It’s tempting to argue that arcade racers are a dying breed. Between Need for Speed: Shift, Forza Motorsport 3, and the upcoming Gran Turismo 5, realistic racers seem to be taking the spotlight. Ironically, after Need for Speed: Shift began the Need for Speed franchise’s apparent shift towards more realistic simulators, Need for Speed: Nitro has raced onto the scene presenting itself as a classic arcade racer. How does it hold up? Let’s take a look.
Developer: EA Montreal
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: Arcade racer
Console(s): Wii, DS
The verdict: Nitro is fun, fast, and chaotic for a few hours, but it can’t muster enough variation and creativity to be star.
While the more realistic, simulator-leaning Need for Speed: Shift has been released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Electronic Arts has served up a pure arcade racer for the Wii. Nitro definitely feels at home on the Wii: The races are fast, intense, and bring the “speed” part of the Need for Speed series. The lack of content makes the fun get repetitive quickly, but Nitro is still a well-done racer.
3…2…1…
Nitro definitely has a more casual and family friendly audience in mind, which is why it feels tailor made for the Wii. Pristine realism and crippling damage done by hitting other cars are elements that have no place in Nitro; instead, the game opts for a different (but still enjoyable) experience. In a nutshell, everything is deliberately exaggerated and overblown in an entertaining way. Cars are based off of real life models but look more like Hot Wheels toys than their real-life counterparts. Environments and scenery also have a much cartoonier look to them, and everything is augmented with bright, cheerful colors.
GO!
However, you won’t have time to admire the attractive environments because most of your time will be spent watching them whip by. Nitro delivers the speed part of Need for Speed very nicely, and with rewards for drifting and being more aggressive and reckless, roads will get pretty chaotic. The game essentially rewards you the crazier you act, but even that wasn’t enough for EA Montreal, since they added police cars into the mix that will chase you. All of this leads to a hilarious and thrilling experience that best represents what’s good about arcade racers. There are even in-game items to quickly repair your car or provide other bonuses.
Chief among gameplay modes is Career Mode, which takes place across Rio de Janeiro, Singapore, Madrid, Cairo, and Dubai. You progress by gaining stars related to various aspects of your race performance ala Shift, and despite the game’s laid back atmosphere some of the stars can be very challenging to earn, providing a fair amount of difficulty for racing veterans. Arcade mode is more direct, letting players choose their own race details. Both gameplay modes provide a lot of opportunities for the speed and road rage that make Nitro such an entertaining experience.
Not enough gas
The lack of description about gameplay modes provides a segway into the weakest part of Nitro: Lack of replay value. As fun as the races themselves are, the charm can get old very quickly because you’re essentially doing the same things repeatedly in order to score stars and points across a very limited spectrum of locations. There’s very little reason to keep playing after a few hours. You’ll know all the motions and will be able to progress through career mode without any real difficulty, and with a scant 30 cars (on the Wii version) there isn’t much to discover. There’s a somewhat robust customization system but even that is limited.
The game also carries baggage that feels almost customary for arcade racers, namely wonky physics that wind up being cumbersome even though exaggerated physics were the idea behind this title. There’s no real way to measure how a collision or a tight turn will impact your car, and it’s difficult to discern whether clipping the hood of the car behind you will throw you off momentarily or send you careening out of control. Differences between the various cars in terms of statistics seem very incremental; again, the physics seem to factor into this.
Closing thoughts
Need for Speed: Nitro starts off fast but the experience wears itself thin quickly. Is it bad? Not in the least; it just doesn’t maintain the momentum it starts out with. The cartoony aesthetics and sense of speed are superb and the Career and Arcade modes are fun to play for a while. Nitro never lets down, but it can’t quite achieve the level of success to recommend for every Wii user. Whether or not this is worth $50 really hinges upon your love of arcade racers. Give it a chance, but don’t expect to be wowed.
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