Need for Speed - SHIFT

so i am still in the "discovery" stages of this game, which means i am still playing it. i have played many of the other games under the title "Need for Speed" and i liked them, but i can't say that i loved them. most of the time, they are about illegal street racing, where you have some agenda to be the best of the best among these black-market, hardcore tough guys with ridiculously expensive cars. in the later games, such as "Need for Speed: Most Wanted" you get to customize your car's appearance and make it look all flashy and "gangsta" (a young-un's term for "hip" or "cool"). these games relied more on testosterone than skill, being that braking wasn't really a requirement while racing and outrunning cops was more important than actually racing.

in "Need for Speed - Shift", you are a nameless driver who is trying to make it big in the professional racing world. you have a nameless race director with a catchy British accent and boatloads of racing wisdom ("...and watch out for that downhill curve. If you hit the brakes here, you're gonna spin out.").

the major diofference between this title as oppposed to other NFS games is that you must must MUST pay attention to game mechanics. this means that you can't go barreling around turn full throttle or slam into other cars at 200mph. this game is what i call a Racing Simulator which mewans that it has sort of real-world physics. you get to pretend like you are a real driver, minus the bodily harm factors and the part where you get to feel the road beneath your tires. but it is very real all the same. this game still has the visual customization options that previous NFS titles have had, but the focus is more on the race and winning, than looking good.

in prior titles, there were cheesy cutscenes and a backstory that tells you why you are driving cars and stuff. these were mostly just fluff; hot air to make the game more appealing without actually having a good storyline or decent game. in SHIFT you have no characters or names to worry about, just the other cars on the track. at least as far as i have gotten. the physics of the cars feel fantastic and i find myself wincing at approaching walls. sometimes i get to flip the opponents, which always makes for a fun replay. watching vehicles that weigh nearly a ton go pinwheeling over speeding cars makes for a visceral feeling of danger and really pumps up the adrenaline. hitting your opponents also brings into effect Einstein's obnoxious phrase "Every action has an equal, and opposite, reaction". hit them broadside and you'll likely find you have come to a dead stop. tap them with you rear wheel and get frustrated while the world spins. dodging other vehicles is apparently a full-time job.

the cars themselves are pretty detailed. they have realistic sizes and shapes, not cartooned to look cool. some games make the cars too wide or too long to appeal to testosterone-junkies that want to feel macho. this game really makes you feel like you are in there.

the visual effects also give a fantastic idea of raw speed. blasting down a straightaway at the approaching turn, you feel muscles begin to clench up at the prospect of missing the knife-edge perfection required to make this turn. you have the rat pack a bare thirty feet behind you and you know that they will make this turn at near-perfection, so it is up to you to make this without losing control or slowing down too much. for less experienced players, there is a racing line option that shows you where to be and when to brake or accelerate. i have to be honest, this game is so difficult to master that i started out with the racing line. feeling your car's tires skip sideways across the pavement is a frustrating experience.

one major flaw with this game is it's rushed feeling. the replay options are limited to play, pause, skip backwards, skip forwards and five camera angles, with no camera adjustability. this means that you can't stop at the perfect time and sometimes you are blocked by other vehicles or walls. also, sometimes the camera does a weird sort of jig where it flies up and down very fast before freezing and restarting the replay.

another massive mess up is the awkward physics bugs. while the physics feel great, sometimes the computer isn't sure of where the cars really are. you will see them blipping forwards and backwards as if the game knows they are within a five-foot radius of these positions, but not exactly where the cars are supposed to go. this makes close driving hazardous because you never know when a teleporting car is going to launch you forty feet sideways with a one hundred mile per hour forward velocity. frustrating. occasionally your own car is the confused car, which means you skip across the pavement while driving very fast. it feels like driving on gravel at incredibly high speeds. funny, but frustrating.

a big factor in the game is the points system. i have mentioned this last because i am not sure how i feel about this. stars advance you through the game, to each level and unlocking new cars and parts (like turbochargers and suspensions). you get stars for completing objectives in race events. for instance, driving at top speed or getting all the corners on the track perfect. sometimes they are very easy, like getting 480 profile points (i will explain profile points in a moment) which takes perhaps fifteen seconds. the reason i am not sure i like this is becuase the makers made some stars laughably easy to get and others insanely hard to get. case in point: a race requires that you get all the corners mastered on a track called nordschleife (don't bother trying to pronounce the name, it's German). the main problem is that nordschleife is about 12 miles long and even with perfect driving in the fastest car, you will race one lap in about 5 minutes. most tracks have 1 or 2 minute laps. nordschleife also has about three hundred billion different turns that are exceedingly difficult. mastering the corners means you will literally spends hours perfecting the track. kind of a waste of time, in my opinion. so obviously some stars are only for the true-blue racers while the rest is for casual gamers.

as for profile points, they tell you if you are a precise driver or an aggressive driver. some actions fall into the aggressive category (such as spinning an opponent off the track) and some fall into the precise category (such as mastering a corner or passing an opponent without touching them). they have no real bearing on the game aside from that they unlock various visual effects, such as decals or paint jobs. sometimes gaining a new level will give you boatloads of cash to blow on cars and parts. profile points make the game fun in that you can see if you are a road-bully or a track ninja, but they have a minimal role in the overall game.

as for the game as a whole, i really like it and i think it is an excellent timekill. the ESRB rates it E for Everyone and i wholly agree. there is no violence, aside from flying cars, and zero offensive language. skimpily-clad females are at an all-time low for NFS games (there are zero of these ladies) and because of a lack of story, there is no suggestion of anything questionable. this game is truly for all ages. even my mom likes to occasionally test her skills. i hope you enjoy it as much as i do.