Lots of fun. Graphics are good. Good variety of race tracks. I have a few minor complaints. The load screen text transitions too fast. I can't read a load screen hint before it swaps to the next hint. It does swap back, but it's still a bit annoying. And the music you hear during cut-scenes totally drowns out the voice of the guy giving instructions, so it's hard to tell what you're supposed to be doing. I figure it out pretty easily once I'm in game, but it seems like better audio balancing would have made that less of a headache.

All told though, I'm having a lot of fun. I marched through Tier 1 and have a couple of cars that are both fun to drive. This is much better than the last NFS.

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Need for Speed: Shift is this year's iteration of the annual Need for Speed Series. Forgoing its dependence on the underground street racing scene, this one moves the series into the realm of simulation real world racing. Pretty much, this game relies on the sense of speed and the forgoing of police chases, nitrous boosts, etc.

Need for Speed Shift is definitely a step in the right direction for the series that people claim has been losing its thrill in recent years. Although fans of Underground and etc may feel like a foreigner to the series when playing this game; Shift stands to appeal to fans of simulation racing. In this game you can buy a myriad of cars, unlock them in greater tiers of races, or mod them to your hearts content. The game has about over 50 different cars that are equivalent to their real world counterparts (with extremely detailed cockpit views). There are also over 20 different tracks that all have a variety of race types on them. You can take part in Drifting competitions (like the real world Drift events), car battles, races, timed laps. A player will go through all of these events in the career mode as they work to earn money, and reach the Need for Speed World Cup.

Shift excels in the presentation department. The cockpit view is the best racing perspective in this game (there are the usual options here) for it adds an extra element of personality to it when you are in this view and the screen blurs if you crash, or if you crash quite hard your in car driver will grunt. You are also able to see them shift gears too. The game has damage so in this cockpit view your cars screen will crack, or you will see your hood fly off. The tracks look amazing and one would be fooled into thinking it is an actual real life representation of the track. For example, one wouldnt believe how much the Laguna Seca corkscrew mimics the actual real life track. The track themselves, you will see spectators waving their flags, the blurring effects look great as you pass them by as well as others. The thrill of speed is accurately felt in this game too. Other minor details are noticiable such as the Ferris Wheel spinning in one track too.

Soundwise, the games soundtrack for in race music is set to be off by default but one can turn it on for the usual variety of picks from Electronic Arts and licensed music. Sound effects are accurately represented and vary for each car. If it is a low powered car then the engine will sound low powered and vice versa. The English narrator is quite excellent in explaining various items and for items where his explanation is off, you can press L1 to hear it, such as on the customization screen when you need to upgrade the car (helpful if you dont know why you would pay $12,000 to upgrade your engine, etc).

Mechanics wise, the game will start you off by having you race one practice lap to determine your settings. These settings can range from having the racing line turned on, auto steering/auto braking turned on, and whether or not it will have your damage set to "visual only" or full damage in which your driving will be affected. After doing this it will determine a difficulty setting and move you on to the career mode. In this mode there are several tears and more tiers can be unlocked by gaining stars. Stars are earned on each race by winning, meeting the points requirement, or meeting a speed threshold. You earn points by performing "Precision" actions or "Aggressive" actions. Which this ensures is that while everyone may not be able to achieve first place, each race will net you points for your driver profile (which is an ingame achievement system which gives you a driver level which nets you access to more money, events, and upgrades). Precision actions are those in which you overtake an opponent without touching their car, following the race line, mastering a corner, while aggressive actions are those in which you try to ram cars off the road, spin them out of control, etc. The AI will cater to your style as well. You can also use the profile to search for races with other players just like you.

Ultimately there is much more to Need For Speed Shift than I can put into writing, however, this game is a pretty amazing offering from EA and is a nice new direction for the Need for Speed Shift series to take. Apart from only offering the 50+ cars, there is nothing that negative about the game. It could even be comparable to that of GT5 Prologue, GRID, and Forza. For the first of its kind from this developer, I would say this was an amazing undertaking that doesnt fail to please racing fans.

*Controls: I play the game using the control pad. The control setting that is set by default may not be pleasing to most players however, in car customization and such you can undertake advance settings to change extremely meticulous settings to allow for more changes that will cause you to drive less "jeeringly" and more smoothly. Try it out. A wheel would be nice to have too!

Pros

-Nice, new, fresh direction for Need for Speed Series

-Detailed SIM racer

-Detailed Car Customization

-High production values

-Decent DualShock 3 Controls

-Love the trophies

-Driver Profile is addicting

-Tracks from around the world

-Upgrading Tier 1 cars is rewarding in later tiers and events.

Cons

-People who expect police chases, traps, an "arcadey nitrous rush" will be disappointed

-Controls take getting used to

-Would have been nice to have over 100+ cars

Edit: Patch 1.01 released on Sept 24, 2009, which corrects damage, offering Full Damage model being able to be turned off or on, and actually shown on the car.

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I wanted to love this game, in almost other aspects the game is great, graphics are great, driving feels pretty good, great track selection, and some fast performance cars to choose from.

BUT... there are only 3 preset control configurations on the console versions, this absolutely sucks and is a reason not to buy the game. It's simple, I want X as accelerate, square for brake, L2 for downshift, R2 for upshift, none of the configs have that. How hard is it for developers to make fully mapped controls. They've been doing it for years.

I don't care how great a game is, if my hands aren't comfortable when playing it, then why would I play it.

Unless there is a patch that includes customizable controls schemes, I would advise against buying this game

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I personally enjoy this game because it has a figure 8 track. It's very easy to learn how to use the game. (Easy for Beginners!) Awesome graphics and so much more!!

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Great game. The best racing simulation to date, especially if you experience the game in cockpit view. Needs some customization when using G25 wheel. And what happened to 1080p for PS3?

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Wow! I have to say I was extremely surprised by this title.

This is the most realistic and probably the most fun racing game I have ever played.

Just because you're now required to stay on a certain path, doesn't mean that the racing experience is ruined. In fact, I think the realism in this game contributes to the difficulty and to how much fun it is.

I highly recommend using a force feedback steering wheel and using full manual (shifting, no ABS, no TCS, etc). It actually makes the game a lot more fun.

And this isn't one of those games where as you progress, no matter how fast you're going, other cars of the same specs will not suddenly zoom by you (this is a common tweak racing game designers put in certain titles, simply to increase the difficulty of the game).

The difficulty in this game lies in control of your vehicle and your navigation of the track.

Buy this game. It's super great! (You might as well, since GT5 is taking forever to come out).

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I haven't played a Need For Speed game since probably the original release(s) several years ago. This one got pretty good reviews for the most part so me and some friends picked it up when it had a temporary price decrease on Amazon.

And I have to say this game is darn good!

It's super fun to play. Like others have said, it's somewhat simulation somewhat arcade-sh, though probably more on the arcade side than simulation. The one player game is fun stuff, earning stars for podium finishes and other tasks such as clean laps or earning enough points during a race to advance your career to the NFS World Tour. The modes you mostly play are racing, time attack (almost exact same thing as race though), and drifting.

Practically everything you do in this game is applied to your driver profile. Almost anything you do during a race earns you points - such as corner slides, drafting, following the race line (basically staying on the track), "trading paint" (Yes, hitting another car earns you some points!), or clean passing an opponent. There are 50 driver levels. In addition to this, there are badges you can earn (which is where you will get most of your trophies). Stuff like drafting enough opponents, winning online races, or getting enough miles on your cars. The trophies in this game are pretty easy overall, and platinum doesn't seem too bad either, seems like one were you just need to put enough time into the title (you don't have to do 100% of the badges, only like 20 / 27 of them). All these things you unlock as you race really keeps things addicting and fun!

The single player game is quite lengthy and fun to go through. Online is also a blast. I hardly ever go through a race were I'm not racing neck and neck with another driver. You usually don't just sit there racing far behind other players (no handicap either, as far as I can tell). Ramming other drivers off the track on corners is also fairly normal.

The graphics are pretty good, but could be better. The cars look pretty good and include damage when you hit something. The tracks look alright graphically, and also have nice scenery instead of just boring grass. The game only runs in 720P unfortunately, but like I said, it looks good. Really nothing to complain about. The driver seat view also looks fantastic (you can even look left and right and see inside the car a bit using the right analog stick). Others have talked about blurred graphics. The only thing that I've noticed that blurs in this game is when you hit a wall really hard; Running into a wall really hard makes the screens' vision really blurry for like 2 seconds.

This game has a lot of style in it's presentation. The menu and cut scenes look sweet. There are over 30 tracks and a large selection of American, European and Japanese cars to drive.

As I said before, I thought this was a very fun racing game. I'm a hardcore gamer, too. Very highly recommended!

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Setup:

PlayStation 3 120 GB

Logitech G27 Racing Wheel for PC and PS3

I have yet to wreck my car so bad that I couldn't drive it any longer on NFS:Shift. It is a much better sim than any previous NFS game. The arcade mode is still there in that you can use any car ahead of you to slow down into a corner. Get behind? Drive like a maniac and then slam into the cars ahead, sure the hood will crumple but you will blast them off the track and if your good you can then run ahead on to the next set and slam into them. Its like a mix of a demolition derby and a racing sim.

There are a ton of redeeming qualities in this game though, so dont think its all bad;

Cockpit:

The cockpits of these cars look very authentic. I am a fan of Top Gear and have seen every car in this game on that show several times (except the Camaro) and the cockpits here look identical. When you drive a car it tallies up the miles you have driven it which is cool to say you have driven a few thousand miles in car X. It makes you want to keep a car longer just so you can become more proficient.

AI:

Not bad, many of them want to kill you and they will try to run you off the road. Which can help you get ready for online races because they will do the exact same thing.

Cars:

Very accurate but indestructible. Drive a Zonda or Veyron into a wall at 200 MPH and it will only dent the hood slighlty and may break the lenses.

I can only compare this to another driving sim even though its an off road rally game. Comparing this to Dirt 2 and you will see some glaring issues. First off in Dirt if you hit a wall or even a hay bale at speed you may risk ripping a body panel off or even the wheel; ending your race. In Shift you can slam into anything you want and it will keep on going.

Issue 2: the gravel is impossible to turn on. I realize hitting gravel at high speed means you can not turn as sharply but in Shift you hit it at anything over 20 and you will hit the wall.

Issue 3: The car customizing is really difficult to do. Want to do ralley stripes on your car, it can take 30 minutes or more to get them all in place, hit a wrong button and all that work is gone.

Pros:

>> Wonderful car models

>> Drive some of the rarest cars on the planet

>> Accurate cockpits

>> Cool animations when you hit things

Cons:

<< Ultra difficult 1 on 1 sponsored races (if the guy gets away you might as well reset)

<< Very easy to win races by using cars ahead as bumpers to slow into corners

<< Little to no consequence for whacking a car or a wall

Overall this is a very good racing arcade game. I will not call it a full on racing sim yet, maybe with the next iteration.

Thanks for reading my review.

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Bought this for my daughter and she loves it.Should of bought a racing wheel too but that had to wait.

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After the disappointments of the prior Need For Speeds, this is a great surprise. The sense of speed is incredible in this game, whether the camera is inside or outside. Graphics are nice and detailed and a great framerate, with beautiful looking cars and tracks. The nearest game this reminds me of is PGR, an underated game IMO versus GT and Forza etc. With options for more SIM like controls or more arcade like its a game anyone can appreciate.

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I wanted to add my two cents, even though it'll probably get lost in the huge bag of Amazon's reviews. I've owned this game for almost a year now, I play on my PS3 with a Logitech Driving Force GT wheel, and I'm still turning to it to get my fix of track racing.

I've taken my [real] car out to the track a few times (NFS:Shift doesn't do autocross) and my overall reaction to the game is that it feels and plays wonderfully. The unique camera jostling and tunnel-vision effects help immerse the player in the game and allows them to "feel" the Gs through a corner better than any other racing game I've played. That being said, yes it has a slight arcade-y vibe to it, but turn off all the fancy computer aids like stability management and traction control (I think they may also have brake assist and other non-purist features like that), and you've got yourself a rather realistic racing sim. The graphics are beautiful, the physics are realistic, the engine noises sound great (I can't personally vouch for the authenticity of a specific Ferrari or Porsche engine note, unfortunately). It's the little things that I enjoy, like requiring the driver to shift into first gear on the grid before the green, and being able to feel the bumps in the road surface.

Turning to my one huge pet peeve about this game... You can be the best driver out there, but if you play against a cheating 14-year-old that rams into your car to brake himself in the first corner, you're done. It can be really frustrating and I would really like to see the developers release an update to allow ghosting in online races, to avoid intentional crashing. But you can always do what I do and just drive a quick race on the nurburgring over and over and over... :D

If you're a fan of racing games, unless you only play super arcade-y games like RUSH 2049 or Ridge Racer, at least give this game a shot. I wasn't too comfortable with it when I started playing it either (first hour or so), but I quickly warmed up to it and it's one of the best racing games I've played.

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After reading the reviews on Amazon I wasn't sure if this game was going to meet my expectations. With comments on compatibility with the Logitech wheel (I have a G27) and "launching" issues, I was willing to wait for Gran Turismo 5, until they pushed the release of that back to April 2010. I'm glad I didn't wait because this is the best racing game I've played, whether SIM or arcade. It's just plain fun, and what else is a video game supposed to be? The inside dashboards are very accurate, and feedback through the wheel is amazing. This may not be the best SIM game on the market, but it keeps me glued to the TV for hours at a time as I try to improve my precision or aggressive driving skills through the game. I especially enjoy the invitational events where different "tiers" of cars are available to race, rather than being stuck with the cars that you've purchased. This variety adds interest to the game and lets you drive the car that suits your talent and mood. Why pay $25 for Prologue when you can tune up for the next 4 months with this?

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THIS NEED FOR SPEED GAME [SHIFT] IS THE VERY BEST GAME EVER MADE BY EA SPORTS IT HAS OVER 100 SINGLE RACES 4 LEVELS OF CHANGLES. THE IN CAR VIEW IS JUST LIKE DRIVING A REAL RACE CAR YOU GET THE FEEL OF DRIVING AND ALMOST FEELING THE G-FORCE. TRUST ME YOU CANT GET ENOUGHT OF THE RACEING YOU WILL NOT PUT THE GAME DOWN!! O YA AND BUYING IT FROM AMAZON DOT COM YOU WILL GET THE BEST PRICE IN TOWN

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I know it sits in between a sim and an arcade racer, and for me it is the perfect mix. I also own just about every racing game from every system and this is hands down not just my favorite racing game, but my favorite game. I don't use my Logitech wheel with this on PS3 because I love how the car controls with the game pad. I do like to use the MS Wheel on the 360 version. I don't understand other reviews stating the graphics are mediocre. In HD this game is gorgeous. The colors don't "pop" like they do in Forza 3 (Forza is "hyper" colorful, to the point almost too much), but Shift is crisp, colorful, fast and just plain fun! The sense of speed is incredible. I own it for both PS3 & 360 and it's the game I reach for 1st and will play for a long time to come. I love the direction the NFS series has taken with this game & I hope they make many more.

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Overall this game is for anyone who loves sim or arcade racers. At first look you would think this is just another NFS pro street game with a mix of Forza and Grid, but underneath the surface you can tell that the developers put a lot of thought and time into this game. Graphics and gameplay are phenomenal, not as good as Gran Turismo but still great. If you own a G25 you will be glad to know that this game almost takes full advantage of it. The one big thing that I do have is the inability to switch some of the buttons, because I would have liked to use the wheel buttons for the NOS, but I can deal with it. This game is a breath of fresh air from the previous disappointments, IMO, a nice addition to the ever expanding racing genre.

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