when coming up with tracks. Every event looks like it takes place in the exact same abandoned parking lot, with each race taking place in the same general area. There is no scenery, and no variety. There is also no excitement or personality to the 'race day' events, thanks in large part to the laughably bad event DJ who alternates inanely proclaiming your greatness, as though your number one fan, and randomly having one-way conversations with people supposedly passing by. It makes for some of the worst in-game sound of all time, and actually makes the weak in-game soundtrack a welcome reprieve.
Unfortunately, the sights are not the only piece of the race days that never seem to change. Each features a handful of events, but even those never seem to change all that much, and have all been done before. The lone exception is the somewhat innovative 'Sector Showdown' race. Each course splits into four quadrants, and gamers have a set amount of points at the start of the race. As the race zips by, the point value steadily decreases. When you reach the next quadrant point, the racer with the most points left over 'wins' that quadrant, until someone passes with a better score. The race continues this way for a couple of laps, until one wins the race. The rest of the events are the stock series of time trials, drag racing, and group races.
