Need For Speed: Shift

[Art Blade]

Anyone up for it? This is going to be my next game

Release Date: September 15, 2009, Platforms: PC, Sony PSP, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

It reminds me of the RaceDriver:Grid game regarding the different game and career options and race styles, it now features a proper and operational dash board for a decent feel which did not exist in previous NFS games. There will be 65 licensed and customisable cars :)

Take a look: (there are many vids about Shift)
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/preview-need-for/55817
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/pure-racing-need-for/55380
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gameplay-montage-need-for/55404

[Fiach]

Kinda wish they stayed with the old NFS stuff like MW and Carbon.

I'll be sticking with Forza when three comes out, though this game (Shift) is getting a major thumbs up in previews, theres not enough time to play many racers for me as I prefer story driven genres, so I kinda stick to what I know.

[Art Blade]

One word: Delayed.  >:( :-\

[PZ]

One word: Delayed.  >:( :-\

"Delayed" seems to be the most common word in the gaming circle's language.  This game reminds me quite a bit of GT5

[Fiach]

Alot of games have been postponed til Q1 2010, fear of MW2 and also the recession are apparently the main reasons.

There will be a slew of AAA games released after xmas, start saving now guys ! :)

With no games really for the last couple of months worth talking about, I managed to finally get a PS3 Slimline (cant use it until Oct 1st my birthday though >.<), got a few games cheap too (Drakes, Heavenly Sword, MGS and Infamous), the second hand prices for PS3 games are waaaay cheaper than the 360 ones, Infamous came free with the console, the othere were €13 each only..... sweet! :)

[Art Blade]

two words: got it  ;D ;D ;D for only 39€ - nice price.

going to install... :)

[Fiach]

Hope you enjoy it Art :)

Looking forward to a review mate, hope there's a demo soonish, only NFS I never liked was pro street, undercover was a bit tosh too.

[Art Blade]

Pro Street was when I thought I'd never buy any NFS again, and Under Cover was when I thought I should have stuck to my first statement... Now with SHIFT I hope to see something like a mixture between RD:Grid and NFS (tuning-wise). Will keep you posted up :)

[spaceboy]

Alot of games have been postponed til Q1 2010, fear of MW2 and also the recession are apparently the main reasons.

There will be a slew of AAA games released after xmas, start saving now guys ! :)

With no games really for the last couple of months worth talking about, I managed to finally get a PS3 Slimline (cant use it until Oct 1st my birthday though >.<), got a few games cheap too (Drakes, Heavenly Sword, MGS and Infamous), the second hand prices for PS3 games are waaaay cheaper than the 360 ones, Infamous came free with the console, the othere were €13 each only..... sweet! :)

man you're good waiting for your birthday.  I can't wait to hear what you think of inFamous.  I also just picked up Drakes Fortune in anticipation of Uncharted 2 so we can compare notes as we go through it.  I did not play heavenly sword yet though.  Hey, maybe we can meet up online in some game now (if we can get timezones to w@&k out)

[Art Blade]

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Did my first testing and playing around: looks good, feels good, is good (so far) ;)

You start off in a borrowed car to find out what your setup should be (ie little helpers at w@&k or all hard core with manual shifting etc). You can choose how hard it is, including full damage model or visual damage only. It supports a lot of input devices, among them the Logitech G25 racing wheel (which I have). Right now I use the keyboard with those little helpers, but I will install the racing wheel at the weekend though so I can dump those helpers (I can already tell how cool that will be, the car drifts, slides, breaks out etc).

After your first test race you get money, I got $40k for finishing 1st, and then you have the first decision to make: Which of those "tier 1 cars" do I want to purchase? Also, you have to consider that a car that costs less than you have will leave you with extra money you can spend on upgrades. THAT is what NFS is good at... tuning your car down to the last bit of detail. People that are not familiar with that kind of technical overload might want to stick to default settings of their upgrades, but if you fancy some extra crazed out stuff, go and tune every single wheel and spring ;) GREAT  :-X

The first real race was to prove I made the right decisions and tweaks (bought a Mazda RX8 and some engine tunings, manually changing some setups). Ok, the pic above shows my podium car moments before making 1st place  :)

I am already happy with the game. Full details maxed out (but as always I don't use AA) and it looks nice. Smooth, no stutters... no crashes so far (lol) and well, I got what I expected: A mixture of NFS tuning and RD:GRID racing career style game.

Will keep you posted up :)

[Fiach]

Glad to hear you are enjoying it Art, RX8 is always a good car in NFS, but using a keyboard... now thats HARDCORE!!!!  :)

Spaceboy, while I'm waiting I've been playing the PS2, to get used to the controller, I've been playing Killzone 1, man the controller sucks compared to the 360 one, the sticks feel too close together and too springy, I guess its what you are used to.

Heavenly sword got good reviews when it was released at launch, its a sword and sorcery thing, this chick has a sword, but if she uses its powers, it eats into her health points, Drakes is supposed to be maybe the best game on PS3, so I think that will be fun too, sposed to be a bit like Tomb Raider with more combat.

Damn, I'm getting drool all over me keyboard now >.<  :-[

[Art Blade]

Hehe, Fiach :) I even played it with keyboard and without traction control etc, without those little helpers, but now after 16 wins, tracks get more difficult, I have switched two of them back on. Too easy to sail out of those curves without ;)

You get points both for aggressive and precision driving. Guess what... keyboard... I am regarded a precision driver by the game (clearly more points there)  ;D

It is great great fun and addictive. Need for Bed, now  ;)

Track in London (from Replay)

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[Fiach]

Whats the sound track like are there different stations or genres of music, any chat radio stations?

[Art Blade]

not that I am aware of. It's like on/off or adjust volume for different game sections (ie menue, race). Sounds like it used to, but no more advertising artists and tracks. Just background.

[Art Blade]

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The old NFS series allowed you to buy upgrades for your car, but once you were thinking about selling your upgraded car you got angry: No refunds for upgrades. And only like 50% for the car. I don't remember if they gave you refunds later on in the series, but I know you always had to cope with a significant loss. Now look at that, my RX-8 used to cost 27,000$, and I can sell it including all upgrades at 100%  ;D :-X They made everything right so far, not one thing I can complain about  :-X Even where you want to place liveries is completely free - just pick a part of the car and move it around as you like, then place it. Visual upgrades cost nothing, 0,00$!  :-X

[Art Blade]

Just a sidenote: I am still playing with my keyboard, unlocked tier 3/5 now and have driver level 12/50. I can almost hear some people scream now  ;D

[Fiach]

Nice to see you are still having fun mate :)

In case you are interested, heres a Forza 3 car list :

http://forum.racedepartment.com/forza-motorsport-3/19293-wip-forza-motorsport-3-car-track-list.html



This is my fave car from Testdrive Unlimited (Shelby Daytona Coupe 1965), which is also included, sweetness!!!

http://i29.tinypic.com/mhu741.jpg

[Art Blade]

OH GOSH 400+ cars there  :-X I recognise that oldtimer from TDU, my all-time favourite racing game :)

I want to add that in SHIFT you can buy and sell single upgrades at any time, which is funny and useful. If you are new to the game or just bought another car, you can buy an upgrade and if it doesn't seem to help, just sell it and buy something else :)

Now I've finished tier1 in NFSshift but one "tier4 invitational race" where you got to drive that Bugatti Veron, bloody hell  :) No way I can handle that now. I want to see how far I can get with keyboard :)

Just had my first game crash in tier2, tried my first drift event. Feels like "no idea how to do that" despite experience in all those drift races of other games. Will stick to "simple" races for a while. I know there will be a point when keyboard won't do it any more, then I'll need a controller of sorts, my G25 that is :) Only that bugger occupies my entiere desk (manual shifter plus wheel) and those pedals need space too... kind of extremely unpractical if you want to type some posts on a certain forum  ;)

[Fiach]

Yeah drifting can add a high suck value to racers, NFS carbon had them in spades  :'(

The 360 controller will USB to a PC, its an excellent controller if you dont want to go with the whole steering wheel thing.

[Art Blade]

thing is, the wheel I have is just excellent, but right now it's a mixture of "wanna win with that bloody keyboard" and "can't be arsed to stick that wheel to me desk"  ;D

I love drifting, RaceDriver:Grid was excellent, but I haven't figured out yet how it works in Shift. Each racing game has its own rules for that, controller-wise.

[Art Blade]

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Alright, Driver Level 21/50 with 142k+ points (87k precision and 55k agression) and still hammering on my keyboard, I have unlocked the final tier4 with the good stuff  ;D

In the pic, top left is my current cash (not the price of the car, that costs $1,100,000), and down left is a general info (you can't use a Pagani Zonda R for drift races lol)

[Art Blade]

Ah, just something more. Those "tiers" 1-4 represent stages of the games, each with a set of cars and a couple of race series and events. The last stage is called World Tour and is far from me, I've just completed all tier1 races and some of tier2, plus a number of invitational races (kind of bonus races). So I'm only advanced in unlocking, not in completing. There are still LOADS of races to go :)

On a sidenote, the game does not ever make use of a mouse in the PC version, which is remarkable :) Also, every time you fire up the game, the first thing to do is select your language, which is cool (if you speak more than one of them).

If you want to advance in the game, you can do so winning quick races. You always get money for wins, and precision/aggression points which count in your career :)

[Fiach]

Ws lookng into this on gamefaqs and saw this thread on drifting, it may/may not be any use mate :

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=957702&topic=51433282

[Art Blade]

hey, that's nice of you, thanks  :) :-X Funny though that you should mention drifting, I actually already finished/won all tier2 drifting events (on easy, since it's keyboard). As in one of the posts from your link someone said, in SHIFT you can drift anywhere on the track and it counts. The indicators on the track (white and red marks) are not sensitive, just show you where you should be drifting, but you can also try drifting on a straight part of the track. How I do it? Just try to get around the corners, your car will start to drift anyway  ;D It's not stylish with a keyboard, but you do lose quite some rubber on the track, and that's what adds up in your score.

Imagine, in total I have now 166,000 points after 96 races won, driver level 23/50, and the last level requires 500,000 points. Just so you can imagine how HUGE this game is, and I guess there are more than 500k in those events. There are also stars awarded for each win (3 for 1st place) sometimes 2 or 3 more stars for some other goals, so per career race won you get 3-6 stars. I have like 140 stars I guess (keep forgetting it since so many different values count in your career and I keep adding to them), some races will be unlocked with 200 stars. A massive game :)

Now I have 3 cars maxed out, or "pimped up" hehe, and like $1,200,000 cash. I could easily cash in the cars that I have and get like 1,500,000 for them, too. It's nice that you get all your money back regardless what kind of upgrades you bought. So you can always sell one car to buy another one, but you will have to buy all the upgrades one by one plus have to do all the tuning of your car's setup and visual appearence. Keeps you busy, I can tell you :)

[Fiach]

Yeah I've been trying to convince myself to buy this game, but I keep hitting a brick wall :(

Its not NFS, thats the main stumbling block, its just a track racer, No storyline with cheesy cutscenes or cop car chases.

The nearest competitor (I would play) would be Forza 2, but that has so much more, just the car art alone is a major plus point for me, I have a collection of 100 cars that just have art from movies or pop culture on them, that are astounding to look at.

But my other favourite racer (TDU) has an open world, rocking soundtrack, huge car lists (vintage, current and concept), buying houses etc.

For me NFS:S brings nothing to the table other than arcade-ish racing (not a bad thing), the style points are reminiscent of an old dreamcast game Metropolis Street Racing (now called Project Gotham) where you got kudos points for stylish/aggressive driving.

Apparently there will be a demo, so maybe Ill wait until then, On saying that, I'm getting backed up with games at the moment, You just dont get the time in summer, with three kids to entertain, plus the length of alot of the games I play are measured in the 100's of hours (most JRPG's are multi disc games).