...Got no Strings Attached

Over the last few days I've been playing Lego Star Wars II on the DS and Need For Speed ProStreet on PS3.

In my 30th May entry I promised more on NFS ProStreet and hear it is.  Sorry if I've repeated anything.  I wrote this entry completely forgetting that I'd written about the game before.

ProStreet is a pretty sound racing game from 2007 which, though it wears the guise of a Need For Speed bad boy street racer type game is actually a pretty well put together racing sim.

In the career stage of the game you take part in a series of meetings each of which features about 5 or 6 races of various kinds including Time Attack, Grip (normal races) Drag and Drifting.  Once you have done respectably well in all the races you will have enough points to have won the meeting.  You can elect to carry on until you have dominated the meeting, which will usually involve going back and repeating the races until you have won almost all of them.  You get a reward for winning the meeting and another for dominating.  These can be cash, markers to get your car fixed for free or car upgrades like tyres, engines, nitrous etc.

Once you have done well enough in enough meetings at one stage you unlock a showdown (which is very like a normal meeting) and if you can win that you get through to the next level.

My particular downfall is the race type called Sector Shootout.  The track is divided into about 4 sectors and your time is measured over each sector and compared to that of your rivals.  If you beat the best time yet for that sector (including your own best) then you score points.  You do about 3 laps and everyone's points are totalled at the end.

I am always rushing so much to cover the next few hundred yards that I never take enough account of the corners and bump the side-walls constantly - which is fatal in this race type.  I do especially badly if there is a tight turn just after a timing point as I'll be hurtling towards it, hoping to post a good time, and will be in the gravel trap and mess up my chances for the sector right at the start of it.

The tacked-on theme of this game (which is that some racer-dude thinks he's the baddest and you have to beat all his mates then him) is so underplayed that it does not matter that it's pointless and rubbish; it does not spoil an otherwise excellent game which is full of challenge and will keep me occupied for a good while yet.

I'll write about Lego Star Wars II very soon.