Need For Speed Pro Street

This is a completely new Need for Speed.

If you were expecting to dodge police cruisers and hide in underground garages, Grand Theft Auto IV is coming out sometime next year.

EA's newest racer redefines the franchise with ProStreet, a simulation street racer that creates a completely new genre of racing game. It's not arcade Burnout or even NFS Carbon. It's not simulation Forza or Gran Turismo. No, this is something else, and here's five reasons you need to play Need for Speed ProStreet.

1. This is real street racing

Guess what? Midnight drag races behind the local Costco are actually illegal, and police across the world have been cracking down on these dangerous underground races. What's a street racer to do? Go legit. Racecourses around the world now open their gates to street racers in between sanctioned NASCAR and F1 contests, and the result is a new brand of motorsport featuring race days that consist of drift contests, drag racing, traditional races and high-speed challenges.

ProStreet features 55 real-world cars, including old muscle cars from the Camaro SS to the brand new Camaro Concept. Some may not look like much, but ProStreet is all about performance under the hood. And unlike regulated sports like NASCAR, you can put whatever you want in your ride, from a Crower engine to a B&M drive train to a Cold Fusion nitrous system. The only rules you are forced to adhere to are the rules of physics. Go as fast as you want to.

2. Customization counts

Need for Speed: Carbon introduced a user-friendly customization feature called autosculpting. Using a set of simple sliders, you could change your body kit, hood and spoilers on the fly to look exactly the way you like. While nifty, autosculpting was purely cosmetic and didn't affect the performance of your vehicle. No longer.

Gear heads are going to eat up the new customization options in ProStreet. As you sculpt your car, you'll see exactly how your aerodynamics are affected with a sweet wind tunnel graphic. As you make your spoiler larger, for instance, you can see how your grip is increased with the added down force at the expense of your top speed. It doesn't end there. You can individually tune a staggering amount of real-life aftermarket racing parts, from gear ratios in your drive train to cam timing in your engine and compression ratios in your suspension. All of this affects performance, so the more industrious players out there can get the absolute most out their Honda Civics as well as their Corvettes. And after you've applied a custom paintjob and graphics just the way you want, your car becomes your friend. You own your car. You love your car.

3. Feel the consequences

And because you love your car, driving it head on into a brick wall is something of a bad idea. ProStreet features one of the most in-depth damage systems in driving games today. Every little scrape with an opponent or bump into a wall will further crumple your car's body. The damage is immediately visible and you'll quickly notice your performance suffer. And if you get a little too wild you're liable to flip your car and total it, ending your race day, and that costs money. Consequently, the best drivers in the game will pass opponents in relatively safe straights rather than during harrowing turns to avoid damage.

One more thing. Massive crashes, while rare, are spectacular. While redlining a Ford GT at 180 mph, our car took a turn too fast, flew off the track and flipped for probably a hundred yards. The hood flew off. The bumper flew off. Debris flew everywhere. Not even drunken NASCAR drivers could duplicate this kind of mayhem. The crashes are so fun that you'll find yourself jumping into exhibition speed challenges in a Lamborghini to see just how dangerous you can be.

4. Your friendships will improve

You read that right. While EA has been lambasted for shoddy online play in past years, 2007 has been a revolutionary year for a number of EA titles as it aims to redefine social gameplay. Sure, you can still jump into traditional races for a quick speed fix. But you now have the ability to create a custom race day in which you select a number of different events like the quarter-mile drag or a drift challenge in any one of 11 real location like Infinion Raceway or Germany's Autobahnring. You can then send your race day template to your friends and each of you competes for the high score.

Also, because ProStreet is geared toward car freaks, you'll be able to share your car's blueprints with friends and compete to see who can create the best performing Chevy Cobalt in the world. The player that originated the blueprint will even earn points from others that download and race with the tweaked-out Cobalt. In this Web 2.0 world, there's just a lot more to do now than simply race, and EA hit the nail on the head with ProStreet.

5. It's an open highway

Hey, all of this sounds complicated and likely to turn off fans of the old arcade style for which NFS was known. EA went out of its way to make this the most accessible racing sim on the market. On the track there are three levels of driving difficulty -- casual, racer and king -- and each has their own level of CPU assistance. You can also toggle on driving lines that indicate how fast and at what angle you should take difficult turns. In the garage, you can opt for quick upgrades like a level-three power package or handling package. While more expensive, these packages feature a number of high-level parts that will immediately improve performance. Rather than searching out individual suspension systems, simply purchase a package and move on. The end result is a very well rounded racer that should appeal to arcade fans and simulation racing junkies alike.