We have the well established Gran Turismo from Sony and Forza from Microsoft but now we also have Need for Speed: Shift from EA. Potentially, due to their ability to span across both next-gen platforms, EA has the capability to sell to the PS3, 360 as well as the PC markets.

I have put in about 20 hours into NFS: Shift and I will attempt to recount my experiences with the game. I will endeavor to describe what I felt was good and bad about the game as well as how the game could have been better. 

Introduction

As soon as you start the game up it defines it scope, lays out the scope much like most Need for speed games. An introduction video explains the tier system and the end game; the NFS Championship. Another great feature is the initial trial lap the game makes you do in order to determine your skill level. The game will recommend a difficulty and assists based on your skill. Being a gamer with one foot in the arcade camp and the other in the sim camp this segment helped calibrate the game to me. The game lets you change the assists and difficulty at any point during the career mode which also comes in handy for later segments in the game. 

Carrots, Yes?

By far the best feature in the game for me; is the rewards and leveling mechanic where by the game gives you points and trophies akin to the Kudos system in PGR. Additionally there is a leveling aspect with the level cap at 50. furthermore the game categorizes the driver into two driving styles, Precision and aggresion. I found this to be a great way to reward both, Sim drivers who generally race within the driving line and handle corners well and also arcade drivers who have a propensity to bump other cars a bit more. I got to level 25 in my time with the game and found that the rewards system promotes a good sense of satisfaction and progression in the game. I started off as more of an aggressive driver and then became more of Precise driver towards the middle of the game. 

What a View!! 

Another merit to the game is a very fleshed out in-car cockpit view. The game defaults to this view which shows the amount of work that went into it. All the cars have differing cockpit views and upgradeable cockpits. The graphics look great and toggling the right stick turns the driver's head to look left and right. Personally I didn't do this often but its there for those that want it. The view through the windscreen becomes more focused the faster you go which ensures that you have a good line of vision on the track. The cherry on this mode is by far the driver's reactions. For example, when you get into a high speed collision the drivers head jerks violently and there is a concussive effect where everything becomes black and white and blurry. 

I found, however that there is a downfall to this view mode. Towards the end-game in the higher tier cars the view breaks the game as its hard to stay focused on the road while driving at high speeds.  I found myself looking to the driving line and following it and paying little to no attention to the actual track itself. 

The whole speed thing..

A refreshing change in the game however, is the visceral sense of speed in almost any view mode. This may seem hypocritical as I just complained about the difficulty I had in viewing the track at high speeds in the cockpit view but bear with me. In my experience the early and mid-tier cars felt really good, even at high speeds; I felt in control. 

The high tier cars however did not respond well at high speeds. It may be due to a combination of the cars feeling a little floaty, the frame-rate dropping significantly and a lot of things being on screen at the same time. Its hard to pay attention with the driver's hands moving, the track varying, the time and rank on the top of the screen, the speedo in the middle, the driving line and most importantly the track on the bottom left where it's not very easy to read. I know these elements can be toggled off but I generally prefer to leave them on.

AI (Not the film by the same name) 

I had kind of a love/hate relationship with the AI in the game. First and foremost, the AI is great. Most cars don't stick to a racing line and you'll often see burnout-esque crashes occur on the road in front of you. Some cars will try to run you off the road while some stick to the line religiously. When I started the game I found the AI to be refreshing and fun but during the later stages of the game I had a lot of moments where the AI's ability to run me off the road seemed unfair. The saving grace here is the ability to bring down the AI level at any point during the game.

The worst offender of precision AI are the rival challenges where you have to race against one driver and either win a one lap race or get ahead by 5 seconds. I found these sections frustrating and the only thing that stopped me from getting physical with the controller was the fact that almost all the challenges in the game are optional.

You're doing that thing again.. It's making me angry 

I could not stand, simply couldn't stand the drift mode in this game. The game makes no effort to teach you how to make the card drift. A simple tutorial with a test track and explanation of the drift hud elements would have fixed this issue. Instead, I had to resort to the gaming brethren on youtube in order to learn drifting. 

If you are a former ridge racer player just remember, don't speed into corners and repeatedly balance out the braking and gas when you are in the corner. The game also has little in the way of tuning the cars. A better effort could have been made at explaining how each tuning adjustment will affect the performance. Also, if after tuning the car there was a test track that your adjustments could be tried out on it would saved a lot of time invested in adjusting based on trial and error. 

Finally I feel that the game would have benefited with a rewind function such as that in GRiD, Dirt 2 and Forza 3. Having such a feature would have alleviated a lot of frustration I had encountered during the later stages of the game where I would lose pole position on the last lap and have to restart the entire race. They would have been able to appeal to both hardcore and casual gamers with a rewind feature. 

Conclusion 

Personally, I started the game really high and extremely satisfied and coming into the end game I wanted it to be over. Take that for what its worth. The game is solid but not for everyone.