So I what does J.J.Abrams, the Valley of The Dolls, and MTV have in common? Shift, that's what.
So I had come up with a 1,000 word prologue that told everyone how great I thought the latest Need For Speed was. How brilliant and great it was. So much so that it surpassed both its' previous iterations and games released by other production houses. How its' backgrounds and handling trumped both Gran Turismo and Forza. How even the latest Star Trek, which barely shows it's genius to anyone who is halfway a fan of science fiction in one of those strange deep ways, could not begin to describe Shift in a symbolic, flowery imagery, kind of way.
I was bowled over, utterly and completely. When I played GT5P I gave it a seven out of ten on my own personal scale. When I played Undercover I offered up a four in the long run. And ProStreet got a lovely six. So when Torque, whose real name still remains a mystery, asked me what I'd give this game on a scale of ten, he was sufficiently bowled over with a fifteen. Admittedly I'd been rather deprived of speed since earlier in the decade and was suffering from severe jet lag but it was an honest evaluation.
And Here Is Why…
Your selection in cars isn't the greatest. But then you inevitably have to ask yourself. Are you seriously planning on driving all one hundred cars that you're being offered on a regular basis? Are you honestly even interested in twenty of them? I can most assuredly say no. Even with a curiosity towards exploration I'm only likely to run twenty-five or so cars in a game. So we have to ask ourselves about the quality of said car, having the quantity lose an insurmountable battle to economics.
The cars capable of drift are easily noted so that a person doesn't feel like they bought a car and were misrepresented. Not all cars are capable of NOS either. And those that are only have access to a single tank that offers use in multiples of ten seconds. The tank doesn't regenerate and in fact I couldn't find a gauge that told you how many shots you had. So it's probably good that NOS isn't required to win any give race. And speaking of icons that represent what your choice in cars, can and cannot do. The final icon is the 'works'. This allows for one final upgrade when all other upgrades have been purchased. It essentially rips out the speaker wires, drills holes into parts that aren't structurally relevant, and reflashes the ECU so that the engine is only expected to last a few hundred kilometres at best.
But that doesn't all quite represent the cars in this game. For instance, only lower tier cars can use the works. Which give those cars a better chance of survival later on in the game. Also tier four cars can't obtain all the upgrades and tier five cars can't receive any at all. Which allows for more balanced line-ups in multi-player races and eliminates those age old tiresome dominator cars. The best part is that it allows you to pit your Golf against 911s and Gallardos and have a fighting chance. How does it do this? Well, the cars are being scaled on a separate list from tiers. This list, or scale (if you want to call it that) allows any given car to be valued on its performance more accurately.
It's Not the Number of Colors…
I was prepared to be disappointed in the colors and visuals of Shift while bombing about the tracks. Sure the far backgrounds are wonderful but the mid-range is just washed out. But I can't say this. There was neither the washed out world of Undercover's magic hour or Gran Turismo's lack of activity (otherwise known as conservative motion) beyond the borders of the track. And I was really disappointed. Not only did Shift offer up places where you could catch airplanes and helicopters recording your every move. Or people throwing tailgate parties. You could catch people flashing their bulbs at you just before you 'accidentally' drive yourself into a wall. I blame the camera happy punters for my crash. Other's blamed me for paying attention to something other than the road. But I still blame the paparazzi. I loved the background, it held me, and comforted me, and made me feel beloved.
Another thing I noticed in this area of backgrounds and foregrounds was that those parts of a track that you might try to play soccer with remain around. Tire and cones hang about waiting for another car to shove them farther down the road on the next lap. And those next laps will come later than their counterparts in ProStreet. I could give some uppity reason as to why this is, but I'd just be blowing it out of my own rear and we don't need me doing that anymore than necessary.
I did have a big complaint about paints. Well, it was about Undercover and paints but it was still a complaint. The colors in Undercover were never really well represented. Orange was red and yellow was brown. But alas, no longer can we make that claim. Orange is orange, red is red, yellow is yellow, and brown is brown. And because we retain the color wheel of Undercover we actually have a lot of shades to choose from. And the pearl paint offers up as many tints as the standard paint job offers up…tints. And if that's not good enough for you then windows can be painted as well. So you're allowed just as many different tints for your windows.
Is It Tuning or Customization?
A lot of people confuse these two things. Tuning is for mechanical parts or things that replace mechanical parts. And it's really good here. No longer is it based on percentiles, it has actual numbers that allow for you to understand the differences between cars. Eventually. There is a lack of engine tuning, which I sorely missed, but let's face it. With everyone thinking that ProStreet's engine tuning being completely useless it's not surprising that anyone thought to repeat the experiment. But you can bring your tuning to extremes that I've never seen before in a game. You can harden the suspension of a car so much so that you can recreate Uber's gangbanging low riding thumper mobile Vantage. Which started to bounce every time you tried to move, no matter how fast you accelerated or on what type of land you started out on. You can also bottom out a Ford GT to the point that every time you brake you scratch your diffuser and the occasional bump will cause you to pull a 180. Many people will be happy about the easier tuning abilities. I know I was.
And then we have customization, which comes in one part really, vinyls. Vinyls are a limited selection that doesn't allow for overflow into different graphical/geographical sectors, like rear quarter panel vinyls overflowing into the rear bumper panel area. The selection appeared somewhat small to me but there certainly is the ability to add a lot of them on to a car, approximately one hundred per section of car. This is the one section that is going to upset the Underground fans the most and I, frankly, couldn't care less.
What we probably should remember is that even now the tuning and customization sections of Shift are ahead of the grade in comparison to Gran Turismo's latest offering and GRID. And that says quite a bit for a simulation based game.
I've Got a Sticker That Adds 20 Horses! Horses, I Say!
Upgrading in the game is a little different than before. Not only do you have the standard three tier upgrade packages like you did before. You also have chassis and aerodynamic upgrades available. This is where you'll find your body kits. Which include hoods and spoilers, so you can't pick out those any more. It is also where you can find weight reductions, racing exhausts, and shorter final drive ratios. The best thing here though, is that once you've purchased all the upgrades, you have the chance to force your car through the 'works'. Which, of course, you'll have been informed of when you first purchased your car.
The only recommendation I can give is to explore this section as it is more detailed that it has been in the past, even if it doesn't cough up the Underground beloved dyno chart.
Racing Leagues…Start Your Engines
We inevitably have to get into actual game play. It's unavoidable but not undesirable. The game's physics engine allows for one to tweak the engine from a brilliant arcade engine to a hardcore simulation engine. And even at its most arcade aspect the game blows Undercover and Most Wanted away. Its arcade but it's completely enjoyable. I don't have to work, but I get virtually no errors from the computer taking over for me. I understand why GTR and its ilk are so highly regarded now. I also recognize that the lawsuit between SMS and SimBin is going to end in some very sad woes for SimBin. These people really were involved in SimBin's physics engines.
And the AI? Pure comedic horror. They treat each other as harshly as they treat you. Don't be surprised that as you trundle down a straight away trying to push your car to the penultimate position you notice a three car pile up that has nothing to do with players on the sidelines.
Of course, learning the tracks is important to. And the tracks are divided into race types. You have your international league tracks where you don't get to choose your car. One on one race's where classic battles occur. Like Camaro versus Challenger. And time trials and drifting. Just to name a few.
And if you thought that getting experience in races was the only thing needed to progress, then you were wrong. In order to open up certain races and cars in career you have to obtain stars. And each career race has a set number of stars you can gain. If you fail to grab all the stars from a race you can always go back and try again
There's Reasons We Want You to Invite Your Friends
The biggest change to online play is probably how it feeds back into your career. Much like career has always allowed for specific cars and tracks to be played online. Now online gains you money and experience that you can use in career. Also returned is the private room.
No longer are you stuck allowing anyone into your race. You can create a private room, invite your friends and play amongst yourselves. Or open up the room after to the public so that the track gets fleshed out. And to restrict which users you end up with you have a variety of options. You can select the time of day, track, number of laps (short, medium, and long), and how powerful the cars are allowed to be. This flows into the entire discussion we had earlier about how cars are not based on tiers when compared to each other.
And if you're only playing quick race you can also determine things like what type of race you're playing and how many AI cars are allowed on to the track. To be honest I encountered the first time in my life when I saw a point to quick racing ever since the split screen aspect had been removed. Which remains removed since apparently it was found that not enough people were actually using it when it was reinstated in ProStreet.
And the final challenge in Shift is Duel. A king of the hill, battle royale, scenario where each player is matched against another player of the same rank who is currently playing online. The winner of the race, a three chance race, gets to move up a slot in rankings until they are the top of the hill. The loser falls all the way to the bottom to restart their climb to the top. And you're still rewarded with experience and money.
The Podium Is Where You Get…Wet
And for the sign off there's a few little things I'd like to note. The trigger buttons actually act as analog buttons and begin to make sense. The game was designed and intended to be a native 64bit system which was programmed to receive updates along the lines of new cars and tracks. And finally, there is no one dominator car. We no longer have to look at CCX's at the top of the leader board and lament how our favorite car will never be there, at least your favorite car. My favorites seem to have repeatedly ended up at the bottom of every race I ran, which was the exact opposite of where my opinion ended up.
I was blown away. By the shear, brutal honesty of what this game was. EA may claim that it's all about the 'Driver's Experience'. It may say that it's all about fun and revamping the series. But to me, this is the greatest simulator created. It doesn't have the cars and tracks that Gran Turismo or Forza has. But then a simulator isn't about the number of cars. It's about how realistic the game appears to be. Note the 'appears'. And this game has regained the visceral, urgent desire for speed. It makes you slide into the sand trap without giving you a feel that you'll never catch up and you might as well start over. It makes you want to be number one. But also makes you understand that being number one is well nigh impossible.
And finally, it proved that yes. I do need to crush the throttle pedal when driving my Ford GT. Lest I end up scratching my paint job on the barriers. And so the question isn't should you by this game. The question is why you bought that other one instead of Shift.