NFS ProStreet demo on Live

By Robert Purchese Published 23 October, 2007

Tweak your engine parts.

EA has eased a Need For Speed ProStreet demo onto the Live Marketplace starting grid.

It is light and speedy at 655MB and - good grief the girl on the website is rather attractive - should let you in on what is new in the illegal street racing scene this year.

We can help you a bit there, too, hopefully. The biggest new feature is the ability to actually modify how your car performs, not just scribble rubbish patterns on the outside. EA wants you to spend ages tinkering with your creations so you can head online and show them off, you see.

Your speedsters will also pick up lasting damage that will further help personalise your ride, as you wear dents and scratches like battle scars.

There has been lots of tidying up and work done across the board as well, like lots of fresh game modes, better visuals, new courses, more cars to pick from and better overall performance.

Need For Speed ProStreet will be released for PS3, 360, PC, PS2 and DS on 23rd November. A Wii version will follow on 30th November, and a PSP offering should join it some time next month.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (33) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • tinners #1 4 years ago

    its a good day for demos \o/

    now all we need is SWOS to be released, *sniggers*

  • jaxon58 #2 4 years ago

    Utter shite.

  • optimusprym8 #3 4 years ago

    oh goody another Chav-racer from EA, big whoop

    yeah where's SWOS?

  • sharpfish #4 4 years ago

    It's times like this i'm glad my 360 is flashing red lights of death at me.


    I'm sure it's a 'nice' racing game, but the use of the term 'ProStreet' makes it immediately irritating.

    Shame it will be Xmas number one.

  • Caimbeul #5 4 years ago

    just tried it - utter pants

  • SBfistfun #6 4 years ago

    people who use the word 'ride' = cunts

  • UncleLou #7 4 years ago

    Most Wanted was good, lots of older NfS games were good. Are people quite sure they're not letting knee-jerk anti-EA reactions getting in the way? Most previews have been extremely positive, especially when it comes to the handling and damage model - so what exactly makes it "utter shite"?

    I am not saying it isn't, I just wish people would elaborate a little more, so I can decide who's just on the bandwagon and who tried it properly.
    Edited by 1 at 23/10/07 @ 16:13

  • tinners #8 4 years ago

    indeed its like when people were slagging off FIFA before playing it.

    im all for coroporate EA bashing but im also interested in great games and in terms of EA this year you cant exactly say they have been "shit"

    well you can but at least give a reason :p, skate for me kills tony's hawk!

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #9 4 years ago

    Carbon (the demo) was awful, as were both Undergrounds.

    This looks like it's more of the same nighttime Fast and the Furious nonsense.

  • UncleLou #10 4 years ago

    This looks like it's more of the same nighttime Fast and the Furious nonsense.

    Is that a joke post?

  • themerlin13 #11 4 years ago

    Good they have got rid of the crappy "night racing on wet roads v56"

  • sharpfish #12 4 years ago

    My rant was nothing to do with it being EA and everything to do with it being yet more of the same in the NFS series since it went 'tuner'. I like Jap cars myself, but I'd rather have them without this Fast And Furious vibe... I loved the NFS series esp Porsche Unleashed (and I don't even like Porsches but that game rocked for the time) after that they all kinda went downhill in the driving/racing and started including all this 'racing for pinkslips' bs, the most annoying part for me is the brain dead bimbos that preface every single one of these games then haunt you throughout, fictitious women do not impress me! (well except maybe lara Craft back in the First TR game and Alyx Vance)

  • LOLLERS #13 4 years ago

    indeed its like when people were slagging off FIFA before playing it.

    im all for coroporate EA bashing but im also interested in great games and in terms of EA this year you cant exactly say they have been "shit"


    No, It is shit. Grip Race? What you mean A RACE. DIE.

    Skate is good though.

  • jaxon58 #14 4 years ago

    Ok. The driving felt 'wrong' somehow. It felt like I was driving a large brick. The car seemed like it was constantly shaking, which also affected the camera. This could be a bug. There was absolutely no excitement in the races at all. My personal opinion = utter shite.

  • Daymare #15 4 years ago

    I wish NFS series would return to its roots. I miss a great selection of roads like NFS IV: High Stakes had, one coastal, one in the snow, desert one and so on and so on. What happened to that!?
    Edited by 1 at 23/10/07 @ 17:26

  • tinners #16 4 years ago

    indeed its like when people were slagging off FIFA before playing it.

    im all for coroporate EA bashing but im also interested in great games and in terms of EA this year you cant exactly say they have been "shit"


    No, It is shit. Grip Race? What you mean A RACE. DIE.

    Skate is good though.

    So is FIFA ;) and i thought id never say that *washes self* :/

  • Poorandugly #17 4 years ago

    KILLA +1

    That's the NFS I used to know and love. This underground crap has got to stop... even the chavs can't be persuaded by this street vibe thingy majing anymore, can they? It's been going on for far too long.

  • Bumhug360 #18 4 years ago

    "That's the NFS I used to know and love. This underground crap has got to stop... even the chavs can't be persuaded by this street vibe thingy majing anymore, can they? It's been going on for far too long. "

    Play the demo, it is nothing like underground

    The game is now legal road racing, no cops no other traffic
    There is now damage in the game you cant just ram everthing or its game over
    There doesnt look to be any cliché ridden story that is so predictable that you know exactly what is going to happen once you have seen the intro

    Its a complete break of style from the underground series which peaked at most wanted and nose dived spectaculary into the ground. The graphics are as amazing as the screenshots looked, its not dark its nice and bright and open road rather than a city.

    Bad points though, the car drives shit and the other drivers slow down and wait for you if you slow down. I managed to roll the car which normaly trashes it and causes a long slow motion shot of your car coming to a standstill. So my car is rolling and the slowmo is in full effect I go pee, then make a sandwich (yes i did wash my hands) then come back about 5 mins later, for some reason this time I hadnt trashed the car and it was still sitting there engine running, so I finished the race over taking two cars in the process. So no doubt they will have that annoying catch up ability where you ram them off the road and gain a 30 second advantage only to see the car catch you up half a lap later.

    And NFS being chav racers, sorry but never seen one Corsa, Micra, or Escort in a nfs game. The cars are far too classy for chavs to be interested in them ;)
    Edited by 1 at 23/10/07 @ 19:17

  • Nitrous #19 4 years ago

    NFS MW was probably the best game in the series. Downloaded the demo of this one earlier and I was disappointed. It just didn't feel right and I didn't enjoy it. I'll wait for reviews but I can't see myself picking this game up.

  • foamy #20 4 years ago

    Maybe it's from my VGA cable or something, but doesn't this has lots of AA and jaggies' issues?

    In terms of gameplay, it's better than MW and Carbon, imo. BMW M3 is pure love. Enjoyed both scenarios. It had some nice details to it. And hello to damage model!

  • chronom4n #21 4 years ago

    IMO, this franchise is just good for when you have had enough of the more serious racing sims. Just play the game on its merits and leave it at that. Me, personally i find that NFS MW on xbox1 did my head in after a while. just could not take the constant cop chases and the sensation of speed was lacking. The only redeeming feature of the game were the sound effects. they were quite good but generally this sort of game is just good for when you need to take a rest from the other games. maybe my experience is down to the xbox generation because i just remembered having played this on NFS MW on 360 the visuals were much better but after a while you just end up saying to yourself, "there, i have lost 5 mins of my ife which i ain't never gonna get back!"

  • KreyAtiv #22 4 years ago

    Well I download the demo and had a go of the Speed race. As someone already mentioned the handling seemed a bit off. Just didn't seem to be much reaction and not the sort of thing you want when you are tipping the 200mph mark. Seemed more floaty than anything else so I hope they sort that out. Tried the "Grip" race and noticed they have the same "best line" arrows as Forza does. Still the handling wasn't too good with that event either.
    Not overly impressed with it, the crashes looked okay, but seen better in a Smokey and the Bandit film. Sure the car flips and tumbles (especially if you NOS it up towards the first hill) but didn't have the level of damage I thought it would.

  • Shonuff #23 4 years ago

    Downloaded it and enjoyed it. It's got great damage modeling and I like the fact that you can't try to pull off a sloppy pass and not pay any consequences for it. In the desert challenge, I ended up totalled the first three races due to my sloppy passing attempts; by the fourth race I had gotten in synch and was racing well. Reminded me a bit of rally cross challenge 2, where a bad pass would end you flipping down a mountain. Same principle here.

    Sense of speed is also very nice, hitting the nitro boost has you hanging onto the controller for dear life for a second or two to make sure you have a straight line and don't suffer for attempting the boost.

    I'm not sure if I'll pick it up immediately, but its definitely nowhere near the disaster that some people are making it out to be.

  • Miths #24 4 years ago

    Since I really can't stand another round of tuner cars and hilarious but annoying morons with attitudes (looks like all that might still be present here, even if it's been removed from the dark city streets - I'll probably give the demo a shot though, just to be fair), I'm really most interested in this particular sentence "good grief the girl on the website is rather attractive" :).

    Where the hell is she? I'm just getting a video on the UK site and some animated Flash interface thingie on the US site.

    Don't tease us like that :p.

  • Darren #25 4 years ago

    The game looks amazing - it's quite possibly the most photo-realistic racing game I've seen to date - and it plays well enough (although it lacks a sense of speed unless you use your limited nitro), I'm just a bit unconvinced at the moment as the two demo tracks were a bit... ummm... dull if you ask me.

    And NO replays... AGAIN!!! Can't Black Box program replays or something. If ever there was a game that demanded replays it's Need For Speed otherwise modding the cars becomes almost pointless when you rarely get to see it. Why don't the NFS games have replays, something which every other decent racing game manages to include?

  • arjan #26 4 years ago

    The demo is a bit crap.

    As mentioned before, the handling seems kinda floaty. Graphics aren't anything special, though the smoke effects are quite nice. The exterior views are crap, in the beginning the cam's ok but when you go fast, like you're supposed to, its getting all weird and you can't see shit.

    Also had a car infront of me total while driving on the middle of a straight road, giving me no chance to avoid him and totalling myself :( And I had another car totalling for no reason at all again when it was overtaking me :/

    All in all its rubbish :(

  • asphaltcowboy #27 4 years ago

    Not sure I liked the demo, the handling wasn't great and if you don't select whatever the top racing skill is (casual, racer... king?) then it auto-assists in braking and/or handling, which felt weird, in 'Racer' mode you can just keep your finger on the accelerator and there's no need to break. Not sure. Still doesn't surpass Most Wanted, from what I've played...

  • BadBoyBonner #28 4 years ago

    NFS:MOst wanted got better the more time you put into it as initially it was a bit meh.

    For me 3DO Need For Speed is still the best version of it's time.

  • septimus #29 4 years ago

    Well that sucked, and the graphics are ass.

  • jlaakso #30 4 years ago

    NFS series since Underground has been something of a guilty pleasure for me. They're more laid-back than the PGRs and GTs and Forzas of today, something to kill time with without really getting into it. Looking forward to this one, I think many of the things they're doing are interesting.

    The handling is something of a problem though. It's always been weird (like said, floaty) to my taste and it's only playable from the bumper cam. Which I would probably use anyway, but NFS is the one series where a chase cam might be nice.

    I hope the frame rate's in order though. The first UG looked ace on the Xbox, but there's a certain level of FPS you shouldn't go below.

  • tinners #31 4 years ago

    Meh agree, at least people say why its nothing speical, not just cos its made by EA.

    Not sure the GFX are as great as i was expecting after seeing the movies before hand, actual ground textures look pretty basic and i dont see where all the effort went apart from the usual style of well presented menus etc etc, the speed is good but thanks to the screen warping and motion blur its not really doing anything new in any department.

    Also the grip races are just normal races with forza's brake line enabled. After loving Skate and FIFA i had high hopes for this but its a bit of a step back imo. maybe the finished article will tell the tale but new race modes won't stop me from playing PGR and FORZA atm.
    Edited by 1 at 24/10/07 @ 11:37

  • mkreku #32 4 years ago

    Need For Speed has gone downhill since Need For Speed: Porsche Unleashed (which was awesome). People who are saying Most Wanted is the best in the series can't possible have played the early ones, can they?

  • cr0wley #33 4 years ago

    Personally, I hate the new demo - it's too sim and not enough arcade fun for me. I started playing NfS with Underground and feel Most Wanted is the best single-player, Carbon is the best multi imho. Still, that's 30 quid I haven't wasted, thank goodness for demos.