Averagely average
Seeing the trailers, teasers, screenshots and stuffs, i quite disbelief EA for making this game as it is seen on the stuffs.
Well, i'm afraid i was wrong. Sure, there's the night racing. There's the Huayra, the C6R, the Nissan GTRs. There's the helmet cam. Everything's as they promised.
(Edited: I've been further down the road. I also discovered some more Plus and Minuses)
Okay, i'm gonna start from the bad bits.
The thing that annoys me the most is that Vaughn Gittin jr. dominates everything ingame. He even replaced my favourite character from Shift. Your british team manager.
Secondly, is the quick race. in SHIFT, i believe that you could use ANY cars from the tiers you've unlocked. In SHIFT 2 however, you could only use YOUR OWN car to race. I was really angry about this. as i wanted to test drive the DBR9 (Which is my favourite LMGT1 car of all time) right after i started up the game.
And then comes money problem. Ingame money anyway. Who on earth pays you $900 for winning a race? Maybe they're aliens anyway. Longer races (longest i've competed in: 5 laps. I just got it. don't expect much!) gonna give you $2000 + maybe it'll be like the original Shift. The higher your level the more 'Greens' you get. & i was right. Sort of. Okay, the most extreme races (The rather bloody ridiculous, 20 lap, endurance races) give you about $18,000 which is only enough for cars like a Golf Mk.I , in Forza 3, the endurance races will give you some 100,000+ Credits. Now who on earth pays 18,000 dollars for a torturing 20 laps race? Now i am assured that they are aliens.
ONLY THREE/TWO BODY KITS FOR EACH CAR (four if you count the works bodykit) and some looks awful! And some cars only has one. or even none!
And the ABSOLUTELY annoying point are:
the A.I probably think that it is a delight, or even an honor to put one big dent on your car, especially to take those wheels off your lovely ride and happily remove or rather rip that smile off your face. They will constantly hitting your car's arse, putting it out of track, flip it and even make it the size of a small telly! They will make you scream "HOLY SHIFT! I wish i have a machine gun to beat the living daylight out of their cars!" If this is Death Race: The game, the ridiculously aggressive A.I would've been forgiven. But this isn't Death Race: The game and there isn't Death Race: The game
Then there's the unreliable racing line. This might be a glitch on my disc, but got to tell it anyway. The racing line SOMETIMES disappears. Which is highly frustrating if you're relying on it completely. You don't want to overspeed trough a corner & then flipped your car and fell back to last place after an intense 20 lap race on the last lap, near the finish line. Do you want to restart?
And last is the rather ridiculously lenghty, endurance races! Well, the endurance races like in GRID is fun because you can actually set how long it'll last. 24 minutes? 24 hours? another reason is because of the less annoying rival A.Is (They will have some attempts to knock your ride to the size of a small telly, but i found that accident rate is smaller than in SHIFT 2), then it has a rewind feature (If you're not playing on EXTREME) and lastly, you have a team mate. So you could sit back a bit & think, "my team mate's gonna win this. No worries eh?". And then in the end, win 3 endurance races, win another one with the 'boss fight' and voila, all you get is some few thousand dollars, and a bloody beamer! Bloody terrific!
And last, yes, there's may be a feature to swap your engines, but there's still no options to convert your drivetrain, sadly. So there is absolutely no points to buy FWD cars. Now your FWD Focus RS will never be joining Ken Block's Ford Fiesta. I mean seriously, Chris Rado did convert his Weak, ugly, uncool, underpowered, Front Wheel Drive, piece of junk Scion tC into a monster AWD Scion tC! (I'm one step to beat him. ONE LAST RACE in a bentley and these bloody other drivers keep knocking me out of Donington! Or even out of britain!)
Now for the good bits. They delivered all the things they promised.
Handling has been fixed dramatically. Thank god
Car list is quite a lot more varied than the one in Shift.
Helmet cam is a great addition. Though it's making me quite dizzy by moving automatically.
Telemetry, though i don't understand any part of it. It's just... Colourful
And lastly, you can Convert your slow, sluggish hatchback into a hotrod (Also something similarly possible in Forza 3) for a presumably cheaper prices than in the first Shift.
Drifting has been tweaked. It's been more fun and A LITTLE BIT less difficult. In the basic, less realistic handling that is....
Verdict is, it isn't an awful game. Though not a great one either. It's like a Tuna sandwich without the tuna itself. It lost a factor of awesome-ness and bits of fun.
UPDATE: I've been a lot further down the road. Things didn't go any better.
More goods:
> At last! I've driven the DBR9 and it didn't disappoint! Hell Yes!
>Some car's look can be really deceiving! I found out that one old Beamer can be fully upgraded until it reach 1400+ BHP (Watch out Rado, i'm coming for you again. Yes, i lose the races against C.Rado in my bentley as i said somewhere up there ^) beware, it also have 1000+ torque. And that is the sort of power which is used to restart a dead planet- Jeremy Clarkson
and that's about it really.
More bad! LOTS MORE!:
>The AI have been harder (to beat. No matter what the specification tell), Faster (no matter what the specification tell) and Stronger (meaning it would be easier to knock you out of the track, no matter what the specification tell). They have been Harder, Faster, and Stronger, but not better! They are not human after all! This is so bloody Daft....
>I just realized that after you upgrade your car to Works, you sell it,you will NOT get the money for the works again. it is a loss. sometimes in ridiculous amounts.
>If you look back somewhere up there in my review, i've been calling the guys who paid you are aliens. I've been assured. And now, i am convinced that they are 100% ALIENS! There is one race involving YOU, Nurburgring Nordschleife, and a McLaren MP4-12C. That is one, long and tough race. First problem, the payment. Well yes, if you finish a podium, you'll receive the car and some thousands of dollars. IF you're in the podium. If not? Like let's say, 7th, they will pay you only $500. WHO ON EARTH PAYS YOU $500 FOR RACING A TOUGH RACE (All the other competitors have been trying to kick me out of Germany! Like an Allied fighter plane crossing Germany in World War II). See, THEY ARE ALIENS! Kill them!
Second problem, well, you could only see this with full damage setting on. ENGINE BLOWN by after 75% part of the race. C'mon!
>I found out that EA have been obsessed with the handling realism. While i said "They've fixed the handling" back there, They still haven't got it right. Yes, it is heck a lot better than the last Shift, which car handling can be described simply as "F-ing S--t" and the handling there is as hard as riding a blue whale. Now though, the handling is a better, it can be simply described by screaming in frustration and the handling itself is like riding a whale shark.... To the moon. Dammit EA, stop with your bloody obsession of realistic handling! It won't make your racing game any better! Stick with arcade handling like one in Hot Pursuit (Which can be easily described as "Motha---ing slippery, but great" and is as hard as wearing a shirt. Y'all can put on your shirt without help right?)