Run, race, slide, jostle!Test Need for Speed Shift
Introduction: The Need For Speed. This series is about to become a real never-ending story. But this was not so sure until recently, people rather talked about the final – and according to the opinion of many well deserved – death of this racing game series. Because the last spin-offs were anything but well received, even if they still found their fans.
So that everyone knows what is being written about here: Need For Speed (arcade racing game series) was first released in 1994 for various systems (3DO, PlayStation, Saturn and PC). So this year the series turns 15 as it. Possibly older than many a gamer, who now takes on the newest product.
Titles released so far are: The Need For Speed Need For Speed II Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit Need For Speed: Burning Asphalt Need For Speed: Porsche Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 Need For Speed: Underground Need For Speed: Underground 2 Need For Speed: Most Wanted Need For Speed: Carbon Need For Speed: Pro Street Need For Speed: Undercover Need For Speed: Shift
"Shift" is so the meanwhile the 14. Part of the series. Besides that there were also other versions for e.G. Game consoles. An MMORG.
Gameplay: "Shift breaks new ground in the N4S series by focusing not on street racing in cities with normal factory cars, but on real race tracks with high powered sports cars. However: Here, too, you start with cars from the assembly line, which can be tuned, in the style of the old NfS games, and equipped with vinyls, etc.
Altogether there are 4 levels to climb in Shift, which are subdivided into driver levels again. Per level the available cars change. However, the rider levels are independent of the stages – ao, for example, you can reach level 50 without ever having landed on level 4. You climb up the levels by collecting stars. These stars are awarded per race for special achievements: Podium finish, reaching driver level points for precise or aggressive driving, driving on the ideal line, flipping opponents etc. Usf. In Shift you can jostle. You even have to, if you want to earn points and badges.
Controls: First of all there is a small point of criticism: the controls can't be configured freely. It's hard to believe, but there are still people who like to have the throttle button on X even if it doesn't allow you to be really gentle with the gas pedal. It's surely better to use the keys R2 and L2 for brake and accelerator – but I don't like that this is imposed on you, even if I'm fine with the default key assignment myself.
The control itself is somewhere between arcade and simulation. If you want you can use some control aids, like espw. A braking aid, the fading in of the racing line, ABS etc. – In any case, you don't have to worry about sliding around stupidly in the opposite direction, as was the case with "Race Driver: GRiD" was the case.
Also in the matter of perspectives we offer a decent choice. From behind the wheel, hood, road, cockpit. Something for everyone. Special attention should be paid to the cockpit view, which gives you an extreme feeling of being in the middle of the action conveys. The windows shatter in an accident, everything jerks and wobbles and you briefly lose your bearings. Really well done! But also in other views accidents are "rewarded" with a corresponding veil, that shows you: no, not like that, min Jung!
In my opinion, the HUD is well done. Mirrors and score overview are good to see and all info is where it belongs. Especially good I find that one has taken over the different speedometer displays of the individual cars from the cockpit view also for the norale HUD and so always a different speedometer and tachometer is faded in, depending on the car. The map always shows only a section of the track, which is somewhat detrimental to the overall view, but would otherwise overload the HUD somewhat. But what you really could have done is to color the player himself (because of me as a yellow dot or something like that), because almost all symbols on the track view are white and you often just can't see through anymore where you are right now.
Race modes are as follows: Race (normal, everyone vs. Everyone) Car Battle (1 vs. 1) Drift (well, er drifting) Time trials (everyone is on the track, but it's all about the best lap time) Series (tournaments)
If you don't want to play the career or if you have already played it, you can also select the Quickrace in the main menu. Here you can, according to your own taste, put together your own races and jet off. Nice thing about it: the points you score are added to your driver profile in career mode!
Really cool is also: If you have friends in the list of the PS3 and they also have the game and have set up a corresponding account at EA (if the login at EA Nation does not fail again) you get displayed at the individual races, which of the buddies currently holds the best time.
In Shift there are ca. 60 cars and ca. 20 Tracks. Enough for now.
Personally, I find the Car Battles quite missraten. There is sometimes extremely bad balancing in these races. In these races you drive up to three session. You have to be the first to cross the finish line or 5 seconds ahead of the others. The latter is absolutely impossible, unless you beat the opponent off the track. In any case, it is not possible to reach them by driving. Often it is also so, one basically in the first race in front, loses in the second and in the third then must look, how one gets along. Also, it is kind of pointless that you sometimes have bolides competing against each other, which differ extremely in performance. E.G.: Königsegg against Lamborghini. There's already a difference of 200 hp on the horsepower side. Well, it may be that the developers said to themselves: maybe someone is up for a real challenge – that's what it really is!! If you take the more powerful car, you can drive ahead without any problems. By the way, the cars you are allowed to take are always given, the battles on each level are bag heavy.
Bugs: They also exist. No game is really perfect. With Shift there are occasional lags in the control, now and then it jerks a little, whereby there are quite a few player reports that it can come to considerable speed losses with level 4 races. Has not happened with me personally. But should be just so.
Properly behämmert is the following: Starts one a Car Battle, then gets the two available cars displayed. But: if you own one of the two cars (i.E. You bought it from the dealer and have it in your garage) and you have tuned it, then the performance values of your own tuned car are shown in the overview and you are surprised that there is again a horrendous difference in performance, weight and torque. Only: in the race you drive the normal un-tuned car and wonder once again, why you can't get off the track.
No bug in the real sense, but already bughaft are for me the loading times of the game. The whole thing starts when you put the game in and start it. Until you can finally get going, certainly 2 minutes go by, even you break off various startup movies. The game is loaded, then the movies are loaded, then the trophies, then the save, then the profile again etc. This really sucks. In the game itself the loading of the races also takes much too long. And this despite the fact that Shift grabs 3 GB of hard disk capacity at once. The car battles are really brutal: If you have to complete three laps, the game reloads the entire track after each lap, and that takes time!
Graphic: The graphic is OK. It neither stands out particularly, nor does it need to hide anywhere. Admittedly, the game can by no means compete with GT5; graphically, GT5 simply plays in a different league. But the visuals are really nice. Personally, I have not noticed any hearing doer jerking, but stair-stepping does exist. As I said: graphically pretty, but not a supermodel. The damage model is limited to rudimentary damages. Opposite to "GRiD, where you soon only drive around with the car frame, the car stays in "Shift" largely intact. At some point it loses its hood, the bumper is dented, the front end is dented etc. But really scrap, you can't scrap your vehicle. By the way, in the options menu you can set whether the damage should only show optically or really have an effect on the driving characteristics.
Sound: There's nothing to complain about in terms of sound. All cars have their sound, the music comes across punchy, all sounds crash properly. Fits!
Multiplayer: Here you get the usual fare. Connection problems are once again the cause when EA Nation craps out again. Otherwise I had so far no worries with the on-line play. — But I'm not a big online gamer either, so I don't have to and can't contribute much to this point. Inviting friends works though, so does quick joining any race. I have done a few races of my own and a few others and found it quite nice. But for me personally the fun is limited, because in Shift it is a good thing to bump you off the track.
Conclusion: Shift is great. Shift is fun. But Shift is frustrating sometimes, especially with the car battles and the loading times. Apart from that Shift is an entertaining, challenging racing game, which appeals to old N4S fans as well as friends of the Race Driver series. If you like racing games and don't mind an arcade-heavy simulation game with birnout-like interludes, grab this one and look forward to a long gameplay experience.