If you are looking for a traditional Need for Speed game in the latest addition to the series, Shift, look again. You won’t find any sirens blazing in a dramatic police chase or points earned for the destruction of the city round about you. Need for Speed: Shift has been marketed as a simulation racing game and, although it falls short of this mark as shall be discovered, it has stepped far away from any form of arcade-game roots that may have been laid down in previous titles.
The focus of Need for Speed: Shift is on realism, with controls said to mimic those of real life. Unfortunately, the developers didn’t seem too confident in their ability to step away from a proven formula, creating an experience that is somewhat difficult to master. The slightest wrong touch of a control may send your supercar spiralling into a wall due to the under-par physics engine that seems incapable of modelling cars with any form of mass. That means you might simply tap an opponent and see them flipping off the road – realism? Not quite.
As a single player stepping into Shift you’ll be presented with two options; a quick race and the career mode. Starting the career mode will throw you straight into a race designed to test your level of skill. This clever feature will suggest certain car controls that you might find useful based on the aptitude you have displayed within the race, while also making suggestions as to the difficulty of the Artificial Intelligence you’ll be facing. While this seems like a great idea, if you jump straight into the career mode as most of us are inclined to do, you’re likely to find the controls strange enough that you will find yourself facing backward and lodged in a wall. It might be worth a few laps around the quick race tracks to get your hand in before taking the game’s advice.
Progressing through the career mode will provide more evidence that EA were not entirely clear upon the market that they were aiming the game at. While precision driving will be rewarded, so will aggression. When you can earn points for taking the correct racing line, or knocking your opponents off the track which will be the more favourable option?
This is reflected in the online multiplayer mode of the game. Lag-less and smooth gameplay will soon be forgotten in the carnage that ensues as players from around the globe attempt to knock you off course in what can only be described as an enormous game of bumper cars. Fun initially perhaps but it’ll soon wear thin. The one-on-one mode is the saving grace of the multiplayer side to Need for Speed: Shift if focusing on the driving itself is important to you.
Undoubtedly Need for Speed: Shift is an attractive title, and with a great line up of supercars to step into and some excellent and epic tracks to explore, there is fun to be had. However it seems that in trying to please everyone with the inclusion of different genres of racing games, Shift does well at all but excels at nothing.