EA Black Box hosted a Need for Speed: Nitro preview event recently and I was given an opportunity to test out the game. Curious about the Wii title, I was happy to get a test drive. Never having owned a Wii and little interested in the racing genre, I had no idea what to expect. I saw other people giving the game a go, latching on to the Wii Wheel, enthusiastically steering left and right. Naturally, I wanted to give the Wii Wheel a try!

Waiting in line, I passed the time talking to people around me. One of those people happened to be Assistant Producer Anouk Bachman! Incredibly generous with her time, she explained the development process for Nitro and what the team hoped to achieve with the game. During our impromptu interview,she led me over to the Wii Wheels and gave me a general walkthrough of the features available. Anouk touched on how the team was given carte blanche in creating a game specifically for the Wii, but at the same time, faced incredible pressure to live up to the Need for Speed franchise.

Rather than porting games over to the Wii, she clarified that the development team worked diligently to make sure the game worked with the console. Instead of shoving a game down a Wii’s processor, Nitro is specifically geared to utilize and maximize the console’s features. Anouk pointed out that Nitro is carving its own path amongst the usual shovelware in the Wii library to stand out as a true gem. She acknowledged the immense popularity of Mario Kart, and that it would have been easy to copy that successful formula. However, the team wanted to strike out on their own and create a fun game that is distinctly Need for Speed. And I got a hands-on demonstration. I took control of the wheel and never looked back. It’s extremely intuitive, and using the wheel makes the game much more engaging.
The most important factor for a console geared towards the casual market is how fun the game can be. Let me tell you: It’s mucho fun. I picked up on the drifting aspect fairly quickly and zoomed through my first race, placing 2nd. Granted, I played an easier mode with city cars. It’s not too easy, but it’s not terribly hard that you’ll feel frustrated and chuck your controls at the television. For the more competitive gamers with a hardcore streak in them, there are more challenging modes available.
Another fun component of Nitro is the ability to customize the vehicle. I think I enjoyed this part the most. The level of customization available is awesome! Sure, there’s the usual selection of car models and colors. But there’s more! One neat aspect is the ability to deck out the car with licensed decals. Mine was a pink VW Bus with tokidoki characters and designs. Yeah, that’s right! A pink VW Bus with a mean tokidoki front. That’s how I roll!

Nitro is definitely a game that was meant for the Wii: accessible to all. It’s easy to pick up the controller and get started on a race right away. Get your engines ready. Need for Speed: Nitro will be released on the Wii November 17, 2009.