In the beginning (well, my beginning) there was Super Mario Kart, and it was fun. My hunger for more speed led me up the ranks over the years intro increasingly serious titles such as Crusin' USA, F-Zero GX, and into this generation with Burnout Paradise. Now I've moved up one more step into the realistic world of Electronic Arts's Need For Speed: Shift for the Sony PlayStation 3 (also for Microsoft Xbox 360 and PC) where the cars are digital recreations of real vehicles, the tracks are modeled after actual tracks found around the world, and my inadequate skills at realistic racing titles lead me to rethink returning to Super Mario Kart where at least I usually win. I'm getting ahead of myself though.
This latest iteration in the Need For Speed series attempts to reboot the franchise, as it has stripped away the underground street respect tuning scene that previous games have embraced. This time around the goal is to win a series of racing events in order to move on to additional racing events. It's actually quite simple in a pure sort of way, as there is no need to worry about power-ups, police cars, or an iffy plot littered with angry competitors and betrayal. Shift is all about the race, and the overall tone is better for it. The cars and tracks all come from real world counterparts and are fully customizable in order to suit individual player strengths. Considering that I am absolutely terrible at Shift, I decided to cling to the easier difficulty levels and pretty much let the game call the advanced shots for me, as the menu prompts for expert tweaking left me confused. I went into the game expecting the cars to control like, say, the aforementioned Burnout Paradise or F-Zero GX, but Shift's controls approximate steering a speedy brick. I spent more time off the tracks than on them and rarely finished with impressive results.
There are several forms of basic racing in which to compete. All of them require reaching the finish line ahead of the competition, of course, and while the long term goal involves reaching the final championship, the short term goal of each racing challenge is to earn stars by performing special maneuvers that show off precision or aggression skills. Passing a car smoothly earns precision honors, while treating the race as a demolition derby accrues the aggression rewards. Ranking in one of the top three positions at the end of a race brings in even more stars. All of these stars and honors determine when one can move up to additional tiers, as each tier provides an increase in challenge and capability. As players move through tiers, the option to buy more vehicles and tweaks open, which leads to further customization. However, if you'd rather skip to the end of the customization road without playing the game, then you can speed past earning the unlockable elements and instead purchase these things with real money through the PlayStation Store. This feels like a cash-grab to me, and while it's not the first time I've seen an option like this in a game, I question the value in buying one's way to the head of the pack without developing the skills necessary to use one's purchases efficiently.
I really wanted to like Need For Speed: Shift, but it's beyond my racing ability and technical automotive knowledge. My progress eventually stalled in the second tier, so while that is still fairly early into the game, I considered passing on this review due to my limited progress, but I felt it was worth noting my difficulties and frustrations. If you have a deep knowledge of adjusting vehicular settings and live for competing genre titles like Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport, then I can see how you would really enjoy the experience. However, someone like me who can't tell a omniwrench capacitor from an aphelion regulator (those are engine parts, right?) may not get much out of it.
