For years EA has been trying to improve the Need for Speed franchise to keep up with the likes of Grid, Dirt, Burnout and Forza. EA's past few titles haven't fared too well with reviews and gamers alike due to the over the top nature of the games. Along with the rushed titles by the same developer make for pretty much the same game with a fresh lick of paint every year. Now here comes Need for Speed: Shift, this time by a new developer who had already been working on the title two years prior to the demise of the old NFS developers. The PC GTR developers set about making a new style of Need for Speed which would relate to a more mature audience and satisfy both simulator plus arcade fans. Keep reading my review were I cover each category of the game (gameplay, graphics, sound, etc):

Presentation

Upon first loading up Shift the menu system does have a similar feel to it compared to the previous games with a showroom style display of your car while you choose your options. The menu system is very basic and minimalist which looks great and really suits the games more serious approach to racing. You won't be spending much time in the menus so it's great to have a fast and clear layout making it as easy as possible to get to your next race. The career is laid out into simple categories with all the information clearly visible and understandable to new players. Saying that, there isn't much of a story to the career but it is presented well with an announcer giving you hints and some really well edited video footage to get you into the mood whenever you progress.

Gameplay

This is really where Shift starts to differ from its underlings. NFS: Shift has a good balance between arcade style gameplay and simulation, you have to drive precisely to be effective but you also have a large margin for error. For example, you are hitting a corner about 15mph too fast, most racing simulators would make you hit the gravel/wall but in Shift as long as you let go of the accelerator and turn full lock you should make the corner and just be a little wide. This doesn't make the game easy by any means as progressing through the career will mean much bigger beats to take control of making less room for error. Shift also has a huge variety of assists similar to what you see in most PC racing simulators such as cornering help and braking help. With these on the game becomes extremely easy which is great to let novice users experience a solid race without being frustrated trying to keep the car straight. But disabling all the assist makes the game feel much more like a simulator and become a lot less forgiving on your breaking. I played as an Experienced driver with the AI on Medium and I found it difficult at times keeping up with the AI especially on Car Battle events.

I found the AI to either be fairly easy at times but then brutishly difficult at others, I'm guessing this is to do with the games AI auto correction but I found it to be a tad over the top when assessing my performance. The game does have its challenges anyways, I found drifting to be extremely difficult to get used to. I drift a fair amount on Live for Speed and I'm pretty good at that (using my wheel) but when it came to using the control I could barely hold a drift for longer than 5 seconds. I think this just takes timing getting used to it and plenty of tweaking/playing around with the car. The career mode has a lot to offer in the variety of races. You will find you self competing in a stock 8 car racing all the way to short drift track gaining "mad" points for "sick" drifts. Well you won't see any "sick" or "mad" in Shift as its very consistent over all of the career in keeping its more professional approach.

Graphics

Like every other racing game coming out this year the graphics are fantastic! Not so much the after effects such as reflections, particle effects and general lighting but the sense of speed and atmosphere is extremely hard to rival. Most racing games these days allow you to have the cockpit view which first off adds extra feel to the gameplay but Shift has gone one step further by adding a huge amount of effects to the camera position. It's a real surprise the first time you hit a 150mph and you can only see a fraction of the race track as everything else around you becomes a blur, then as soon as you do slam on the breaks the camera zooms in giving the effect of your head getting slammed forward by the g-forces. Oh boy! Once you crash you will know about it, a huge groan from the driver followed by 3-4 seconds of greyed/blurred vision. With all these effects in place it just makes the racing feel so much more atmospheric. The modelling isn't as great as some other racers out there but the game doesn't look bad at all. I personally really liked how they took real-world racetracks and gave them a slight facelift to make each race feel much more like a spectacle rather than standard showroom style racing. Each race you will keep noticing new graphical features such as overhead planes, fairground rides, different damage models of the cars and again this all adds to the essential racing experience.

Sound

Well I must say one of the best things about Shift has to be the sound, it's fantastic! Now most racers have good engine sounds and effects but they never seem balanced right and you can tell they are just sound files playing. But with Shift you get a real sense of reaction from the sound depending what you are doing with the car and each effect of a scrape and a nudge fits perfectly without being too over the top. It will literary blow you out of your seat the first time you hit one of the tunnels in Tokyo, the sound roars and echoes around your cockpit. There isn't much else to say about the sound apart from its one of the best examples of car/sound effect audio from any racer to date.

Verdict

To sum up EA's new take on the Need for Speed series is that it was the perfect choice and the series has finally got a facelift to compete with the next generation of racers. With the more professional approach to racing but keeping as much chaos and entertainment as possible in each race brings something new to the genre. The AI plays a big part in this as you will see cars out breaking themselves and constant "love taps" throughout the field. Add the amazing visual effects, immersive gameplay and stunning sound to get one well accomplished game. So a visual impressive game with lots of variety and longevity with great cars and a wide selection of tracks it's a must have for any racing fan.