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[fizz, sip]
Aahhh!
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I've been playing the Need for Speed series ever since the first one came out
about 15 or whatever it is years ago.
So take the following opinions however you want.
From a long time Need for Speed player,
I am not exactly the most impressed with Shift,
but I'm certainly not disappointed.
I'm also going to assume that you're pretty much familiar with the Need for Speed games
and racing games and simulation racing games in general, so...
Here are the few points that I want to make.
My initial complaint was that it was supposed to be a simulation game.
And as a simulation game, it fails.
However, that does not make it an arcade racing game,
because it would fail in that respect, too.
Since this was developed as Pro Street 2,
I can kind of see where they're coming from as far as their design.
But thankfully there are enough differences to *really* separate it from Pro Street.
In my mind, an arcade racing game has simple controls,
usually pretty forgiving physics,
and crazy, yet manageable speed.
And Shift has none of these.
Controls and handling feel off on many of the cars that it shouldn't,
and mainly just feel like it's oversteering on a lot of the cars.
You get a lot of fishtailing.
The physics vary from extremely realistic
to ramming someone, flipping them up in the air,
looking like explosion rag doll effects.
There is a very, very good sense of speed in this,
and that's one of my biggest praises for the game.
But a lot of times, it does feel very much out of control.
You feel like you're driving on ice half the time
and the grip is just nowhere to be found.
I... don't know what's going on
with a lot of that. It's just too slippery.
Simulations, on the other hand,
should have real cars with real parts,
the laws of physics should apply,
and should be able to generally drive how you want,
no matter how bad you are driving.
In Shift,
there is almost no tweaking or upgrading,
compared to other simulation games,
or even compared to other Need for Speed games before this.
They've taken out the brand names of parts completely
and really, really simplified the process.
You can still tweak individual settings,
but there is also a much easier tweaking area
for those who really just don't wanna mess with it
or don't care too much.
Also, some of the upgrades seem a little bit over the top,
There's this new thing called
The Works,
and it basically just
upgrades your car to the max, max, max
impossible method.
I've gotten cars
That are just barely upgraded with zero-to-sixtys of two seconds,
and when you have The Works,
you get like one-second zero-to-sixty times with a top speed of 290.
I don't think that's very realistic, at least on this planet.
Maybe on Planet Shift.
The handling itself...
Well, I've already mentioned how wonky the physics can be.
For instance, look at this clip right here.
[thumping dance music]
Yah, if that happened in real life, I would be scared.
Because... it would appear something supernatural is occurring.
Really, the driving handling
is not as arcade-y as, say, a racing game like Grid.
It's a little bit closer to Project Gotham or something.
It's nowhere near a simulation like Forza, for instance.
Of course, using the keyboard doesn't help,
so I'm hoping that a controller is better once I get the Xbox version.
The game will simply not let you do certain things, too,
like drive the wrong direction.
It's a very simple thing, and probably you're not going to want to do that anyway,
but, yes, even if your car happens to drive the opposite way on accident,
it only give you a few seconds before it penalizes you completely
and kicks you out of the race, disqualifies you,
and beats your mom.
This is completely unforgivable in a simulation.
You also can't cut corners, basically,
if you happen to
drive along a section
of grass
on accident or not, it will penalize you.
And, yes, I suppose that is a racing rule of sorts, but
it kicks you out of the game for that too.
And with the handling being as ridiculous as it can be sometimes,
that gets really annoying really fast.
Another extreme annoyance is not being able to just
play how you want half the time
or press buttons to skip things.
There's a lot of
cutscenes at the beginnings here and there
that you just cannot skip.
There's an entire almost two-minute, three-minute video at the beginning of the game
that you can't skip
at all
while it tells you a lot of useless information
like, "Oh, yes, well, oh,"
"here we are, we're gonna play the game."
"Do good. And don't do bad."
ANNOUNCER: You need to prove yourself right away.
Stand out. Master new skills.
And test your abilities to move through the tiers.
You'll race on world-renowned tracks,
gain entry to new competitions,
and drive the most sought-after cars in the world.
LGR: Yeah, you have this
random sort of British-English-type person,
who has no face, no name,
and has absolutely no point in the game.
He also talks to you throughout the race,
telling you stuff that you already knew.
Like, "Oh my goodness, you just crashed!"
I turned him off
as quick as I possibly could.
There's no story in this game.
There's no characters.
Which is fine. I don't need them.
And frankly, I'm glad they're gone.
Also – and this is just another minor complaint –
on the PC version, there is no mouse cursor.
It would be infinitely easier
to navigate these convoluted menus
with a mouse.
But no, you have to press buttons like 7, 8 and 9,
and the numeric pad,
backspace,
things like that to get around.
Which is just stupid! Come on!
Is it that hard to implement a cursor?
A nice thing about the game, though, is it really does give you an incentive
to keep on racing other than just
buying new upgrades for your cars,
especially since the upgrades aren't that spectacular this time around.
You progress not only with more money,
but also with these... things
they call Stars, which...
amazingly are stars.
You get them for having
completed different objectives during the game,
such as
getting a certain amount of points by driving a certain way,
spinning out opponents,
having a clean lap.
Things like that will get you extra Stars
and the more Stars you have,
the higher up in your career level you can go.
You also earn badges and a whole bunch of other useless crap
that doesn't really do anything.
Also very interesting is the
"good vs. evil" thing you have going on during the races.
Depending on how you drive,
whether it be really
hard, fast, in people's faces,
or just smooth and calm,
you will get different points.
So for things like blocking an opponent
or smashing into them or spinning them out,
you get aggressive points.
Or if you race along the best racing line and
get all the corners right and,
you know, just generally master the game, you get precision points.
It's not really a karma system, although it kinda feels like it.
It doesn't really have too much
of a reason behind it, either.
It just sort of does what it does.
But it's an interesting addition, and I actually kinda like it.
And honestly, the most impressive part of the game
would have to be the interior view,
which is just not my thing, but for this game,
it could very well become it.
But you also have effects like G-forces and inertia,
and driver fatigue and all these other things to worry about.
Your head's bobbing around constantly,
your heads-up display goes fuzzy and
you focus in on certain parts of the track depending on how better you're doing.
It's just a very engrossing experience
and I really feel like I'm driving some of these cars,
if you just, you know, really let yourself get in there.
And another really big reason for that is the sound
effects' sound quality of the game.
There's no music in the game, thankfully, this time around, so you don't have THAT in your face
so you can really focus on the sound and feel of the cars.
It's just incredible.
I mean, everything about it really sounds right.
The crashes sound right, the tires squealing,
the little individual creaks and rattles and squeaks and squeals of the car.
It just... sounds... great.
Still, though, if it were a full simulation game,
this would pretty much
make it one of the best games
in the genre this year.
I guess probably at least 'til Forza 3
and Gran Turismo 5 come out, but
you still have that
ridiculous aspect of the game here and there.
Mainly with the handling
and the physics. I mean, really, it–
if you're taking a turn too hard,
and you have an opponent in the way,
here's my strategy:
just slam the heck into him
and you'll be on your way.
Yeah, let's see that again.
See? Simple.
Need for Speed Shift is not a horrible game.
It is not the saving grace of Need for Speed,
and it probably won't be anything like this at all next year
because it sounds like Criterion Games is going to be making that one.
So, who knows?
It'll probably be Need for Speed Burnout next.
The game is certainly worth a rental, I would say.
It is SO MUCH BETTER
than Carbon, Pro Street and Undercover.
So I give it a half-hearted thumbs up.
[thumping dance music]