A pleasuring experience...
The Need for Speed series reached a milestone just a while back, and is nowadays recognisable as one of the best racing games on the market. It's been here a while, 10 years to be more exact, and in those 10 years of activity, EA released over 10 different games, on a dozen of consoles.
In 2009, EA decided to divide the series into three versions: Arcade, Simulation and MMO. NFS Shift already released as a simulation game, and got positive feedback, and so will happen with Nitro, or so it should. Nitro is built exclusively for Nintendo consoles - Wii and DS - and is unlike Shift an arcade-styled racer. It's a good thing that EA decided to make this move, and not make another badly built port. You can choose one out of five control schemes including: Remote; Remote + Nunchuck; Wii Wheel; Classic Controller or GameCube Controller.
This game is basically Burnout for the Wii. You start off as a rookie, get your licence, a low-budget vehicle, and get sent on a journey stranded around several parts of the world, including Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, Madrid, Dubai etc. Each city has it's own key driver, like Omar - a fat VW Beetle driver who owns the streets of Cairo. There characters only appear in the opening cutscene at the entrance of each city, and they're always the ones you need to win against. Characters like that don't play a key role.
The whole event point-earning system is exactly the same as seen is Shift. There are circuit races, drag races, drift competitions, test drives, time attacks and a couple more. You get the chance to earn stars, and you will need a special number of those stars in order to get in another city. Each event provides either 5 stars (like Circuit races and Elimination Races), or 3 stars (Time Attack, Drift Race). Each star has a requirement in order to achieve it, like earning a special amount of points, getting in the Top 3, or just beating the top time on that track.
Races are, well, for the most part fun and exciting. I still didn't get bored of them even after playing the game for over 5 hours, since every track is different, and unlike in Shift, something gives you the will and strenght to enter another city, so you will be doing your best most of the time. The key to winning a race, in any town, is drifting, which some may think is incredibly hard. It isn't - at all. I find drfting the easiest thing in the world, thanks to the movie tutorial at the beginning of the game. I'm going to talk about the Remote scheme, since I don't have any other controller, and using a Nunchuck is the same as in Mario Kart Wii.
You hold A the whole time, while moving it to the left and right / leaning it to the sides to steer. You don't need much effort to drive, and you get the hang of it after the first race, for me, it came naturally. Unlike in Mario Kart, you hold the Remote vertically, not horizontally, which is nice, but it may varry from player to player. The motto says: "Own the world at 200mph." And they didn't lie at all. You really get the feeling of driving really fast, even when you're going 105mph, which is always welcome. There isn't really much to write about. The driving experience is there, and is not flawed in any way, you - or anyone else for that matter should enjoy it, but don't be expecting Forza Wii of Gran Turismo. As you know the Wii isn't capable of dishing out such games and graphics, so the cartoony look fits it well, and runs very smoothly.
For me, this is the second best Wii racer - ever, with Mario Kart being the first. It's the ultimate driving experience on the Wii, even though it's not entirely realistic. There just aren't many good driving games on this platform, so if you're itching for a speedy game that you can play alone or in company (up to 4 people), this is the game to get.
