Game Review: Need For Speed: Nitro

McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

Need For Speed Nitro

For: Nintendo Wii

From: EA Montreal

ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (mild lyrics, mild violence)

At first blush, it's easy to mistake "Need for Speed Nitro" - which takes a proper "Need for Speed" game, strips it of its simulative leanings and whittles it down to a streamlined racer with a very heavy arcade bent - as something of a raw deal.

But "Nitro's" arcadey disposition isn't just a case of subtracting and oversimplifying for a more casual audience. Rather, because it isn't constrained by the same parameters, "Nitro" does things a traditional "NFS" game cannot. Depending on how you choose to play and how extensively you wish to succeed, it also poses a more satisfying challenge than its more well-rounded cousins.

Speed rules everything in "Nitro," which gets its name from the two tanks of nitrous oxide equipped on all 30 of its licensed vehicles. Driving with style replenishes your nitrous bars, and from there you can activate one for a significant speed boost or both for something not of this world.

"Nitro's" low camera placement and overall visual presentation convey a nice sensation of speed all by themselves, and the brake button exists more as a means to drift around corners at high speeds than as a tool for cautious driving. Master the drift, enable a double nitrous boost and weave between cop cars bent on shutting your race down, and the action moves at an exhilarating clip more straight-faced racing games can't feasibly deliver.

The arcadey approach, thankfully, doesn't translate into a powderpuff challenge. "Nitro" offers steering assistance for those who want it, and the control schemes that only require the Wii remote are forgiving enough for "Mario Kart" graduates. For more experienced players, though, the traditional schemes and assist-free physics complement a surprisingly ruthless A.I. to make "Nitro" a legitimately (but never unfairly) challenging game. Completely cleaning up in the career mode - winning events, beating par lap times and accruing style points across a variety of event styles - is tougher here than in a traditional "NFS" game.

Similar design decisions course through the entirety of "Nitro," which counters most of what it lacks with something of its own that traditional "NFS" either couldn't do or couldn't get away with. The stylized, spirited graphical presentation - which uses graffiti art in a brilliant way that's best unspoiled - nullifies the Wii's technical shortcomings to a startling degree. Similarly, while you can't tune cars to nearly the same extent that you can in other "NFS" games, you can paint them however you please using the Wii remote as a freeform paintbrush, which arguably is better as far as personalization is concerned.

The only gap "Nitro" can't close, though, is a big one. The game's local multiplayer support - four players and drop-in/drop-out capabilities even in the career mode - is terrific, but its online component is nonexistent. Painting cars would be that much more satisfying if you could show them off online, and that's to say nothing of the extra longevity online competitions and record-keeping would provide.

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