Need for Speed Shift Review

Need for Speed Shift Review

Need for Speed Shift is an arcade racing game made by Electronic Arts. Part of the Need for Speed franchise, it was developed by Slightly Mad Studios and released in 2008.

This Need for Speed game does not contain a world map. Instead, what is included is a number of tiers, each made up of a number of categories and within it, a number of races. There are five tiers in total and together it is called the “NFS Live World Series”. There are well known tracks from around the world and some not so well known. Some of the tracks include: the Nurburgring, Brands Hatch, Silverstone, Spa and Laguna Seca. There are nineteen tracks. In each tier there are different cars you can purchase. From entry level racing cars like the Audi TT, Infiniti G35, Porsche 911 moving up to the supercars like the Lambo Gallardo and hypercars such as the Pagani Zonda.

Now to the gameplay. The game starts off fairly easy and bear in mind there are difficulty levels that can be changed. If you choose your cars wisely and fully upgrade them there is nothing stopping you from finishing this game. I really liked the racing style of this game. I found it very enjoyable. A mix between arcade and simulation and I think EA got it just right. Mistakes were not overly punished and if you made a mistake the AI was a bit lenient to let you catch up. There are also basic racing rules in place. For example, cutting corners more than three times will get you disqualified from the race. The physics were quite realistic (except the Lamborghini Gallardo with which I found myself overtaking cars by scooping them up and throwing them over the top of me). If you had the music on during the race (off by default) it added to the ambiance of the game. I used an Xbox controller for Windows. The car sounds were realistic as well as the environment. For an old game the graphics were really good but did not tax the system. Nice effects were evident like the lens flare from the sun and the effects the sun had on the clouds in the afternoon. Like most racing games there were a number of camera angles with which you can play with. I started with in car dash cam and settled with the behind car cam. I chose this because you could see the turns and cars further ahead. It is a fairly long game to progress through all the tiers but it's just one of those games that you don’t get sick of that easy.

As well as racing, there are upgrades and tuning that can be performed to most cars. It’s a good idea to upgrade the car as much as possible as this will make racing a lot easier (even up to a point where you win by 20 seconds or more). The last event in each tier normally ends with a more difficult one on one race, consisting of best of three. There is some drifting in this game but not much. Most of the events are races with some time trials as well as endurance and maybe a few drag events thrown in. The only mildly annoying thing to consider is when you hit the wall or crash, the screen goes black and white and out of focus and takes a few seconds to get back to normal again. The other thing to remember is that there is not a lot of cars to purchase in each tier. If you are a car lover you may find this annoying. I played the game with all the detail settings turned on the highest level.

This is probably the most fun I have had playing an older game for quite a while.   

8.2/10