After last year’s Hot Pursuit single-handedly revived the Need for Speed series, we wanted to find out if Shift 2 could do the same for the franchises’ sim racer.
By Leo Stiles
After just one race of Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed, I had to take a look at the box to check the age certificate for the racer – I just couldn’t believe that this game is rated as suitable for ‘Everyone’ because it is one of the most violent video games I’ve ever played.
While there are no heads sliced off or entrails splattered about the place, the visceral racing that Shift 2 offers is white-knuckle stuff that conveys speed and the fine line between control and disaster like no other game before it.
Key to this is the in-helmet camera that puts you not only inside the car but right into the sweaty palms of the driver. Every slight bump in the road, every lean of the car and pull of gravity is channeled through to your point of view and gives even the most pedestrian races an edge. Move up to the performance cars and this physical connection of the car and player takes on a frightening dimension and you inevitably crash, your whole world explodes with impact.
It seems strange to lavish so much attention on a game’s camera but make no mistake, this is a really well thought out addition to a gaming genre that had gone a bit stale of late and one that will be replicated in plenty of future titles.
The Need for Speed franchise is, like most of Electronic Art’s recent output, going through something of a renaissance and with last year’s Burnout-inspired Hot Pursuit taking care of the arcade junkies, Shift 2 caters for the simulation crowd.
Actually, that’s not exactly true, as the game doesn’t even bother trying to compete with sim heavyweights Gran Turismo and Forza and instead it creates something that jettisons much of the coldness of this titles and instead tries its damnedest to convey the unique thrill of driving performance cars at ludicrously high speeds.
Shift 2‘s visuals are stunning, though PC gamers are in for the biggest treat
The centrepiece of the game is the career mode, which like Hot Pursuit, is made up of event groups that you can only access by gaining experience in races. These races are nicely varied affairs and in between regular races there are things such as drift challenges, hot laps and performance events that break up your progression nicely enough. It’s hardly original but done well enough to be compelling and drive you forward.
Where the game does mix it up is by giving each race a list of achievements that boost XP and money earned and means that you can ignore placing first and focus on perfect laps, keeping to the racing line and drift times. This allows you to treat the races like little mini-games all by themselves and while you work to build your racing skills up, it’s nice that completing these tasks can still advance you if you don’t manage to place well in the race itself.
Complementing this is Autolog, the excellent social feature that EA pioneered with Hot Pursuit – every race, track time ad performance record is uploaded to a social profile which is then flagged to your friends.
This fosters some pretty addictive competition and it’s not uncommon to fire up the game with the intention of doing a couple of career milestones, only to be completely distracted by trying to beat your mate’s records. Just like before, Autolog successfully turns the single player experience into something much bigger and more involving.
Shift drifting
The handling model in the game takes a bit of getting used to and I was all over the place before things eventually settled down. The driver AI is on the whole pretty good but there were a couple of occasions when the computer cars wrecked my race by sticking to their racing line with extreme prejudice. Drifting is a new addition to the handling model this time round and takes a lot of work to master. So it should because the benefits to your lap times are massive when you can pull it off.
While it’s true that the game is aimed at the seasoned driver, it does take some pains to ease the novice’s pain with all manner of driving assists that will get you through the first couple of events. However, it won’t be long until you find that these assists are holding you back, as truly competing in the game requires a lot more risktaking than these handholding features will afford you.
There are a few niggles with the game and while the graphics are decent enough, they don’t really do much to stand out from the rat of the pack and as is becoming commonplace the PC version of the game really outshines the consoles with an incredible amount of detail and effects, making the console versions look a bit bland by comparison. This isn’t really the fault of the developer but rather it’s the age old problem of gaming tech getting long in the tooth as it does every five years or so. 
The other problem is that Shift 2 is an excessively American production, with your every action producing some sort of exclamation such as “You’re awesome man” and ”Good job.” While that’s fine for our US brethren, I found the constant stream of exclamations more than a bit annoying and the inclusion of Vaughn Gittin, the current Formula Drift champion, quite jarring. Would it be too much to ask EA to do some localisation for the European markets next time?
These problems are pretty minor and don’t come close to ruining a racing title that confounded my expectations and delivers a robust and thrilling racing experience. It looks like EA are now back in contention for the racing crown; I never thought I’d say that a year ago.
Format: Xbox 360, PS3, PC; Developer: Slightly Mad Studios
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