Need for Speed: Shift (360) reviewFollow

Little background on my racing games and such.

Completed and Played:
Gran Turismo 2
Gran Turismo 3
NFS Most Wanted
NFS Carbon
NFS Undercover
NFS Pro Street
Mario Kart
Mario Kart 64
Ridge Racer (beaten most of these)
Rock n Roll Racing
Cruisin USA
Rush
Hydro Thunder

So as one can see I've plaied my fair share of racing games and beaten most of them. I have beaten all the NFS games but Pro Street because after getting halfway through it, I couldnt stand it anymore.

The Review

When I first heard about Shift I immediatly thought of how horrible Pro Street was and I made a mental note that I probably wouldnt like Shift. Out of all 5 NFS games (Carbon, Shift, Most Wanted, Undercover, ProStreet) I like Most wanted and Undercover the best. Shift is almost like if ProStreet and Carbon had a baby. After about 6 hours with the game I have progressed to the Tier 3 events, and am able to access a few tier 4 races through the Invintationals.

Race Types

* Standard Races: You verse a bunch of other cars. Pretty much standard fair here.

* Time Attack: You verse a bunch of other cars but are given 5 minutes to post the best lap time. This mode is actually pretty well done. It doesnt matter where in the pack you are, as long as your the fastest. Once the 5 minutes are up if your time is still number one, you win.

* Drifting: Set on closed courses you are tasked with performing drifts. The closer to the apex, the stronger the angle, and the faster youa re will net you more points. The only issue with this mode, is the cars feel like bricks on ice. It is extremely hard to control your car as almost any adjustment or power to the throttle will send you into a drift. It takes a lot of geting use to.

* Rival Races: You verse one CPU. These are the same type of races you had in the other NFS games where you have to beat you opponent by getting 5 seconds infront of him or finishing the lap in first place. They do a best of 3 deal where the first round you start in the lead, second round ur in the following position, and the third round your both tied at the start. These sadly arent as fun as they where in the past games since the only way of getting 5 seconds ahead is spinning your opponent out or hoping he crashes.

* Elimination Races: Basically the goal is to complete several laps without being eliminated. To be eliminated you must be in last place once every crosses the line for a lap.

* Point to Point: Instead of a track you have just one long distance to cover, pretty standard fair.

Handling

This is not one of those games where you can just mash the gas 24/7 and win. You have to apply the brakes, varying throttle, and know how your car handles. Before you start your career your given a one lap test that is suppose to determine which of the assists and level of racer you are. I chose Pro with normal AI and all assists (anti lock brakes and such) off but I left TCS on low.

Tier 1 is pretty forgiving as whatever car you decide to start with can win almost all the races stock. Tier 1 is a nice introduction to the game as its all still manageable and fairly forgiving. Once you reach Tier 2 and start to modify your car is when things start to get difficult. I chose a Mazda RX-8 as my starter car and have kept it all the way to tier 3 modifying it completely. Though I have done all the upgrades and tweaked the handling and such it is extremely hard to control. Any car over 300ish HP seems to want to have zero traction regardless of your speed.

Also unlike normal cars that straighten out once you stop turning the wheel these dont. Which leads to lots of over correcting if your not careful. Couple that with any type of hard breaking and your going to be into the wall a lot. While the racing line gives you a decent perspective on fast you should be going its not as accurate as you would like due to how breaking is all or nothing.

Im currently on a Tier 4 event with Veyron and its almost impossible to control, especially in the pack. It jsut slides everywhere and breaking seems to send me into the wall more often then just hammering through everything. Also the walls and edges of the tract seem to suck your car into them so once your in the wall its hard to get away, and if your even clsoe your car will get sucked to it.

AI

The computer is pretty agressive. It will not hesitate to hit you, block you, or put you in the wall/dirt. They almost will go out of the way to hitting you rather then race, and as usual the top 3 cards stick to the racing line like glue.

Graphics

While nice, they dont match that of Undercover, but they do not suffer from the stutter issues the plagued Undercover. The damage modeling is decent and does effect how your car handles but is only visualistic really.

Game Mechanics

For those of you who are completionists, there is a plenty here. Just about anything you do has a badge, or rewards some kind of point or star, and it all effects your driving style badge and driving level. The only problem though is outside of your car stats im not really sure what you driving level does for you, and while the badges are a ncie touch, they arent needed.

Wrap-up

The glaring problem with this game is its physics/handeling model. Anything over 300 hp is a real strain to keep in check and races start to boil down to the restarts if you make even 1 small mistake. Had the handling and phsycis been better I would really say buy this game, but I cant recommend that. Its a good rental tidle but theres just to much glaringly wrong to drop 60 bucks on it.

Rating: C

edit: lol meant hydro thunder

Edited, Sep 19th 2009 7:41pm by Alobont

Considering that there has never been a racing game called Tropic Thunder just about kills your credibility.

Meant Hydro Thunder.

Cruisin' USA. Oh god the good times.