“Switchin’ Speeds Like Bruce Lee”: NFS Shift Review

The Need for Speed series had some of the best arcade racing games out in its heyday. Then the franchise fell from grace with an annual slew of uninspired street racers. EA realized that something had to give when they put out Need for Speed: Shift its latest release. So while NFS Shift is a reboot, is it enough to revive the Need for Speed name to its former glory?

Gone are the cop chases and illegal street races. The game leans towards the simulation side of things as it’s based on closed circuit professional driving events. Racers have a choice between single races, endurance races, time trials, drift competitions and series of each all with diverse themes. That may seem like standard fare but NFS Shift has a couple of tricks up its sleeve. The first is the driving profile. The game tallies up points depending on your actions on the track and classifies your racing style. Players that stick to the line and race clean are “Precision” drivers. Cats that drive dirty and block competitors from passing are “Aggressive” drivers. You’ll rank up with these points and get more sponsorship money, invitational events and other unlocks. Your profile is persistent across all modes as is your prize money so it doesn’t like you’re wasting time outside of the career mode. You also get a lot of cash fairly quickly so it’s only a matter of time before you buy more cars and upgrade their parts. The new car battles are great too. You square off against your rival with stock cars in a best of three series. While some of the events are lopsided (a Lamborghini Gallardo Vs. a Murciélago?) they’re entertaining and have a fair learning curve.

New events and tiers get unlocked in career mode based on your bank of stars. You get these stars by getting podium finishes, meeting driver profile scores and doing event specific challenges like running a clean lap and breaking a lap record among other requisites. You can pretty much choose whatever matches you want as long as your car meets the requirements. The game will even spot your cars for certain events. Tiers 1-4 have their own line of cars for purchase that get better as you progress. Tier 5, the last tier, unlocks the NFS Live Tour: the final string of challenges in the game.

NFS: Shift is fun on the track for the most part. The game has a great sense of speed but they’re definitely on the slippery side. The rear wheel drive cars can be especially unwieldy but tuning them helps out a bit. The 30+ tracks are well designed and feature real and fantasy courses. AI drivers are pretty dynamic as well. They’re not afraid to tailgate and block you from advancing as they’ll even create their own pileups. What’s more is the dashboard view is the best I’ve seen in a racing game. It simulates helmet and body movements as you reach top speeds and careen around corners. Your driver leans forward as he brakes and gets tunnel vision on straight-aways. The screen fades into gray when you wreck and blurs out when accidents get ugly. Simply put, driving in first person is an experience in itself. You miss out on the peripheral vision from the bumper cam but it’s enjoyable to experiment with nonetheless.

You’d think NFS: Shift had the makings of a classic until you notice a gang of issues that keep it from changing gears. The drift competitions aren’t beginner friendly. Considering drifting is difficult in real life, you can respect the simulation nature. With that said, learning how to drift is frustrating at first as its all trial and error. It’s not impossible but a proper tutorial would’ve worked wonders. Additionally, you ALWAYS start races at the back of the pack. It’s aggravating in the later races especially when everyone has the same car in a field of sixteen You start at on the opposite side of the grid even if you get on the podium beforehand. The multi-player and online features are paltry outside of online car battles. Turns out it only supports eight racers online at a time whereas general play hosts sixteen You can’t choose your lobby, spectate races or know what cars other players chose until the race starts. There’s no offline multi-player either. To its credit, the game is relatively lag free and gives speed penalties to people that cut corners on the track.

NFS: Shift makes the most of its lane with sleek looks and exceptional gameplay. It’s unfortunate that its weird design choices and somewhat small lineup of cars keep it from being great. Still, Shift is arguably the best Need for Speed title since the Hot Pursuit days. Playstation 3 heads have a ways to go until GT 5 drops so they can take their time with this one. The game suffers from bad timing on the 360 lovers as Forza Motorsport 3 drops at the end of October. It’s unfair to compare a finished product to a hyped game that’s not even out. At any rate the game is worth a shot. With over 120 career challenges you’ll have plenty of nitro to keep you occupied.