Today I downloaded and played the highly anticipated (by me) game Need For Speed Pro Street (the pc version) and was very disappointed. It seems like EA wanted to move the NFS series more towards the Gran Turismo genre, but failed doing so.

Previous releases in the Need For Speed (NFS) series like underground 1 and 2, carbon and high stakes offered a nice arcade style racing game, very accessible gameplay and an overall good time. While this was just a single track, single modus (speed challenge) demo, the fact that it was released less then two weeks before the in-stores date makes me sad to see the game is still buggy (floating car's for example), not to mention the horrible control over the car.

While waiting for the countdown, your competitors speed off while you stand idle. After hitting the shift-up key, I notice the wheels start turning, causing a lot of smoke (burnout), but the car doesn't move an inch till the timer runs out (not to big of a deal, but this still could be handled better). The acceleration feels very unnatural and hitting the steering keys leave you doubting if you even hit the key. The first 30 seconds into the game, I wasn't even sure if I was controlling the car, or if it was some sort of rolling start where the computer has control. To top things off, if you manage to let your car jump over a slope, you'll probably crash and using the nitro causes you to lose all steering power.

To sum things up: from looking at the demo, I feel "we", the gamers, have lost one of the most enjoyable game series from Electronic Arts.

This is about all the space I want to waste on the subject, hoping that the other game modes are better in the full version.