Need For Speed Shift: Recensione

Review by Fabiano “Deimos” Backpack

Let's face it, the latest Need For Speed ​​on the market had largely tired. Beyond some passable game mechanics, the series certainly did not shine for originality and this, as well as the players, even the leaders of EA had understood this that in hindsight, they wanted to give a clear cut to the past and completely change the line of this series. Shift comes to neatly split all the game mechanics of the latest NFS on the market - cuts the game halfway between simulation and arcade, while keeping some small things that just cannot be removed from the series and that in hindsight are essential in a racing game: I'm obviously talking about the tuning of the cars ...
 

NEED FOR SPEED

One of the things I've always enjoyed in NFS series titles it's the thrill that virtual speed is able to offer: it seems a sentence thrown there just to talk but in truth there are not many driving games that, by launching a car over 150 km per hour, really manage to make you feel the thrill of such a race.

Shift also puts us in command of a car with a lot of horsepower under its hood and gives us the possibility to choose between different disciplines in order to advance in the proposed career mode. Of the classic races, we still find races against time, those that eliminate the newcomer or those focused on the overall duration of the race. We also have drift races which, however, are not as fun as they used to be, why? The side "technician" of the cars tends to distort the part considerably "Arcadian" of the drift. As in many other games or in previous chapters, also here we will start with a basic car and then advance in the game by unlocking or buying increasingly powerful cars - without forgetting the various ones engine upgrade o to the appearance of the vehicle.

Another very important factor is the guide calibrator, the game in essence, rewards the player who will drive cleanly or that it will perform certain maneuvers with the various machines… in short nothing really new under the sun some driving games but absolutely new to the Need For Speed ​​series. But be careful, in the competitions we are going to face, it is not enough to finish first or at least it is not always enough to cross the finish line in first place because in the driver's ranking there is a second score represented by stars: these grow according to the driving styles (that of which I spoke in the previous sentence) or of the various driving sessions that are covered.
The bad thing about this secondary score is that sometimes you do not advance with your career until you reach a certain score desired by the programmers themselves and not by the game itself ... well, if you are turning up your nose, know that it has had the same effect on me too, especially during the game and during the streak when I just could not advance in the rankings.
In truth, looking closer, this maneuver was created to deepen the simulation level of the game in the sense that if you drive flawlessly, the game rewards otherwise it does not allow you to go too far. Unfortunately, sometimes it will happen that you limit your driving choices to the detriment of real fun, something that an arcade title must still keep constant.

ALL-ROUND CHANGES

As I said above, the clear shift given by the developers is that of the complete break with the previous chapters of the series.
However, some things remained unchanged and others have been significantly changed, especially regarding the driving model, that of damage and that of tuning - three factors which are well balanced but which have not always left me satisfied.

We start from damage model, I must be sincere, after playing Dirt 2 and having seen pieces of cars crumple in a crazy way or whole sections of glass being destroyed and leaving the cockpit completely open, I said to myself that other games could hardly reach that detail. Shift succeeds but not always perfectly in the sense that going against a low wall at 200 per hour, you don't pay for it as it should be in reality. Ok, let's get over it, also because it is always an "arcade" game that we are talking about but then you explain to me why the possibility of seeing the track all foggy has been programmed when it is only the pilot who makes the consequences and not even that much?
On the one hand it's okay, you don't see much when we're going to crash and we discount this but when the illness passes and the car has taken a good blow, we still continue to play quietly. Even in terms of part loss, some like the hood or doors will fail but the vehicle will continue to go more or less well. In short, in short, the damages are there but they are only facade... like it or not that the game is classified as arcade or simulation.

Driving and tuning model I put them together for a well-defined reason, essentially one and the other can make a couple without anyone complaining. Going to modify some parts of the car or the engine itself, the performance or control of the vehicle itself will also change.
To take a classic example, when changing to a lighter (but also more compact) body, the machine will go at a higher speed but it could also suffer damage other than the previous version - again, especially in larger displacement machines, it is good to dwell a little more on the technical details why some machines they will be really difficult to keep on the street with all the horsepower that we will have under the hood (in this case I quote the McLaren, the Macerati GT1 or the beautiful Bugatti - all faithfully reproduced).
Regarding the actual driving model, here we focus a lot on the skill of the player, let me explain better: the game always tends to encourage the driver in overtaking or in clean driving, the point is that sometimes it is not possible to put half a millimeter of wheel off the road (it happens very often when cornering) that the vehicle has the bad idea of ​​skidding or completely losing control. Same thing for some very unrealistic accidents and that in the end, after various skids or absurd road exits, they will lead us to repeat the entire path. The gameplay also adds up artificial intelligence of opponents - here I can safely say that the work of the programmers is more than excellent, not only did I find a good performance, badness of the other virtual players but as you go up in category, some pilots really become more aggressive and faster in reaching us or in nipping maneuvers aimed at overcoming or ramming them. Obviously we are not against perfect machines but on the contrary there is an artificial intelligence that makes credible mistakes both during overtaking and during an accident.

SIZE MATTERS

Don't be mischievous and come back with the wheels on the ground.
Shift offers a truly remarkable fleet, in addition to the cars mentioned in the previous chapter, we will be able to get our hands on the steering wheels of several Audi, Bmw, Lamborghini, Porsche, Honda, Nissan and so on and so forth. All reproduced in a truly sublime way, both as regards the exterior of the car and the dashboard. The machine park is made up of the beauty of 70 cars, some will be unlocked during the early stages of the game and then fully unlocked in the advanced stages of the title.
  
On the tracks, however, I had some doubts in the sense that as a number it is really good, I'm on the 37th runway between real and imaginary circuits but the point is that some seem a photocopy of others even if the variety between tracks with mountain or city settings remains a good constant. Personally I would have expected something more open... for heaven's sake, I certainly didn't want illegal races but I wouldn't have minded seeing them either some larger and less linear circuit… Then again it is a matter of taste.

KILL THAT BODY !!!

Let's talk about the graphics and the game engine, so much I know that before the technician you see the aesthetic side.
As far as I'm concerned, the work done is a lot Carthusian and even at higher resolutions it is maintained a detail and a truly remarkable fluidity: I tested the game on a fairly powerful but affordable machine (Dual Core, 3 GB of ram and 512 MB video card) and I must say that the performance was really excellent - at a resolution of 1680 × 1050 with maximum details, 4x anti aliasing, post production and HDR activated, the fps reached 35/45 even with the on-screen display of numerous cars , and then shot up to 60 fps in situations of flat calm. Good work also performed with regard to the reflections of the cars and the general variation of light or atmospheric elements. Again from a purely graphic point of view, all the circuits are well modeled and really rich in details, details that unfortunately sometimes get lost in the heat of the race but it is nice to know that if you stop suddenly, something new in the circuit will be he always finds, maybe even a panorama that he had just missed.
I would have liked to make a clear comparison between this Shift and Dirt 2 but I must say that on a graphic level we are really on excellent levels in both titles, perhaps here there is a greater fluidity but they are really minimal issues between two really tough driving games and that would have to be analyzed in a completely different way if put right at forced confrontation but this is not the right place ... maybe we'll talk about it on the site's forum.

Again with regard to the technical side, the sound plan is divided into two: musical audio is nothing more than a gift of who knows what emotions and fortunately it can be safely eliminated (among other things, in competitions, it is disabled by itself) - the sound effects are well conceived but by now hearing the difference between an engine of one or another car, is within the reach of all. In short, the work done is good and so it can be enough.

DO WE GO ON THE PODIUM? 

Simply commenting on a game like Shift is anything but easy.
On the one hand we have a game that dares a lot and who really wants to get out of the schemes that have gone fossilizing in the last episodes of the series, on the other hand a driving title that, albeit with so much emphasis and with many beautiful colored lights, ultimately it does not add anything really new under the sun of arcades or simulations. But creativity in driving games doesn't have to be understood and in fact Shift is fun and a lot too, unfortunately his cataloging halfway between arcade and simulation plays against him and fails to make him meat or fish, as the saying goes. There will be people who will love it madly and those who will trash it after a few sessions, others who may play it without having a precise idea or those who just won't shit it, perhaps because they expected something else from the Need For Speed ​​series.
Personally I think it is a title to be played at least once, it is challenging and adrenaline-pumping, fun and immediate.
The real downside remains the borderline between simulation and arcade that hasn't really convinced me - a greater balance or a greater choice between the two categories, would certainly have benefited and rewarded.

Final mark 85/100

Minimum System Requirements
3,0 GHz Core Duo processor
GB Ram 2
256 MB video card
Space on HD 6 GB
Connection to activate the game security check

Recommended Requirements
Quad 2,0 GHz processor or higher
GB Ram 4
Scheda video also 512MB
5.1 compatible sound card