The game offers bonus points for 'dominating' each race day, but exactly what you have to do to reach 'dominant' status is questionable. Each race day has a certain point threshold for beating it, and another for dominating it. It is possible, and even likely, that you can win all the events in a day and not reach dominance. If you win every race against all other racers, how is that not 'dominating'? Instead, it only leads to even more repetition; as you will have to win 'better' in events you have already won to increase your race day score to the point of 'dominance'. If you are the kind of gamer who likes to re-race events you have already won, ProStreet might be right up your alley.
The game drones on like this from one race day to the next, only pausing as often as you would like to upgrade your car. You end up racing your slowly upgrading cars against other slowly upgrading cars in the same events until you beat the game or quit out of boredom. Most will fall into the second category. Part of the fun with driving games is watching the scenery zip by. Sadly, you will have seen all the bland brown, dusty backdrop you can handle by the end of the first race day.
With all that said, Need For Speed does still allow you to proactively maintain and build-up your car, and still handles decent enough. Unfortunately, with how mind-numbingly repetitive the game is, you are unlikely to stick around to see more than a few of the massive amount of cars available. The game boasts real-life cars and parts, but the actual performance of each feels a little less realistic, or enjoyable, than games like Forza 2. The controls are not broken, but something just does not feel right heading around sharp turns when applying the brakes and having your car grind to a halt. It is tolerable, but cars do feel most awkward around the tricky hairpin turns, where there just never seems to be a happy medium between gas and brake to breeze through.
Perhaps the lone item ProStreet gets right is its integration with Live. Upon booting the game and hitting start to get past the title screen, you log in to the game's servers automatically. You can quickly and easily jump into different race day events with other gamers over Live, and just as quickly create your own. The game also makes it easy to share your 'blueprint' for car upgrades and race day events with your friends. Sadly, the actual play online suffers from lag and dodgy hit detection issues. Tom Cruise's mantra, "Rubbin's racing" does not apply here, as bumping a car with your own frequently causes some funky car twitch where it just jumps to the right or left at random. There might be more cars to race with online, but between the repetitiveness and clunky play, you are not likely to care.
Need For Speed: ProStreet feels like Forza 2's mindless clone, a la Doug #4 in Multiplicity. It is a bland, lifeless game requires a massive amount of tedium to get through. The Need For Speed series is running on one good tire and three flats at this point. Looks like its time to put it out of its misery and trade it in for a game you would be proud and happy to play.
