Need For Speed: Shift

Need for Speed: Shift

Rating: T

Score: 8.0/10

“Shift” is the perfect way to describe this instalment in the series. Instead of the usually freedom-style that has already been done, designers decided to “shift” to a different type of racing: Pro racing. No cops, no city, no roaming, just a simple track you do laps on. Pro Street did something similar, but kept some street racing style; will a full shift be too far from the series? This game is available on the Playstation 3, Playstation Portable, PC, Xbox 360, and mobile phones.

The format hasn’t completely changed from its predecessors: you still start with an old piece of junk on wheels at first, and built up to the expensive, high-class car. It’s been like that for years, and it’s been working for years. You’ve still got a nice number of cars to choose from, and you can pick to keep the decorated junk on wheels or trade it in anytime you want (or, rather, anytime you have the money to do so).

You start your career as the new guy who wants to get to the top. To get there, you’ll need to prove yourself on the track. Between you and gold are miles to race and multiple racers. How you deal with these racers is up to you. You can spin them out to drastically slow them down, or pass them and leave them be. Anyway you race, you’ll get stars.

These stars are important for advancing through the story mode and unlocking new races. You get stars for spinning out drivers, making good turns, among others. These stars are split into two categories: Aggression and Precision. Both are pretty self-explanatory: Aggression is awarded for violent acts (Spinning out opponents, blocking them from passing, etc...), and Precision is awarded for precise acts (Perfect turns, stuff like that).

The racing itself is solid, though I think the tires must be made of ice, they slip around so much. Until you perfect how your car turns, you’ll never, ever, get gold. Unless you spin out everyone and/or use them as guardrails - then you might be able to get away with imperfection.

Above I stated that it was pro racing: no city, no cops, just a simple car on a simple track; this is mostly true. Although it’s shifting to pro racing, it still hasn’t dropped all of its street racing. Nitrous returns, but acts differently to be more realistic. Mainly, it’s not as effective as it was. It also can’t fit on all types of cars, only some.

While talking about realism, the graphics should be mentioned. Long story made short: they look amazing. Not only that, but the game sounds just as good as it looks. They really did gingerly eye every little detail here.

It’s a good shift, but one that was unnecessary. The Need for Speed series doesn’t seem to know what they want; every title seems to be a completely different game. I doubt they’ll try another pro racing game, which is probably for the best. The pro racing genre is dominated by, and probably always will be, Forza and Gran Turismo. There’s just no room for Need for Speed, they should stick with what they know.

Remember, all my reviews are on http://sites.google.com/site/gamerscorneronline/