Need for Speed Shift (Xbox 360, 2009)

Lets start with the controls, I had hoped that they would be practical...
Being the die-hard racing sim fanatic that I am, I drive standard gearbox with assists off (Anti-lock Braking System, Traction Control, Stability Management System) in likeness to the cars I drive daily. But, the controls were SO bad! The game defaults the L+R bumpers as down-shift and up-shift - making it nearly impossible to decelerate or accelerate while or after shifting. Shifting while braking/accelerating CAN be accomplished only by using your middle fingers as brake/throttle control - it’s nearly impossible to make precise, minute, critical changes in speed! However, controls can be altered slightly in the options menu (but they still suck BAD). Another problem with the games manual tranny is when the car goes into neutral when SHIFTING GEARS!!! I suppose the NFS team figured that neutral was the closest thing to the simulation of a clutch... Too bad there isn’t a clutch in the game, so there’s NO POINT in trying to simulate something in a game that DOESNT EXIST in it! Technically, cars do go into neutral when shifting gears, but literally making the car go into neutral in a video game is ridiculous!!! Again, throttle control goes out the window...
Maneuvering the cars is horrid... Minute, minimal, alterations of pressure on the L-stick yields random, unpredictable results - sometimes the cars barely move with precise control stick movement, and other times the cars veer as hard as they can to a certain direction - precise movement isn’t possible - speed doesn’t seem to change the maneuverability of your car, sometimes when at a crawl, your car may barely turn. These problems could probably be fixed with tuning and adjusting controls, but it’s not even worth the trouble - unlike in forza, you can’t tune your cars/controls in real time during playtime. Tuning/control tweaking HAS to be done at the main menu - worst mistake in any racing game EVER. Realistic steering/handling is impossible in this game...

The graphics are ok, some of the visuals are nice - nothing special, nothing to get excited about, nothing we haven’t seen before. Bottom line is that the Screen-shots look prettier than the actual game play...

Audio is also ok, cars sound pretty generic though... But, as with almost all recent NFS games, you hear your cars performance upgrades in effect when racing - VERY COOL, VERY REALISTIC. Turbo BOV is nice (could use some work), exhaust/engine upgrades add a little more oomph to the audio.

Customization was very disappointing. NFS is well known for in-depth car customization (or at least they were 3+ years ago...), but this game practically ditched that idea and kept customization to a few wheels, 3-4 full body kits, and crappy vinyl editing... Honestly, if customization is going to suck that bad, don’t even put it in the game...

I found the interface annoying. I don’t even know what to say about it, menu navigation was unusual and unconventional - it looked good but wasn’t designed in a practical fashion.

f you have any questions about this game that I did not mention here, please contact me, I would be more than happy to answer all of your questions about this game. If I did not mention a certain detail that you would like to know, just tell me and I will add it here.. Thank You

With EA sports getting away from the underground style racing game for shift, I was thinking it was going to be alot like the game play of ProStreet. Don't get me wrong, ProStreet was a good game that EA developed, but I believe they should of done some things differently in regards to game play. But this review is not about the game play and graphics of Prostreet, but of the game play and graphics of Shift.

I believe shift is a great game, the graphics are good and EA has done a excellent job at making the player feel like he is in a real car. The in game racing, makes you compete for stars. If you meet a certain speed on a track you get a star, you also get stars for podium finish. You can also try to own all of the corners on the track, but depending on your racing style, this could be a little difficult.

When you first start racing, you get to see what type of racing style racer you are going to be. You will have a choice on racing clean or dirty. Depending on your method you gain points that go to your racing style. With every point that you stay on the track and follow the racing line, or with every point that you spin a opponent out on the track, you gain racing experience points. Keep racing these ways, and you will make it to level 50.

My one dissapointment with this game was the acheivements. As there are not many, and most of them are pretty easy to obtain. Although, you will have plenty of extra time to race online after unlocking the acheivements and reaching level 50 as a driver. Online play was great, I did not notice alot of the "lag" issues that have been with other EA games when first released. There were plenty of rooms to chose from for racing, and the best thing is, you can still gain points in online to try to reach a driver level of 50.

All in all This was a excellent purchase. It will provide hours of fun game play and more depending on how often you decided to race others on live.

Overview:

-Estimated achievement difficulty: 5/10
-Offline: 29 (1000)
-Online: 0
-Approximate amount of time to 1000: 15-25 hours
-Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1
-Number of missable achievements: None
-Glitched achievements: None
-Do cheat codes disable achievements?: No
-Does difficulty affect achievements?: No

Introduction

After several abysmal outings, NFS: Shift is a return to form for EA's racing franchise. It's a lot of fun to play, and the achievements aren't too difficult. You will earn achievements for doing only 3 things, which include career progression, increasing your driver level, and earning badges. There is some grinding to do, but the only thing that will give you any trouble are some of the epic badges.

General tips:

Difficulty does not affect achievements, so set the AI to easy and you'll be able to breeze through the game. Set your assists to whatever you like. If you want, you can change your handling model to casual, then the game will brake for you and help you steer, so then all you have to do is hold down the gas and point your car the right direction.

Money should never be a problem. Never buy any vehicles using MS Points. Anything you buy in the game (including cars and upgrades), can be sold back for the price you bought it for (with the exception of a 'works' upgrade, even then you can sell the car and get 100% of your money back). Don't like the car you just bought? Sell it back for the price you bought it for! If you're short on cash, and don't want to sell anything, do a quick race on the Miyatomi track. Set it to 1 lap, and 0 opponents, and you'll win some quick cash in less than 20 seconds.

Even if you know you're not going to win, finish the race anyway (as long as you're near the finish). You can then hit to retry, and any profile points, badges, or money gained during that race, will still be saved. If you just hit start and go to restart race before the race is over, any points, badges, or money gained during that race will be lost.

I decided to buy the game because I really seem to like the racing genre and the NFS series has a pretty good history. I have only had the game for a day now but I already have a pretty good idea of what I like and dislike about the game.

The positives are that the graphics are fantastic, the driver's view is the best from this angle I have ever seen, the races are competitive, the variety of cars available is fairly good, the upgrades are everything you would expect, the sound quality is really realistic.

The negatives are that there is basically no tutorial so it is a little difficult getting into the game, especially the non-race styles (i.e. drifting). The game's loading times could be better, they seem to take a long time. There is a type of race in which you race 1 on 1 with a different manufacturer's vehicle, this type of race is much more difficult as compared with the regular races. Customizing the paint and vinyls on the car's isn't as good as one would expect. There is no multiplayer (other than Xbox Live)! Also, the game is strictly track racing, in the other NFS games there was generally a lot of street racing but in Shift it is completely absent.

Overall I would give the game a 4/5, if it had multiplayer then I would give it a 5/5 but alas, the game's makers left out that option.

In EA's latest installment, Need for Speed SHIFT, the "streets" are put aside for a more systematic racing experience. Those who want/expect tuning cars, racing on the streets, and cop chases, this game only fulfills 1 out of 3 of those categories. The game does not take place on the streets, but instead takes place on real-world tracks such as Nürburgring in regulated circuit racing, much like its predecessor Need for Speed ProStreet.

However, there have been tweaks made to the game to make it substantially better than NFS ProStreet. One major upgrade is the cockpit-view in-game. The driver is put into the cockpit of a professionally-modeled car for a true racing experience while racing. The cockpits of each car are very accurate, giving the player a feeling of actually being in the car. The car radio, steering wheel, pedals, air conditioning unit, all there.

The game modes include the standard racing-game modes: Career, Quick Race, and Multiplayer (Xbox Live). In Career mode, there are standard racing modes: Circuit Race, One-On-One, Time Attack, and Drift. The player advances through four Tiers (or stages) of racing, Tier 1 and 2 being easier while Tier 3 and 4 being the final stages of the game. Each Tier has a series of events in which the player must finish in Podium Ranks and earn a set amount of stars (by completing in-race mini-missions). All of this is self-explanatory, and can also be explained in the game instruction booklet.

In Quick Race mode, the player sets race-settings, chooses a game mode, and races with cars from their garage, award cars, or stock cars.

Overall, this game is very fluid with wonderful graphics. The cockpit-view really sets it aside from other racing games, but at times, this game can lack the excitement of street racing games.

I mean, c'mon, who would choose racing around a circuit track 10 times over speeding through the streets of Los Angeles chased by the cops?



Final Verdict
------------------

Pro's: Awesome cockpit view, great graphics, handling of cars are quite realistic, workign your way up from an AE86 Toyota Corolla to a Lamborghini Reventon, and the accurate tuning system for the cars (lots of parts!).

Con's: Gameplay can get repetitive if you've beaten it, no cops like in street racing games, and getting cheated by other players on Xbox Live.


OVERALL: 9/10