Review: Need for Speed NITRO

Platform: Nintendo Wii

Developer: EA Montreal

Publisher: Electronic Arts

# of Players 1-4

Rating: E 10+ (Everyone 10 +)

Official Site

Score: B+

While the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Need for Speed: Shift are tightly focused on bringing more realistic racing elements to the long-running franchise, Need for Speed NITRO has been custom built for the Wii as a pure arcade style experience that's a complete blast to play for the whole family. EA Montreal has done an excellent job here, bringing back the spirit of some of EA's fun arcade racers from the past such as Rumble Racing and Beetle Adventure Racing while adding bits of Burnout, San Francisco RUSH and some familiar NFS police chase action to the mix. There's also a fantastically deep and fun customization feature that lets players personalize and drive their rides using the Wii Remote, GameCube controller, WiiWheel or Classic Controller. Between the blazing fast 60 fps racing and the ability for players of any skill level to hop into the game and get racing, there's more than enough action here to keep you stuck to the sofa for hours at a time.

The game mixes in 30 licensed cars and tracks based on, in and around real world locations such as Rio de Janeiro, Singapore, Cairo Madrid and Dubai, although I'd guess you wouldn't really see real cars with tricked out paint jobs blasting around the streets and drifting in broad daylight in any of these places if you were standing on a random street corner for a few hours. Still, the game's focus is less the scenery than the racing action and what's here works extremely well. Career Mode sends you to the locations listed above as you attempt to rise through the ranks and become the top driver on the circuit. There's a class-based ranking system in play that starts you out with slower cars, but as you gain star rankings, you'll have access to better classes and the vehicles that come with them.

If you decide to play with friends or family, there's a nifty co-op mode where all earned stars from race wins go into a pool that whomever owns the console the game is played on can use to unlock new stuff. It's a good way to sell the game to a friend, especially if he or she drops by and gets hooked before finding out they've been racing all that time for your benefit. Of course, you might just get a kick in the leg for being lazy and letting them do all the work for you. I'd say just challenge them to some multiplayer Drag Racing or Eliminator matches to settle the score. Of course, if you're really skilled at the game, you'll probably spend a bit of time showing a new player how to drift through turns properly (this isn't quite a Ridge Racer clone at all) or how to nab repair icons before opponents can knock them out of a race.

Winning races also nets you new parts, additional challenges and yes, more cars to buy with your hard-earned race loot. And you can bet real money that you'll be spending a great deal of time playing with the customization feature just because it so much fun to use that Wii Remote to place and move patterns, change colors and even alter the car's body parts. This feature is simple enough for kids to use, but I can see the more artsy gamers out there cooking up some real handmade rolling masterpieces. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait until those gamers post YouTube videos of their car creations, as the game has no online modes or car trading functionality. It really doesn't need it, but with online gaming a must for other consoles, it's time for as many developers as possible working on the Wii to include some sort of online mode that's smooth and easy to hop into, Friend Codes or not.

Despite the definite arcade tone to the game, the racing isn't a total cakewalk at all. You'll find that making too many mistakes can really cost you thanks to the AI tendency to always be close enough to make you nervous. The game also uses a "damage" system that limits or even takes away your boost ability if you're constantly banging into stuff. This forces you to not only spend time learning the different tracks, it also keeps the game from devolving into merely slamming into other racers to knock them out of the way as a primary tactic. That's not to say that you won't ever have it happen to you or that you can't try it a few times yourself. Just don't expect any Burnout-style wrecks here. You'll more likely than not come to a dead stop or watch your car slam into something with a convincing enough crunch that makes you wan to avoid hitting stuff so much.

Unlike NFS: Shift, the police are here to chase you on some stages and in certain Multiplayer matches, players that are knocked out of a race can drop back in as cops to give you a bit of grief as they chase you down. This is one bit of coolness that would have been great as some sort of online mode with as many players as possible on the Wii. However, I'm not sure the sense of speed would be as solid over every connection. The split screen action here works just fine, so you can get a lot more social with people you want to compete against. Heck, it's easy to trash talk a few hundred miles apart, but a virtual poke in the ribs by a "misplaced" elbow can't be duplicated through a headset of the fastest ping on the planet, that's for sure.

Visually, the game is great, with solid-looking cars that zoom and skid around some really lovely tracks. In multiplayer races, that 60 fps drops to a still respectable 30 fps with tons of detail on screen. The cars have that sort of unusual stretched out look similar to the RUSH games or some of those PlayStation One and PS2 Test Drive games from a few years back, which works just fine for me. You'll see some nice spark effects and there's that cool mode where you're literally painting the town with your car's colors as long as you have the lead. Although the amount of cars is small compared to other racers out there, you'll see a nice variety of rides as you get on with the unlocking. Of course, as mentioned above, you can have the same car as another player, but you'll definitely trick it out a lot differently.

I wasn't too fond of the look of the rival drivers, but I guess the game's characters need "character." It might be nicer to either use Miis only, have some sort of character creator or even drop them entirely for the next installment, as not every Nintendo game needs "personalities" in order to sell. Of course, I can see EA discussing adding Mario and other characters to the sequel as hidden avatars, which would be a bit of fun for the die-hard Nintendo-ites out there. then again, they may end up storming Redmond with torches if they see Mario or Peach driving a Dodge Challenger or Porsche next year and I don't think that's the reaction either EA or Nintendo wants...

As for sound production, it's quite nicely done indeed. You'll get some nice and throaty engines and bangy crash sound effects along with a soundtrack filled with tunes you might or might not recognizes depending on your musical tastes. Yes, there's no custom soundtrack function on the Wii, so you're stuck listening to what's here. Get used to it - it's absolutely not the worst thing you'll hear pumping out of your TV's speakers, that's for sure. I'll need to bug EA for a copy of the DS game just to compare the two on the sound front. After hearing how well DIRT 2 did in the music department on the DS (in terms of sound quality more than music selection), it would be sweet indeed to hear a similarly well-produced aural assault on the portable version.

Although the game is a ton of fun, there are some elements that could have been added to make it even better. The aforementioned online mode and car trading feature or some sort of replay save would be cool ideas for a sequel, as would even more cars and tracks. With only five locations in the game, you'll see everything here in a good weekend or so of play. Nevertheless, the overall feel of the game is of a great arcade machine you can't stop playing, so you'll certainly not mind revisiting these tracks time and time again. More camera views would definitely be something to add, especially since games such as a few mentioned above make good use of multiple camera views. I'm not asking for a perfectly detailed inside the car viewpoint such as the ones found in NFS: Shift or some of Codemasters' racers, mind you. But, there's a fun "old" PS One racer called Mobil 1 Rally Championship that allows players to customize the view angle, camera height and other elements so players could see more of the track (or less if they chose to do so).

Overall, Need for Speed NITRO is a an excellent purchase for Wii owners, particularly those fans of arcade-style racers. Sure, some of the purists out there will complain that there hasn't been a licensed exclusive realistic racer on a Nintendo home console in years that nails the simulation aspects of driving they crave. But that doesn't mean developers can't put 110% into cooking up great, speedy racers that appeal to as wide an audience as possible, including some of the elitist out there who want to fiddle with camber settings or trick out their rides with the latest in custom parts and such. Just pick this one up, pick up your controller of choice and let your hair down before jumping in both feet first - you won't be disappointed at all.