Best racing experience on consoles.
Shift 2 puts the player's experience of racing front and centre. The cockpit views are the best in the business, with fantastic attention to detail in relation to the dynamic aspects of driving cars to their limit. Take the helmet cam, the immersive sound effects, the shaking of the car and speed related blur and you have the ingredients for a heart-pounding affair.
Forums are full of disdain from Forza and GT fans regarding physics and handling. Which is fine if you don't understand what driving at 150km/h + round a bend does to a car. If you like driving on rails, go with the others. If you want to feel like you are pushing your vehicle to the limit and beyond, play Shift 2. Then throw in aggressive opponents and insane damage modelling and you'll feel every bit the racedriver that no other game can emulate. I play with a controller, no steering assists, ABS on, no traction or stability control on Normal difficulty and the handling is absolutely fine. Yes, the cars are hard work but it is in real life too! And no, the cars don't 'skate' around corners unless you are driving poorly. Stick to the best lines, brake before corners and above all get to know how the tracks and cars feel.
With around 120-130 cars to drive, plenty of customization and tuning options, and all the best tracks in the world, there is something for everyone. Starting in a lowly D-class hatchback, you can work your way pretty quickly up the ranks. There's a good amount of variety in events, even if like me you're not a fan of drifting.
My biggest complaint is the AI driving. As I said it's aggressive, and sometimes frustratingly so. They'll bump you, knock you off the track and pay you back for the smallest shunts. They also close off the inside track near corners if you're looking to overtake. In longer races this is fine as you can take your time picking up places. But in short 2 lap races it can lead to many restarts after first corner pile-ups!
Overall, Shift 2 is an addictive, highly immersive game that always leaves me tense and wanting more. High octance racing at its absolute best.