Need for Speed Shift

Ever since last year’s abysmal Need for Speed Undercover, I’ve lost all hope for this series. After Most Wanted it was an immensely steep downhill journey for the franchise ending in a horrific crash (major pun intended) with Undercover. This year EA decided to ditch the Underground Tuner culture they’ve been milking all these years and head back to the race tracks with Shift, a game that tries to tread the fine line between arcade and simulation with some interesting results.

Unlike all the recent NFS games in recent times that were story driven, Shift basically doesn’t bother with a plot. You’re a rookie who must work his way up the ladder to win the World Tour. Yes, it’s that simple. Gone are the loud mouthed angsty teenagers who’d race you for your car. Shift is all about professional racing on the track and it delivers in that aspect.

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Your first race in the game will gauge your skills as a racer and choose the difficulty level that’ll stick with you for the rest of the game. Of course you can choose to ignore the recommended settings and bump up the difficulty level as you deem fit. The reason I encourage you to do so is because with all assists turned on it’s like the game’s controlling your car most of the time slowing down and braking when necessary. Besides offering a more significant challenge bumping up the difficulty will also ensure more income for you per race.

Income earned by winning races can be used to upgrade your ride or buy newer ones. Now here arises the first problem. Need for Speed Shift pampers you way too much as far as money is concerned. Even at the easiest difficulty level it showers you with tons of cash after every race never letting you feel like you accomplished anything significant. Also for some reason you can buy a car and deck it out but 60% of the races in this game offer their own car presets rendering your purchase and upgrade redundant.

Another sore spot for me in this game was progression. Barely had I finished the first tier when the second and third tier got unlocked. It’s as if the game’s trying really hard to be accessible to everyone but sadly it misses the mark since both the audiences it’s trying to cater to – sim fans and arcade fans - are a drastically different audience.
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Another gameplay mechanic that falls flat on its face is the whole Aggressive/Precision style of driving. Are you a calm driver who’s going to earn Precision points or are you gonna bump racers off the track to earn Aggression Points? It really doesn’t matter because (a) playing as either never really affects your progress in the game and (b) you can bump nearly every car off the track in a race but drive the last few hundred meters in a straight line and wham!, you get more Precision points.

On the plus side Shift packs in a healthy dose of variety as far as events are concerned. In the Career Mode you have regular Races, Eliminator Races, Time Trials, Drift Modes etc. and a brand new mode called Driver Duels. These intense races have you going up against a single car, mano e mano in a three race battle. It gets even more intense when you play these Driver Duels online against real opponents.

If there’s one aspect the game really shines in, it would have to be the technical one. Right from the start of the game you’ll be impressed by Shift’s flashy and sleek menus, gorgeous visuals and authentic car sounds. Also much has been said about its cockpit view that probably deserves all that praise. Not only does it look authentic, right down to the smallest detail but crashing your car in that view will convey the sense of panic and urgency race car drivers undergo while crashing at such high speeds.

Need for Speed Shift does a lot of things right but at the same time it also tries doing too many things and falls flat on its face at times. It’s sleek, sexy and fast paced but at the same time it’s also a bit too easy and doesn’t have an identity of its own. Plus for some reason I really don’t see myself playing this game at a stretch as it tends to get a bit monotonous and boring. Still if you’re looking out for a racing fix till Forza Motorsport 3 or Gran Turismo 5 arrive, give Shift a shot and you may appreciate it for the hybrid that it is.

Need for Speed Shift is available on the Xbox360 (Rs. 2499), PS3 (Rs. 2499), PSP (Rs. 1599) and PC (Rs. 999).