What, I must ask myself, do I expect in an NFS game? In the time following Most Wanted, my standards have risen considerably—I want the adrenaline rush of driving really, really fast, the safety of just-realistic-enough physics, and the sadistic joy of watching police cars crash. What I don’t expect, however, is to be confounded.

NFS: ProStreet is easily the most befuddling title of the lot—it leaves the territory of arcade racing to become a racing simulator, but not quite. I may have driven a Volkswagen Golf for only an hour in my life, but it didn’t feel like the truck I’m made to drive in this game. Strike one.

ProStreet also goes back to good old track-based racing—while this would be good if the tracks were as wicked and wonderful as the older games in the series, they’re really drab, and if you fell asleep driving them in the lower-end cars, we’d forgive you. There isn’t even much to gawk at outside the tracks—all races take place in the middle of nowhere. Car damage is back too, so you’ll have to drive (yuck) carefully. Strike two.

On the plus side, the game looks brilliant—especially the cars—and the presentation is very stylish. The short races ensure that the five-minute breaks you take from work actually last five minutes, and if you turn on all the driver assists, you can get back some of that old NFS feel. Car customisation is fun too, and this time, even physical changes can affect your race aerodynamics, and hence performance.

Rating : 5/10 (7/10 if you’re new to the series)
Developer: EA Black Box
Publisher: Electronic Arts Distributor: Excel Interactive
Contact: customercare@excelinteractive.co.in

Alone, ProStreet is a decent game—perhaps a seven or eight on ten, hence no strike three—but when you look at what’s come out of EA’s garage before, you’ll be left cold, if not actually ticked off.