“Need for Speed Shift 2” brings a relatively new twist of inspiring tension and fear to the often monotonous racing-simulator genre by means of harrowing crash scenes and nerve-racking races.
Although I’m not much of a racing fan, “Shift 2” completes its objective pretty well and has just enough exciting bells and whistles to keep me entertained.
The best aspect of the game is the cockpit view when racing. This view gives you an incredibly immersive experience and when racing at higher difficulties levels will leave you witless due to the ease of crashes.
While playing the game through the cockpit mode, collisions with barriers, the environment or other drivers becomes a really well-done attribute “Shift 2” has going for it that I haven’t witnessed in other racing simulators.
During the hour it took me to get used to fairly realistic handling scheme, I took corners too quickly and flipped my car at least a dozen times. Every time I had to catch my breath afterward because during those moments I lived inside of a flying car and watched it disintegrate from the inside for 10 seconds. It’s a truly surreal experience.
Simple sideswipes of barriers or swapping paint with another car creates no noticeable damage; however, losing control and colliding head-on with anything will cause critical damage that will severely hamper your car, if you let it.
“Shift 2” gives the three different damage options, none, visible only and realistic damage.
However nifty the first person view is, it took me a while to get used to it, and because of my lacking experience in racers I didn’t play in the mode too extensively.
My minimized playtime in the first-person view is chiefly due to “Shift 2’s” control scheme. Although the layout is typical for a racing game, due to the attempts at a realistic scenario at first I had a difficult time controlling the vehicle. Thankfully “Shift 2” provides assistance to bad racers like me.
The game begins with Professional Drifter Vaughn Gittin, Jr., who schedules a pre-race event. During these two quick laps the game recognizes a player’s skill level and automatically recommends settings to use.
The game features the “Autolog” feature debuted in “Need for Speed Hot Pursuit” and connects friends and competitors together in head-to-head races and player statistic match-ups.
“Shift 2” has more than 130 customizable cars and 20 real-world locations to race in, plus more cars can be purchased with Microsoft or PlayStation Network points.
Reach the reporter at tdmcknig@asu.edu
