Need For Speed: Shift

How this game got the review scores it did beggars belief, the basic game mechanics are broken, plain and simple. It feels like the car's got a boot full of bricks, the back end always steps out, drift mode is an uncontrollable joke and the whole career mode is disjointed, uncohesive and just plain dull. If you want a first class, perfect track racer look no further than Codies' excellent GRID, how they can release this mediocre trash in the state it's in is beyond me, avoid!

Firstly, DO NOT buy this game if you want a simulation based controlling game like Forza, Project Gotham or ProStreet

This games controls are based on sliding the car around the corners, the slightest touch on the steering and the back of the car steps out, making you slide, which makes it too easy to spin out and makes it hard to keep up with your opponents who don't slide everywhere,

Graphically, this game looks awesome. Cars are crisp and smooth and tracks are very good looking, despite the amount of adverts covering the circuits. Cars sound beefy and powerful, as they should in a game with such powerful racing cars. The career mode is lengthy and has a good deal of variety.

EA need to bring out a patch for the controls, and if they do I will change my review to a 4/5. Its just a pity the controls spoil it all.

EA you fools. Why ruin it? What happened to the illegal street races with the almost unlimited amount of uprgrades to the cars? Well whatever it was, you stopped at pro street and haven't redeemed yourself with this one either. I'm sorry but legal street races with fans cheering you aren't need for speed, leave that to Gran Turismo. I mean, the title of the game is "NEED for SPEED" im sorry but any racing game where if you have to slow down for corners, and any attempt at a drift fails, is far from a need for speed. There are guides on the floor where u brake, accelerate and slow down, i mean what the hell is that! It's not need for speed.
I downloaded the demo and i deleted it as soon as i finished my first race, it was the worst Need for Speed i've played. Ever. Bring back the old Most Wanted-type gameplay with the pink slips and police chases. A complete disappointment.
Bad EA bad!

I've not owned a Need for Speed game before, mainly because it really was not my type of thing (I much prefer the likes of Race Pro and Forza).

Maybe that's EA's mistake, and this should have never have been a Need for Speed game in the first place. It will probably disappoint loyal fans of the series and sim fans won't touch it with a barge-pole because it's a Need for Speed game.

So it's fair to say that it's too realistic to be an arcade game and too lightweight to be an outright sim racer (OK, so some cars can be fitted with Nitrous tanks, but you can avoid that altogether and it won't affect your game at all).

Who's going to like it? People who don't mind compromising on absolute realism and who just want a great racer that is exciting to play.

OK, so the handling is a bit different to other games you might have played before, and some people have commented that the cars feel too oversteery (not sure that's a word, but never mind). True, some of the early cars feel that way, but once you get to the second, third and forth tiers of cars, they are much more balanced and realistic to drive. Once you learn that you can't just mash the accelerator all the time and that you have to balance the throttle a lot more than you do in other games (the game actually rewards you for doing this) then even the early cars become good to drive (it's worth noting that I play with driving aids all off - so I can't comment on what it feels like with them on).

The game looks great too, especially in-car (better than even the great Forza 3 in that department).

The levelling up system is quite clever and classes you into either a precision or aggressive driver, this rating carries on into the multiplayer where it will try and match you to other drivers that race the same way you do.

The only complaint I have is that the AI (on Hard) is far too aggressive and on medium is too easy to beat. Having said that the AI cars do crash spontaneously and quite realistically. It all adds up to races that feel quite real and exciting to be in. Although if you pick hard AI then you will have to re-start a lot (no rewind feature here).

I, like many people, bought this for something to do until Forza 3 came out, but it can certainly hold it's own amongst top tier competition like GRID and PGR and will probably appeal to some of the people who liked those games.

All in all it's a great racer!

This game was a very pleasant surprise to me. I had tried previous Need for Speed games and never been particularly impressed (since I'm a devout Project Gotham and Foza player). However, after a couple of tweaks to the handling in the options menu, this game really came alive for me.

The whole medals system is fantastic. It really rewards good driving and encourages players to try out a lot of the different game modes (including getting online).

I have since bought Forza 3 and, whilst it may be a technical triumph, it just doesn't have the fun factor that I got from Shift.

If you're looking for a fun racer, with nice graphics, presentation and a good mix a game modes and challenges, Shift is definitely worth a look.