Overall, Shift is just not a good racing game because the races are very frustrating to play.

User Rating: 5.5 | Need for Speed: Shift PS3
Since 2004, I became a huge fan of the Need for Speed franchises. I've noticed that the series began to go downhill ever since ProStreet was release in 2007. In my personal opinion, Shift feels a lot like Prostreet because both of them are just driving simulators.

The presentation is just your basic driving simulation game. In short, it's just another Prostreet game except your driving view is zoomed in, and you feel like you're driving in real life. Unfortunately, there are no cop chases and free roam areas. The single player mode is only meant for career mode. There is still an online and local multiplayer mode. You can't really do much in this game except you mainly do a lot of racing. There isn't really a whole lot of variety.

Although I don't have much to say about the graphics, they still look very well designed. Everything looks super detailed, and all the environments are very realistic. However, when you begin to crash into vehicles or walls, everything just blurs out for a split second.

The graphics might be great, but the game play still needs to be desired. I found out that this game is actually kind of difficult to play because the AI is very intelligent, and I just could never win a race. The driving physics are also somewhat awkward because every time you crash into something your car begins to shake, and the driving view becomes blurry for a split second.

Overall, Shift is just not a good racing game because the races are very frustrating to play. Need for Speed fans should check out Nitro for the Wii instead.

The good- amazing graphics, still has an online and multiplayer mode, career mode is lengthy

The bad- driving physics are overly sensitive, races are difficult to win, no cops and free roam areas, presentation is lacking

Presentation- 5
Graphics- 9
Sound- 6
Gameplay- 4
Lasting appeal- 7

Overall 5.6 (rounded to 5.5)