Up until this point, the racing experience on the Wii has been dominated by Mario Kart, with little competition from other games. It's not for lack of trying. The shelves at game stores have plenty of racing games to choose from; there just hasn't been one that plays well enough to dethrone everyone's favorite Italian. EA is trying to rectify that problem with their latest entry in the Need for Speed series, Nitro. Following the template set by earlier Wii versions of titles like Grand Slam Tennis, Madden NFL 10, and FIFA Soccer 10, Nitro is a highly stylized racer that holds true to the basic tenants of the NFS franchise. Unfortunately, those same qualities have been true of the game for years, and there's actually little new about this most recent game.
SPC writes, "Sunday is this week's kickoff of SuperPhillip Central content, and with it we see a retro review. The announcement of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to the Nintendo Switch saw the site developing a vested interest in arcade racing games. Last week, we took a look at Pac-Man World Rally, a kart racer. Now, we look at a different kind of racer with this retro review of the Wii version of Need for Speed: Nitro."
Is Need For Speed: NItro-X as good as the Wii version of the game? Not quite, but it's still cheap racing fun.
Had Nitro been given online capabilities the score would have been higher just on merit. But the lack of it, coupled with the "meh" presentation and production values makes this Need for Speed a hot rod with nothing impressive under the hood.
