If you can forgive its not about illegal racing and police chasing, you will find this game is potential masterpiece.
Last NFS I finished was nfs:underground1. Second I didn't liked because GTA system implemented in it killed pace for me. Later when those like Carbon and similar were released, I realized I don't enjoy them anymore. They were too arcade for me, I felt that after so many they should finally advance to next level with design and its physics. ProStreet seemed to be answer but I realized after playing I got bored from generic "legal" tracks and that annoying speech and advertisements.
So I think I didn't even played any car game since then and when I heard about Shift I didn't care. But Dirt2 was recently released and I decided to try it with Shift together - when am already at it. Long story short, Dirt2 - while very nice game, uninstall after few hours but Shift... man what a surprise.
So I started game, thinking it will go out of my hard disk after few minutes but I was so wrong. I was playing track after another looking for that "stopper" but instead more I played more I liked this game. After several hours I "woke up" form computer and realized I killed whole day. I missed to cook my steak and go to fitness in time, my day was gone. But I should tell you more about game so here we go:
Graphics, Sounds, Design and Style. These traits are what can Shift be totally proud of. I don't have DX11 card yet so I don't know how much better Dirt2 would look like, but in DX10 I liked Shift much more. It seemed to have more sharp, better look to me and more style. Color palette was carefully picked, everything feels so right in Audio/Video department that other games can hardly compete. Not only that, but many tracks were designed with such style that you can easily forgive few generic ones. London or Tokyo have great tracks for example. Some streets have painted nice cool red/orange-like color patterns besides standard white marks, it all blend really cool together. It was also this why I didn't got bored from such "legal" races. All that polish made it look more than your average "sim". Music was finally fine, I hated those "gay"-rock BS songs they always used in series - especially with those "action" videos, used to made me lost interest before I started to play. Now music is more like game music and less of cheap rock, its more to background-like, nonintrusive and pretty good. In fact, whole game changed style. Instead of cheap action videos or too much BS game is now brief in everything. Tracks load very quick(restart instantly), you may get brief speech if you play some mode for the first time, maybe very brief and quick video and thats about it. Its great this way and it keep pace perfectly.
Most important thing they changed is driving model and physics. While not perfect(I'll mention in cons later), for these series its best driving model yet. Forget ProStreet model, this is better. This game has nailed perfect balance between arcade and simulator. Ask yourself, you really don't mind when some game use latest graphics that can be almost indistinguishable from real photography yet in motion cars look almost funny, like they are floating and are from paper? I do and from now on even for arcade. How long will physics be ignored while graphics reaching almost perfect status? I may have missed "real" car sims out there but this game is amazing. You really feel you are in real car, camera pan as you would with your head during driving/accelerating etc., you feel you are driving heavy car from metal not some paper toy. Its wonderful. I don't want 500 pages manual to learn controls, I want to feel am driving real car and all that with ease. This is where Shift rocks. This is why you will stop care there is no police, that there is no "illegal" stuff. Unlike Dirt2 that count on its DX11 graphics+effects and forgot physics completely, here when you turn OFF motion blur and put textures on max you will even more experience realistic speed, where street look very detailed and you see that small "grains" as they pass on high speeds. All that in DX10. Now, if you don't have wheel you should at least have analog gamepad with triggers - like x360 pad. I could play game "ok" on keyboard but I had to lower car handling difficulty to lowest because I just couldn't drive on Pro. If you want more realistic level, gamepad provide you with analog triggers that works as brake and acceleration and you must balance it, not just push it at max. Also, analog stick for steering is important as you also cannot just push car wheels at max angle - you will get to drift and loose track. Wheel is even better of course but I don't have one. This game did teach me to properly drive not just hold acceleration at max. I had many car crashes at beginning, then I decided to try behave like in real life - watching speed and trying to act as in real, slowing in corners because of natural fear etc. Then I really started to drive much better. Super thing is that you can change difficulty for handling and overall separately. I ended with easy difficulty of game and pro for car handling, but I turned on traction control, brake antilock and others ON so I probably had same as "experienced" level preset. Then with my x360 pad it was perfect.
Game play so that you have "tiers", from 1 to 5. Each tier is set of events whose are in turn set of races of variable type. You have typical race, time-race where you must get best time, 1 on 1 race, drift and maybe some more I forgot. Some event types may have certain variation like manufacturer event is standard race where you use given specific car and such. Tier 5 is final nfs world tour. When you race, you receive stars, not only for winning 1-3 place but there may be more tasks like to get certain amount of points etc. You see, as you race you are receiving points. Game learn your tactics so if you are aggressive player that like to push other cars out of track or you are pedant who like it clean it will learn, respond and give you points for either style. Now, if you are like me you probably say you don't like this star system. In the end it could be too much hassle to fulfill other objectives besides winning right? Also, because new physics car model drift events may be for many almost impossible to do and not so much fun. I never liked drifts and such stuff. Good news is, don't worry. I had not played ONE drift event in whole game and I could beat it - get enough stars to reach Tier 5. Also, I most of the time didn't received all stars in each race/event and I even didn't started Tier 4 and was only about half way in Tier 3 when I unlocked final Tier 5. Tier 5 is pure about race no drift no BS. You see, even if you don't like drifts, even if you don't like star system and just wanted to enjoy game you will be able to complete it till credits rolls. Developers gave you freedom to choose your own gameplay style. Purists can try to get every star in every race if they like, while others that don't care simply don't have to. BTW menu feels good and as you play you really have that feel of progress. In each Tier you use specific class of cars and Tier1-3 cars can be upgraded. Tier 5 use Tier 4 cars - these are best of best like bugatti, lamborghini(one is in tier 3 too), pagani etc. There are at least 3 types of lamborghini and usually more than 1 type of others too. When you purchase all upgrades of Tier 1-3 car, there will appear option to make last upgrade called "Works"(if car support it). This is quite expensive single upgrade that boost all stats significantly. Its important if you have still problem with some events to win even after all regular upgrades purchased. With this last upgrade game became much easier. When you finish specific tier or when you feel like you wont return here for some time and need money to purchase and upgrade car for next tier, you can sell you current car(s) with 1:1 price ratio(incl. upgrades) so you don't loose any money. Upgrades are very simplified too so you don't really have to worry to sell your car at all, in 1 minute you can buy+upgrade it again.
Ok I think now I should mention some cons. First of all, even though much more interesting for me than other "legal" racer games, its still not "illegal". There are no races with regular traffic, police etc. Some of tracks are still of that generic type and most of them are about laps/circles although there are very few single-path like. This is of course subjective matter but I think every NFS fan loved series exactly because that.
I don't know if its just me but I felt AI behavior was not fair at times. You remember when I told you game learn your tactics? So when you hit that car it most likely return fight. That would be good but now game try to be more realistic and I often felt AI cars don't follow same rules. They at times feel too glued to ground and its you who get punished. I felt game wanted to punish me no matter what instead of trying to consider all physics in that moment etc. Often I was calling developers by so many names I would get instant-ban if I posted it here. I loved and hated game at once sometimes, it was strange feeling and one reason why I decided under 9/10 in the end. Still, in other aspects AI felt better than past games. Like when you crash, I didn't felt cars that passed just stopped behind corner to wait for me. But if I didn't crash too much game still gave me chance to win but I felt consequences. So maybe they felt bit less scripted to me which is good. If physics would apply to them as to me(not 100% sure, maybe do) and they behave more trustfully(this am 100% they don't always) in certain situations, it would be masterpiece. In tier 1-3 you can help it by upgrading your car - especially with "Works" upgrade but tier 4 cars cannot be upgraded so last part of game is much harder and at times annoying. And I had easy difficulty. But then again, I must admit I suck at games like this.
Also, physics still have few problems. I wouldn't go back to arcade-paper-car-float-game anymore(thats why I didn't bother with overrated Dirt2 after seeing this) but there were times when I though it should behave better. Game really punish you(again) if you get out of track, sand is like killer here. Don't know if its same in real but car just couldn't turn back to street until near stop-speed(AI seemed to do fine though). It felt more artificial than real and as a punishment to me. I also felt either cars had not enough angle-turn or tracks layout was at fault but sometimes I just couldn't turn around corner without hitting something or going out of track and that at almost zero speed. When game try to get more realistic(and unforgivable in this case), these small problems look much bigger and annoying especially later in game when easy difficulty doesn't seem to matter to the game. Still, I never threw my pad into my NEC IPS screen and always felt it is doable, never like stupid impossible. I played with latest patch 1.02 which I strongly recommend. You can also try 3rd-party Real Mod for physics but current 2.0b version don't work with latest patch. With latest patch you can also use mouse in menus, it wasn't possible in vanilla(according to net sources like wikipedia).
Nonetheless, in the end it was truly wonderful game. Sure I was swearing at times but not in bad way and even through all those small problems I had its still one of best recent NFS games and one of best car games I ever played. Don't discard this game because negatives I mentioned, its not that bad as it seems. Pros outweigh cons. Its a potential masterpiece with some flaws - a must play game. If devs enhance physics even more and go back to illegal racing in sequel I'll not hesitate to give it full 10/10. But for now, this is one super car game that I recommend to everyone, but you better have wheel or analog pad(with analog triggers) unless you are masochist or play on lowest car difficulty. Its much better game than recent Dirt2 IMO if you are choosing between them for christmas(of course, they have different style so your preference first). This game is very underappreciated by many, but its much better game than many overrated ones out there. Fully recommend to everyone.