Need For Speed: Shift

The handling on this game was botched by EA before release date, therefore the handling is not the standard that it was supposed to be. Therefore the settings must be altered in order to compensate for this in the options menu then gameplay and settings. These are the settings that i use:

Steering deadzone 30%
Acceleration/brake deadzone 2%
Steering sensitivity 0% (yes this does work but can be altered to your taste)
Acceleration/brake sensitivity 45%
Speed steering sensitivity 100%.

I know this shouldnt have to be done on a retail game but it does in this case so minus one star for me. Also, no matter how much tweaking you do on this; the drifting in this game is still appaling and broken in every aspect. However, these little bugs out of the way, the rest of the game is brilliant. The graphics are brilliant and the cars look fantastic as do the tracks and the environment. As expected from a NFS title, theres plenty of custominsation to be done on the cars. The game overall is very solid with great sound from the cars and plenty of tracks to race round. Hopefully EA will fix the controls and the drifting races with a patch soon, when this is done then the game will recieve 5 stars from me.

After reading the reviews posted about this game, i can see that most people have come to the same conclusion i have... It tries far to hard.
Why oh why do the creators of this game feel the need to digress from the free roaming, street racing classic that is true need for speed and produce games like this.
They have tried too hard to mimic the styles of games such as Forza motorsport, and Gran Tourismo, when they should have just kept it simple and more taylored around the fast paced, high octane adrenaline fueled street racing that we all know and love.

Need for speed undercover was a prime example of the title at its best. You honestly got the sense that you were rounding corners at 110mph defending your tentative lead against a competent AI, in a highly tuned and modified Bugatti Veyron.

In Shift however, you get that same old tired in cockpit view as you get in Forza and GT, and the sense that, with the addition of the new driver 'damage' system when hit, nothing has changed.

In conclusion Shift is a pretty standard up-to-date remake of a tired racing game, that tries desperately hard to be 'the ultimate driving experience'.
My advice, if you want to buy the game, get it home and be utterly disappointed, demanding a re-fund, then by all means spend your hard earned on it. However if you want a true and exciting Need for Speed title that will keep you entertained and on the edge of your seat, then spend your money on N4S Undercover, and get the most out of the driving/arcade simulation platform.

This game promised so much and after Need for Speed Undercover, what do EA go and do? Yep make a complete and utter hash of it.

First of all, the game itself, concept, looks, is all fantastic, one of best looking racing car games i've seen. Plenty of involvement, plenty to do and good variation in races.

What lets this game down is the handling, it's like nothing else i've experienced before. I'm not amazing at racing games but i can certainly handle my own and know when it's down to car handling or not. It's almost like the car is on a pivet and even in the slightest of turns you can pivet your car sideways. All you do is slide, Even on long straights the slightest turn either left or right and you can slide your car. Its just horrific. Like a previous reviewer has stated no matter what you do to the settings, it makes no difference. I've tinkered and toyed with them and it still handles rubbish. I've found turning the steering assist off helps slightly but in the grander scheme of things, still awful. Play Race Driver: Grid and then play this. You'll soon see the difference.

It's almost as if they've tried to make an arcade racer with a realistic driving experience.

This in my opinion completely ruins this game and it's so frustrating. Oh and another thing, trying to get your car to accelerate from start line, That's just a nightmare in it's own right. Again all you do is skid.

If you want my opinion, rent this first, borrow it from a friend if they've been foolish enough to buy it like me, whatever, failing that wait for the price to come down because believe you me it will and soon.

One of the most important factors in a racing game has been ruined.

Overall, a great game in theory ruined by a software programmer who has no clue what he's doing.

I absolutely adore this revamp of the need for speed franchise.

It took me ages to buy this game though because of the hugely mixed bag of reviews, but i got it cheap in the sales and i haven't looked back.

First off, the graphics are truely remarkable, whether your car has pearlecent paint or a standard metallic sheen, the light hits them perfectly and reflects back a plethora of stunning effects. The tracks are very well detailed with the only real graphical drawback being the rather dissapointing damage system.

Lots of people have countless opinions on the handling system, and to be honest, at first i didn't like it, but i spent 10 minutes fiddling with the driving controls, as changing how much you can steer and how quickly can vastly change your cornering, and to me, it changes the game. When i first picked it up it felt far to twitchy at high speeds yet somehow sluggish when hitting an apex, spending the time to tweak the controls (not individual cars downforce) fixed my issues and to me, has attained the second best car handling game i've played, second only to Gran Turismo.

The game has a wide array of tracks to drive, which all have been mapped rather perfectly (i've drove alot of the tracks I.R.L.). Laguna Seca's corkscrew is as blind as it should be while sticking to paddock hill bend at Brands Hatch is superbly challenging. I honestly don't have a REAL bad point about the tracks, just that there can always be MORE.

The new system of disorientation upon immpact is an interesting concept which is best experienced when set to sound AND visual effects. A slam will blur skew your vision all over while your ears ring with great realism. A tap will simply send a pulse of concentration to you, almost making you more aware of how close you are to an opponent, or a wall. At best, this new feature works great, but it does niggle every now and then, a tiny graze has blinded me for several seconds before, but thankfully this rarely happens.

You may wonder why i'm giving 4 stars, and it's a simple as this: There are little niggles all over the game.

For a start, I use the hardest difficulty and yet still find it to be quite often far too easy. I know i'm a good driver but i'm not doing it for a living so i can't be THAT good.

On some tracks, the A.I. will launch off the grid, and turn full lock to get onto the racing line, instead of progressing straight, in a realistic way, thus leaving you to be able to pass all the opponents by the first corner.

Applying decals to your car has been made tremendously irritating by not allowing you to have a fully controllable camera angle, this means your racing stripe down the centre will be skewed, mis aligned, or even the wrong colour, because no matter how hard you try you can't get that exact angle you need.

Some of the paintwork options are just stupid. Manufacturers colour schemes cannot merely be switched to a different colour pair, the greatest example of which is the Bugatti Veyron. Everyone knows the iconic paint style of this car, yet, you cannot simply select your own two colour scheme for it, you'd have to fiddle endlessly with decals to get the desired effect, time i'd rather spend racing.

All over though, this game is generally fantastic, and well worth a purchase. If like me you don't like the look of all these reviews, give it a rent to test the handling. If you end up with this game, you'll love it.

Thanks for reading ALL of this.

Just got my copy of NFS - Shift today, been playing for a few hours now and I must say it is just outstanding. The graphics are pixel-perfect, lots of different kinds of races to do and work your way through, brilliant cars and tracks.

A must buy for any racing fan, especially Gran Turismo fans!

9/10