Racing games aren’t exactly my forte, but every once in awhile I’ll pick up certain ones that I really enjoy. Since I’d only owned a couple of the older Need for Speed games and very briefly played Most Wanted, I wasn’t completely sure what to expect out of this one.
From what I’ve played and seen of some of the newer Need for Speed games, they’ve been growing more realistic while still keeping an arcade style. With Nitro, however, it goes with more of a cartoon-like style with the characters and isn’t as realistic as some recently. They definitely seemed to try and attract more of the family with this one. That’s not to say that it’s totally unrealistic, but for example you have pickups you can grab on the track such as a wrench to repair your car or a badge so you can take the heat from the cops off of yourself and target it toward one of your rival racers. Having the cops sometimes drive vehicles like Hummers isn’t exactly something you’d see in real life, either. Basically just the overall feel of the game is a different take than the others.
As for the main gameplay, you have the basic arcade mode where you can jump straight into a race, or you can take on the career mode. Either mode can be played with up to four players which can definitely add to the fun. The only real difference with multiplayer that’s worth mentioning is that in eliminator mode, if one players goes out then he will get to take control of a police car and get to chase down and try to slow down the other racers which is pretty fun. With career mode there are a few different types of events that you will get to choose, from a normal circuit race to drag races, and of course time attack. At the end of each cup there is a grand prix that awaits you as well. Each of these events will have challenges in which you can earn stars, which allow you to progress further into your career. These events are quite easy early on in the bronze cup, but once you make your way into the gold cup things get a good bit more difficult. Cops go from being an annoyance at times to turning into kamikaze cops. Even then, just beating the game is not all that difficult. Going through and collecting all of the stars and unlocking all of the special cars will definitely provide more of a challenge and give you something to go back for, though veteran NFS players will probably not have all that much trouble doing so.
The controls in the game are pretty solid, and you have a wide range of choices in how you go about playing the game. You can go with the full motion control, holding the Wiimote horizontally and either using the wheel peripheral or holding the remote itself. The controls might take a bit of getting used to, but once you get the hang of them they are able to do the job fine. You can also hook up a nunchuk and steer with that while still keeping some of the motion control with the remote. Then, for a final option with the remote, you can hold it in your hand while pointing it straight at the TV. You steer by twisting your wrist one way of the other, which if found to be very uncomfortable and awkward for something like racing. The car didn’t seem to turn near as much as it should have, and it just all around seemed like a bad control scheme. Finally, if you’re more of a traditional gamer and prefer a controller, you can hook up either a Game Cube or Classic Controller. I wasn’t able to test of the classic, but the Game Cube controls ended up being personal choice. I still would use the motion controls at times, but being more accustomed to a traditional controller for racing games I found it easier to stick with it for when I had to get really serious.
Like I mentioned before, Nitro went for a less realistic feel, and the graphics go along with that. The rival racers that you will face are very much cartoon-like, and even the cars are a little less realistic than I know they could have done. Still, that is only the style. The graphics are still done quite well and the frame rate stays smooth for the most part. That other part would be later on in the game in the elimination events. The cops come after the pack from the beginning of the race with up to five of them at once. Having all of them hold up the rest of the pack that early in the race results in having about thirteen cars on the screen at once, not counting the traffic. The game has real car models, so that’s a definite plus. They didn’t have Mustangs which was disappointing to me, but they still have a number of sweet looking rides. You can also go into the shop and paint them up with several of options and change around certain parts of the car. The amount of colors you have to work with when designing your car was a bit of a letdown. You’d think it would think today it would be simple to include the option to create your own colors, but instead you’re limited to what they give you.
The soundtrack for the game is probably about what you would expect if you’ve played other EA racing games. The list is pretty much divided up into two, with one part being rap and the other some rock. With the whole graffiti thing they have going on in the game with tagging the city with the leader’s color, it’s not really surprising that rap music has a slight edge in numbers over the rock. After giving it all a fair chance I ended up turning off all of the rap thanks to the ability to select which tracks will play. However, that’s simply my own tastes in music and no real strike against the game. Not much can be said for any sound effects. Again, they’re what you would expect from a racing game. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Having a Need for Speed game built specially for the Wii is pretty cool. The gameplay is solid, the controls, the graphics…. For the most part everything is done pretty well, with only a few problems here and there. The thing is, aside from the motion controls, there’s really nothing that sets it apart and makes it different. There’s the graffiti and tagging the town, but for the most part that’s athsetic, not adding a lot to the actual gameplay. The game is definitely enjoyable and if you want a racing game for the Wii then this would be a nice buy, but it honestly felt like just another racing game. Good, but nothing too special.
