There’s something cheeky about Need For Speed ProStreet and the fact that EA has essentially scaled it all back, dropping those open-city environments of old in favour of appearing like it’s putting the emphasis back on the racing. In doing so, that’s certainly the case. But truth be told, we miss the open cities already – and both EA and its Need For Speed franchise is doing itself no favours in going back to basics, especially when Rockstar Games’ Midnight Club: Los Angeles is sitting just around the corner working wonders for big city environments. In order for Need For Speed to remain relevant, it’s not enough for EA to just focus on races over free roaming; the races themselves need to be great. Thankfully, ProStreet has that much going for it.

Don’t think for one second that all EA has focused on is returning to a pre- Underground-style game, however. Far from it. There are genuine changes made to the established dogma, developer Black Box opting to take ProStreet in a new, more simulated direction. While it isn’t quite Gran Turismo, there is a conscious effort to make ProStreet feel just that little bit more realistic. So, the first thing you will notice is the complete lack of some sexy honey bunny adorning the cover, or telling you, pre-main menu, that what you see in the game should in no way be repeated outside on the roads. There are real-life honey bunnies in the game, however, if you care for that kind of pap, so don’t fret. There’s proper damage included in the title now, too – the first time since Need For Speed – Porsche Unleashed.

And the damage is worth avoiding – first of all because it costs you money to fix, and also because it carries over into other races if left untreated. You pick up certain markers every now and then, which can be used to fix your vehicle so you don’t have to waste cash, but the general idea is that cars now suffer for your indiscretions. More than that, a particularly nasty crash could see you completely total your car – ruining the engine and taking you right out of the race.

For anyone who cares about going under the bonnet there’s a surprisingly in-depth amount of performance-tuning options. However, like Forza 2 on the 360 it’s there only if you’re the kind of person who wants to spend hours kitting out and modding your vehicles. For those who care little about such things, you can buy pre-made blueprints that – thankfully – save you all the trouble of testing the aero of your car in wind tunnels, or spending hours designing the perfect ‘69’ for the front and rear (oo-er). Performance tuning is far from new to racing games, but it makes a dramatic impact on ProStreet – illustrating the fact that, yes, while the game has been scaled back, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s been scaled down. In fact, it makes ProStreet the most in-depth Need For Speed in years.

As realistic as the gameplay sounds, it’s a bizarre juxtaposition next to the environments themselves. EA has taken Need For Speed and made it look more like an SSX game instead of its highly stylised predecessors. And speaking of its predecessors, gone is the illegal streetracing aspect. Now, environments consist of closed-off circuits that are themed throughout. Giant teddy-bear balloons and dragons float in the sky, while tons of people stand whooping and hollering in the stadiums. You’ll pass bizarre structure after bizarre structure, feeling like you’ve just rammed straight through a crash barrier and landed in SSX Tricky. But that’s the point of ProStreet, it’s a racing game through the eyes of partygoers. It feels a lot like THQ’s Juiced 2 but with a bigger budget, more polish and far less neon.

So far, so lovely. However, developer Black Box makes a serious error in the way the structure of the game is designed. In short: it’s pretty confusing stuff. It doesn’t help that the art style used is cryptic at best. SSX On Tour had a similar art-based navigation system that was much easier to follow, despite the art itself being much more ludicrous. The game is chock-full of really annoying and not-at-all-cool slang, nahmsayin? Worse than these things, however, is the fact you just won’t be enjoying yourself for a good hour or more when you start playing. Need For Speed games, certainly the last few, have followed a Metroid-like structure of giving you a taste of super-powered vehicles before taking them away at the start of the game and making you start small.

ProStreet doesn’t have that much: you just start with a banger and build it up from there. It’s only when you start ramming more power and speed into it that you’ll really begin to enjoy the game. And it’s then, racing at speeds close to 200 mph that you’ll realise that, just like Medal Of Honor: Airborne, Need For Speed ProStreet is yet another significant leap forward for EA.

Craig Gilmmore