Review: Need for Speed: Shift

Oh how times have changed for EA…gone are the days of car chasing, excessive pimped out bling and melodramatic wannabe actors; in comes a new attempt to change the direction of a well known franchise. Shift is this year’s new IP for the Need For Speed franchise, and looks to cater and bridge the gap between arcade and simulation. Does it succeed though?

First impressions are good from the outset, with decent presentation and generally OK graphics. Car models are crisp and detailed, and environments are adequate. It is obvious that the game was based around its dashboard view which many upcoming racing games are starting to employ; putting this game into any other camera view apart from dashboard makes the game completely pointless in a matter of opinion. The general sense of speed produced by the motion blurring effects on the dashboard view is also quite scary at times! There is always a feeling of risk because of this effect, and certainly makes the game a more exciting prospect. I also feel that the A.I in the game is pretty good; cars can be aggressive based on your actions, so if you try to bash a car, expect them to fight back.

There are plenty of events to keep you occupied, including normal race, drift, elimination and special duel races where you pit your wits against a single opponent in a best of 3 Touge style challenge. Unlocking events and higher racing tiers require earning stars while unlocks are gained by levelling up an in-game profile and acquiring badges based on in game achievements. Game structure is definitely not much of a problem here, and the game literally WANTS to reward you for your play time. Also, multiplayer is also tied to your in-game profile, so other competitors get to see what type of driver you are. Pretty nice! J

The major issues; firstly, the very random difficulty spikes the game puts on you is sometimes daunting. While the game isn’t THAT hard, sometimes it takes you by surprise, especially the duel races, which are pretty stressful to beat cleanly without aggression, and going that route is always an impending accident waiting to happen. Even so, you don’t really need to do these events to progress forward. Another issue is the game’s handling; on default handling settings, the game loves to chuck you into snap over-steer with the slightest touch. With a bit of customisation in the settings, things can be much bearable, though I thought that the drift events were near unplayable with the use of the Microsoft Wheel; it is VERY sensitive during these events, so even if there are customised settings, expect to spin out every time. The handling can be mastered though with time and patience. The clunky user interface is a bit off-putting but is easy to navigate, and load times are a complete pain, even when it’s installed on the hard drive.

With all that said, the game is generally a lot of fun, just like last years Race Driver GRID. While I think it’s not as good as GRID, with the handling settings sorted, it’s a very rewarding game, and the satisfaction of racing clean in this game is really good. While there are a few issues, this is a great stop gap until Forza3 comes out.

7/10


This review was written by our good friend S2K Teddybear - Thanks man and we look forward to the next review!