Need For Speed: Shift

The direction that NFS has taken with Shift, whilst not certainly the new direction the franchise is expected to take permanently, has certainly raised a lot of eyebrows for what seem to be all the right reasons.

This game offers what I would consider to be the truest driving experience offered by any game to date. This is obviously a hugely bold statement, and this game is by no means perfect, but for the target market that this has been aimed at it really is something very special.

The re-inclusion of the in car/cockpit view has been pivotal. This is undoubtedly the way to play this game - and it is this view that truly conveys so much about track racing that you can expect. It is a truly immersive experience, making you feel everything and see everything the way you would given a racing situation. Whilst this might sound on face value like a forced situation you are placed in, in fact it is so intuitive and rational in its outcome that you are left truly feeling deep in the action at all time. Firstly, the graphics are stunning The cockpits are meticulously recreated, allowing you to see, when the racing is at its least chaotic, all of the detail from the dials to the gear knobs to the foot wells! The tracks look so polished; stands, walls and some battered wall-banners in certain places look excellent. The tracks are not barren and no detail is spared, unlike the graphically disappointing Race Pro. One of the most exemplary circuits is Spa Francorchamps in Belgium. Offering both areas of tight near-walled circuit and open, sweeping circuit you are thrown from the light parts of the circuit to the dark as you descent into Au Rouge and back up the hill again. It's just a brilliant piece of racing you simply must experience. Even the windscreens, slow dirtying, scratching through contact, cracking and almost smashing due to extreme contact are so well done.

Beyond this is the vision of you as the driver. As you increased speed along straights the dashboard and wheel start to blur slightly, as the computer simulates your eyes focusing on the road ahead, as the road ahead slightly zooms in, recreating the driver's desperate and crucial attempt to find the braking zone - it adds a massive tension to corners even when you're on the track by yourself. Hitting the brakes just right brings the vision back into focus and dropping back from the 5% zoom the high speed can induce. However, get that braking zone wrong and you will regret it - this game makes it genuinely unpleasant to get intimate with the walls at high speed. Every contact induces a de-saturisation of the colours of the world and your vision completely blurs; of course dependent upon the speed and strength of the collision. Hit the walls at high speed and your driver breathes heavily as your car is thrown into harsh spins as you come back off the walls. It gives you a sense of disorientation that, in the most high speed crashes, is almost nauseating - you genuinely fear for your senses when you suddenly realise you've gotten that hairpin so wrong and the wall is about to become your personal-space intruding friend! It is this sensory assault against the sensory immersion that makes such a compelling racing environment.

The sounds of the cars is again so striking. The cars inside are noisy, as they are in real life. As standard there is no music in car (although this can be changed) and the sense of chaos in the heat of a tight pack of cars is impressive and the sounds of the wheels protesting as you put too much throttle through the rear wheels and start to slide is in some cases quite alarming. The deafening silence following a heavy knock with an opponent or the track is a nice touch too. The menu's and music are well done, although it is a scored soundtrack and not full of the usually licensed tracks you would expect from an EA game from the NFS franchise.

The other important element of the game is the handling. This, it has to be said, is quite sensitive and takes some getting used to. I may well have missed further areas that you can reduce the sensitivity of the steering in, but it seems that even cranking the sensitivity all the way down reduces this edgy handling only a small amount. Whilst it does make your first few races quite edgy and error-full affairs, if you persist, adapt and stick with it until you can improve the down force or tyres on your car to increase grip, you will then realise that further up the vehicle and upgrades ladder, the inherent slide in corners in the early stage career are less prevalent. You can feel the car under breaking squirming as you squeeze to hard on the brakes, although all corners force you to feel the slight discomfort when under breaking and under pressure at high speed. It does certainly take some getting used to but it can be quite forgiving and you are quite capable of producing a difficult-to-maintain power slide through almost any turn (hairpins exempt for the most-part). However, the handling and perseverance in the early stage might be the thing that casts doubt on the game. I can imagine some people getting frustrated and losing their minds but it's really not that hard once you get your head around it and do several laps by yourself and get used to the lower-end cars and how they can be slide happy.

I recommend this game. I know the stalwart like Forza 3 is around the corner and whilst Shift certainly offers you a wide variety of cars and tracks, as well as differing routes for vehicle customisation; Forza 3 will always outstrip this offering. However, Forza 3 will struggle and almost certainly not quite offer the extremely immersive and intense driving experience that Shift offers you. These are two games offering you slightly different things with a great deal of overlap. Real petrol heads will get both and appreciate them for what they are - and dream that maybe someday the two could be combined. But make no mistake, this is certainly a game designed by racers for racers - if you're new or fairly casual to racing, you may want to try a demo before you jump in completely...but if you persevere and learn to ride the beast that is NFS:Shift, you will earn bragging rights and hours of driving fun and intensity that are, up until now, absolutely unparalleled.

This game has excellent features, from car building options and presentations which can be totally unique, the graphics are also of a high standard, i find from racing inside the car gives a realistic visual experience.

There are 5 category levels of racing cars to proceeded through, and the structure of rewards are in three parts, the first are for driving ability on each track in the form of stars, the challenges vary from track to track, some of these are near impossible to obtain, and the second is money to buy new cars with, and the third is points from following the racing line, these points open up new driving challenges and rewards which is limited to 50 levels, this could have been much more.

The amount of space available in garage is limited, which is annoying after development time needed for each car in tuning and painting, and this lack of space means that after a short period of time you will soon have a excess of money with nothing to spend it on. You constantly need to sell and redevelop new cars, you can only buy a car once and have it stored in the garage and this doesn't allow you to develop a car to a lower level point rating to enter a race (say at a 14 value) without reselling that car and redeveloping it once again, the garage doesn't have the ability to organize your cars into categories, which would be helpful in the online mode for quick selection.

One of the encouragements within the game play is to spin out your competitors, by smashing into them, this is a real low level skill," achievable by anyone", and this is the most annoying tactic used in the online racing mode and discourages what is the purpose of racing is all about, in any racing competition contact is not tolerated and would see you blacked flag and ejected from the race for such actions, i feel if you go to all this trouble to make a realistic racing game then you should also have the realistic racing rules imposed, this is also a flaw with the amount of damage your car receives within the race, perhaps this could be more to discourage such actions if your car is more crippled in it steering and performance for such actions this would act as a deterrent, a realistic result for a realistic action.

The online mode is interesting to compete in, when it works, getting passed the log on is troublesome and i find that you often are ejected from the network, online has freezing problems with graphics which will go into a slow mode display or simply leave you standing on the grid going nowhere, EA sport simple doesn't have the capacity to cope with the amount of people globally who wish to play online, this above anything else is the most annoying, and after one hour of this yo-yoing on and off the network you simple give up with disappointment.

I find the drifting race concept interesting but lacking in what could only be done by feel of what is happening under you whilst in the real car, it simple doesn't translate into a rewarding playing feature for the game, the lack of controller controllability with the throttle plays a great part in this.

The custom tuning feature for the cars has a very low overall effect and offers no great advantage in the set up for the time consumed and with no testing track or tracks available it is hard to determine any advantages, as the only way is within a race which has to many variables to see any benefits, I find myself always resetting back to the default setting.

So overall there is still room for improvement, but some area and idea are within the game are excellent, I would buy the game again but hope that one day there will be a game that is more rewarding toward those who have the skills to drive instead of crashing. For me the best features are the graphics and the unlimited variety of design choice, and the negative are lack of garage space, and online experience.

Brett

A string of new racing titles are hitting the shelves now, Dirt 2, Supercar challenge and this, with Gran Turismo who know's where in the distance. Despite having never played any of the previous NFS titles I chose it for the good reviews and excellent video's - and money well spent it is too.
Right at the start of the game you are prompted into a practice lap and judging from your performance in this the game adjusts it's settings to the most appropriate level, an opening example of the depth of detail and thought which has gone into this game. Graphically shift is superb, the in car views are particularly good, but across the board everything is such high quality - in the past Gran Turismo has really led the way in this aspect, but now Shift is clearly better than prologue, GT5 has it's work cut out.
However, all this is totally secondary to the gameplay, but again shift is worthy of all the praise being heaped upon it. Grid is very good, and Burnout even better, but shift is a step up on both. Shift is much more biased towards simulation rather than arcade, yet it stops short being an outright simulation - after all it is a game and we're all playing it for fun! Shift is judged really well, just arcade enough to be great fun, but erring more to a proper racer, and all the better for it.
In all early impressions are really good, games are a lot of money and the disappointment when you fork out and are let down is a shame. In my opinion the PS3 has needed a quality racer for some time - perhaps developers have been scared of the all conquering GT on PS1 and 2; shift is the quality racer we've been waiting for. Obviously a real step up on Grid, miles better than prologue. Money well spent, shift will take some beating, if you're looking for a racing game get this one - it really is class.