Need for Speed Nitro (Wii) Review

Posted by Mark Salmela on 01.19.2010

“You got the Need for Speed?” “Oh I’ve got some needs baby…”




Title: Need for Speed Nitro
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: EA Montreal
Genre: Racing
Players: 1 - 2
Rated: E 10+ for Everyone 10+


I must admit I’m very surprised with the changes EA has made to their Need for Speed franchise. I’ll be the first to admit that over the past few years I hated the Need for Speed games. I didn’t like either of the Underground games, Pro Street, Carbon, or Most Wanted. As far as I was concerned EA should have just killed off the franchise altogether. But rather than killing off the franchise EA has completely changed up the Need for Speed formula, and I love it.

Need for Speed Shift was a good racing simulator that laid the ground work for a franchise that could be really awesome after a couple more iterations. EA was smart in keeping Shift to the powerhouse consoles such as the PS3, 360, and PC as personally I wouldn’t want to play a racing simulator on the Wii for what should be obvious reasons. But rather than leaving the Nintendo consoles behind EA has decided to give them their own Need for Speed franchise, one that is drastically different than Shift. Need for Speed Nitro is a pure arcade racer. Realistic physics be damned, Nitro is all about the Need for Speed. You see what I did there? So how does Nitro hold up? Let’s find out.



Graphics


Screw your tires Firestone! That’s what you get for using child labor!


Need for Speed Nitro does a few things right in the graphics department, but it does have that ever-present problem of not being in high definition due to being on the Wii. I know it’s a cheap cop-out but Nitro would look that much better in HD. Anyways in the right category we have a silky smooth framerate. Nitro runs at 60 frames per second and I never noticed a drop in the framerate. No matter how convoluted things got on the screen Nitro held up beautifully, which is a big plus in my book.

As for the graphics themselves, Nitro sports a very stylized look. The colors are bright and vibrant. The city is alive with color and it’s always a nice change in this reviewer’s opinion compared to all of the grays and browns that plague most video games today. The colors start to blur and bleed as you whiz past buildings and pick up speed. The courses themselves are surprisingly busy, with large buildings, construction pieces, and lots of little touches that make the courses look they’re part of a real city. The graphics may not be in high definition, but EA took the time fill up the screen with interesting visuals.



Gameplay


Dammit now that green lizard is gonna jack my insurance rate through the roof.


Need for Speed Nitro is an arcade racer through and through. You have three different classes of cars, labeled A class, B class, and C class. The only thing you need to know about the classes is that every class except the A class sucks. I understand the idea of progression in racing games, and I feel it’s extremely important in simulation racing games, but it doesn’t add anything in Nitro. The B and C classes tout performance as their strong point, but in the end the only thing that makes them different from the A class is how slow they are. Once you play as the A class, the speed based class, you’ll never want to touch the other cars again.

Each car in Need for Speed Nitro has, get this… a nitrous meter. The nitrous meter fills on its own and it fills very quickly, so be prepared to use the nitrous boost often. You can double tap the nitrous button to double on the amount of nitrous and give you double the boost. The sense of speed you get using nitrous is great. It’s a lot of fun and when you’re using the best cars it doesn’t get old. In most games you have to monitor how much boost you use since you don’t get it very often, but in Need for Speed Nitro you get it so often it’s not that big of a concern. Obviously you don’t want to use it the second you get it, especially if you’re heading towards a turn, but by no means is monitoring your nitrous meter a big concern. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing.

Need for Speed Nitro places a big focus on drifting. You’ll be drifting around every possible corner if you want to win, and just as it should be in an arcade racer, drifting is totally unrealistic. You can drift for miles and miles, and you’ll rarely if never lose any momentum or speed from drifting. You initiate drifting by taping the brake button and turning to either side. Getting into drifts is easy but getting out of them can feel a little awkward. Sometimes you’ll get out of drifts too soon, sometimes you’ll be in them too long, and sometimes you’ll get out of them right in front of a hazard and have no time to drive out of the way. The drifting is fun and is a needed asset to Nitro, but it needs some fine tuning.

One thing that impresses about Need for Speed Nitro is how many different control schemes there are. You can play virtually any way you want. You can play with the Wiimote sideways like Mario Kart with the racing wheel, you can play with the Wii Remote facing the screen forward like a remote control, you can play with the Wii Remote and a nun chuck, you can play with the classic controller, and you can play with the Gamecube controller. As impressive as this list is however there are some problems with these control schemes. The first is that there is no way to map the buttons on the controllers. For example if you use the Gamecube controller you have to use the triggers for accelerating and braking. There’s no way to map accelerating and braking to the face buttons. Normally I like having the trigger buttons accelerate and brake but I have a personal disdain for the Gamecube controller’s triggers.

Another control scheme I have a problem with is the Wii Remote by itself facing the screen like a remote control. You move by tilting the controller side to side but it’s by no means accurate. Because it’s so inaccurate you have to turn on auto-assist where the game basically takes over on driving and you have little control over your car. All you really have to worry about is the timing for turning on the nitrous and when to start drifting.



Sound


I’m trippin’ on acid!


Just like in Need for Speed Shift Need for Speed Nitro took the time to capture different engine sounds and make them sound fierce. It’s a nice change of pace from games like Motorstorm where every engine sounds the same and quite frankly just sounds annoying. The music itself is your typical EA soundtrack. All sorts of rock and crappy boy bands trying to play rock. In all honesty there’s nothing offensive with the music. Everyone will pick out their own personal favorite tracks. The only in-game voices come from your rivals in the career mode, who are all over-the-top stereotypes. If the game was serious it would be a joke but since Nitro is already over-the-top and stylistic these crazy characters actually work out just fine.



Lasting Appeal


Don’t mess with the funk.


Need for Speed Nitro has a surprisingly deep customization system for the cars. What really stands out from the pack is the ability to customize the look of your car. You can use the Wii Remote as a paintbrush and paint all sorts of visuals on the cars. It’s one of the extremely rare cases in which motion control works in a racing game. The customization in Nitro is nowhere near as in-depth as Forza 3, but it’s by far the deepest customization in any Wii racing game, not to mention it’s much more in-depth than I expected.

Need for Speed Nitro supports multiplayer for only two people. It also doesn’t have any online connectivity what-so-ever. This is very surprising as EA has made a huge effort in getting all of their sports and racing games online. Madden was one of the first games to go online for the Wii. It’s very disappointing to see a lack of online multiplayer in Need for Speed Nitro. It’s also pretty disappointing to see a lack of 4 player support for the multiplayer. Arcade racing games are tremendously fun in multiplayer, and it’ll be a damn shame if this problem isn’t fixed in the next iteration.


Fun Factor


That car is totally going to start on fire and explode. That guy is screwed.


Need for Speed Nitro is a lot of fun if you like arcade racers. If you have a Wii or are looking for an arcade racing game on the Wii it’s possibly the best arcade racer on the system. Well besides Mario Kart of course. But I tend to think of kart racers and arcade racers as two different categories. Anyways the problem lies in that if you have an Xbox 360 or a PS3 there are better arcade racers. Burnout Paradise provides a better sense of speed and Dirt 2 has much better driving mechanics for an arcade racer. Plus if you have a PS3 the Motorstorm games are even better yet in both categories. If you have a Wii Need for Speed Nitro is very fun. The Nitrous system is great and you get a great sense of speed when you use it. One thing that does hurt the fun factor of this game is the lack of online multiplayer and in general multiplayer for more than two people. Racing games are more fun with actual people and unfortunately you can’t play with more than one other person, and you can only play with them locally.



The 411


That skull is menacing even in 8-bit form.


Need for Speed Nitro is a fun arcade racer for the Wii. While there are only a handful of maps, each map is well designed with shortcuts and lots of little touches that make the course feel alive. The standard racing types are also present, with basic races, elimination style races, and races that focus strictly on drifting. The customization level is surprisingly deep, and you’ll probably spend a good amount of time tinkering with the painting to create your dream car. The drifting however feels awkward, and there’s only one camera angle. If you like first person mode or the cockpit view from Shift then you’re simply out of luck. There is also no online multiplayer, and only two people can play locally. If you have a PS3 or 360 there are better arcade racers out there, but if you only have a Wii or are dying for a good racing game on the Wii, Need for Speed Nitro is one of the best on the system.

Graphics	7.5	The sense of speed is great, and the game is colorful.
Gameplay	7.0	The basic mechanics are there. But the drifting needs some fine tuning.
Sound	7.0	The over-the-top stereotypes actually work here. The engines also sound good.
Lasting Appeal	6.0	The lack of online multiplayer and the lack of 4 player multiplayer in general hurts, a lot.
Fun Factor	7.0	If you want a good arcade racer for the Wii, Nitro is one of the best.
Overall	7.3   [ Good ]