Ever since its inception, the Need for Speed series has tried to be at the forefront of the racing genre. When it first debuted, it helped usher in the racing games filled to the brim with supercars and a lone goal – get to the finish line first or don’t bother finishing at all. When the series went Underground, it birthed a slew of competitors all trying to capture the same formula and improve upon it.

EA tries to reinvent the racing genre once again in Need for Speed: ProStreet. While keeping with the street racing roots that Underground first sowed, the action now moves off the streets and onto the track, with mixed results.

You play as Ryan Cooper, the apparent rising star of the street racing world who never takes off his helmet once during the game. The guy probably showers and sleeps with it on, too, which leads me to think that he has some hideous haircut under that helmet. That’s the only reason I can think of having this mystery character the entire game. Well, that and EA is just too lazy to implement a feature that lets you create a career mode character.

His goal? To beat the Showdown King and take his place on top of the street racing world. The only way he can do this, of course, is through the stereotypical long and winding career mode that pits you in harder and harder challenges as you go along, as well as side missions you can choose to participate in to earn extra money, parts, or even extra cars.

The way you’ll do this is by winning Race Days. Each Race Day can perhaps be best described as a bunch of races that you compete in and are scored on. The better you do, the more points you get. Getting a certain amount wins you the day and gets you a bonus, but you can keep going to dominate the Race Day and get an even bigger bonus as a result.

There are four basic race modes you’ll encounter: Drag races, Grip races (similar to circuit races), Speed races (similar to sprint races) and Drift races. Each has several subdivisions to try and make a bunch of unique race types, but they’re all pretty similar – the in-race challenges are just the only difference. None of the races feel overly long until they need to at the end of the game when you’re battling the different race kings.

Driving in the game is reasonably easy, as it uses the left analog and triggers for the most important elements, but the inclusion of the manual shifting on the right analog stick as a default control is confusing. I’ve brushed it a few times in my game play only to have the gear shifting switch to automatic for the rest of the race. It’s extremely annoying. The sense of speed here is better than in Forza 2, but steering feels like it could use work, as you seen to either be able to hammer the throttle through most of the turn or you have to slow down a lot to make the corner.