Review: Need For Speed: Shift - A shift indeed

By Mike Bantick
Saturday, 03 October 2009 14:10

Entertainment

Cars and upgrades are, of course, purchased with in-game money earned from race events.  Or, if you just cannot wait for that 1.2 million dollar high tier Bugatti Veyron -for example – then why not spend real money on it?  You can unlock cars using your own real-world hard earned if you wish.

But beware, many of the in-game events actually use specific cars, supplied by manufacturers for the event, so your purchased cars will predominately be used online.

The game itself plays out in a free way, select an event and if you own the required car, or are given one for the occasion then it is a short wait for the green light.

There are plenty of events and tracks to experience, from straight up racing, to raceway eliminators (where the last place competitor is removed from the race each lap), hot lap, time attack, endurance series events, manufacturer events and driver duels.

In a duel, you will get a choice of cars to try and out race your rival, these events are certainly more white-knuckle inducing than the standard races, but because there are no cut-scenes in this title, as cheesy as they may have been, rivals in Shift are not the “characters” they could be.

But in a race, it is nice that Shift does not suffer from the Gran Turismo syndrome of boring robotic AI.  Competitors will bang and crash their way around the track, sometimes fluff up a racing line, resulting in a stream of dust pluming from the cars rear.  Generally however they provide a great challenge for the single player portion of the game.

Audio is a notch up from Undercover, with the variety of engine sizes and types as well as environmental considerations noticeable.



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