Need for Speed SHIFT Preview - PS3

• by Travis Moses
• March 04, 2009 00:00 AM PST

Need for Speed shifts out of reverse gear and floors it back onto the track.

Cars do get damaged in Need for Speed SHIFT, splintering and crumbling upon impact. Depending on the impact strength, you'll even experience symptoms of a concussion including blurred vision and light sensitivity for a short period of time after a crash.

The newest game in the Need for Speed series, surnamed SHIFT, is driving the faltering franchise out of a free spin in the dirt and shifting the focus back into high gear on the highway to new success.

It's no secret that last year's Need for Speed Undercover was met with harsh criticism followed by rampant rumors that the Need for Speed development team, Black Box, was to be shut down. So when EA wanted to show GamePro the new Need for Speed SHIFT, we were skeptical that the outcome would be anything more than another cash in on the brand name, which sells surprisingly well despite fail-worthy review scores. That's why when we played SHIFT, we were astonished by how authentic and good the game is and how serious EA is about digging Need for Speed out of the dirt. Enter Need for Speed SHIFT; new parts, same model.

Behind the Wheel and Feeling Myself

Need for Speed SHIFT throws all the old Need for Speed arcade racing features out the window and doesn't look back. There's no nitro boosting or slow motion, and "you're not going to experience cops and robbers in SHIFT," says lead designer Andy Tudor, as SHIFT focuses on the authenticity of circuit racing and simulated fast and g-force experience of what it's like to really drive a ridiculously powerful race car at high speeds. Out of the 80 plus cars, the few top-end cars available for the early demo included the Audi RS4, Lotus Elise 111R, Pagani Zonda F, and Porshe 911 GT2 just to name a few.

What we mean by the "driver's experience" is that Need for Speed SHIFT features something special, yet subtle, that you've never experienced before in a racing game. It's that playing Need for Speed SHIFT feels more like driving a real car than any other game in the racing simulation genre, possibly even Gran Turismo with its near photo-realistic graphics, thanks to a camera system that shifts from side to side and forward and backward based on the gravitational forces experienced while driving.

You've seen behind-the-wheel views in racing games before, but you've never experienced realistic g-forces from this perspective like in Need for Speed SHIFT, ever.

When playing Need for Speed SHIFT, your head slams against the seat and the view pulls backwards when you accelerate, jerks forward when you brake, and sways from side to side in turns and corners, but not to the point of outright nausea. The tightly tuned camera feels as though it's attached to your head at eye level and is most noticeable and best experienced from the behind-the-wheel cockpit view. This may be only a subtle trick of the camera, but trust us when we say this is a major step forward for all racing games. Don't knock it until you've experienced it!

Tudor describes Need for Speed SHIFT as the "first-person shooter" of authentic racing games. Comparing SHIFT's driver experience to games like Gears of War and Call of Duty, Tudor says the game "doesn't focus on having 50 tracks and 1,000 cars" like Gran Turismo and Forza, "but takes first-person shooter characteristics" into account. How, exactly? Tudor points to audio and visual cues, such as heavy breathing and disorienting concussion effects, made famous in games like Gears of War. "Those are the elements we wanted to capture in SHIFT," Tudor explains. "The game really focuses on the driver."

This is Need for Speed SHIFT in its pre-alpha stage, and as you can see the graphics are already smoking.

Crash Numbing

To remain true to an authentic driver's experience, crashing your car will slam the camera around and cause your vision to blur and become hypersensitive to light depending on the strength of the impact. The disorienting brain concussion effects only last for brief moment, but for anyone who has experienced a car crash, or had their brain vigorously jarred, will be immediately reminded of the nauseating feelings. Likewise, driving at high speeds will introduce blur and tunnel vision, which makes the passing scenery smear into a streaky blur. You won't care - you'll be too busy eyeballing that rapidly approaching hairpin turn.

The high-end race cars, which look meticulously detailed even in the pre-alpha stage of development, crumble, scratch, and splinter in collisions. You'll see bits and pieces of your car shatter off and sparks fly in a realistic fashion during high speed crashes. It's nothing revolutionary, but you won't find damage effects of this caliber in Gran Turismo.

Use the right thumbstick like a first-person shooter in behind-the-wheel view to look around the car's hyper-detailed interior cockpit. You can even watch the driver feather the clutch and shift gears in real time.

Red, Yellow, Green and Gold

It's a new dawn and a new day for the Need for Speed series. Slightly Mad Studios has the racing simulation pedigree - previous games include GTR and GTR2 - and the game already has us screaming out the window like a mad dog asking, "Please sir, can I have some more?" So strap on your five-point harness seatbelts and get ready for the most immersive, sensory racing game you've ever experienced. Need for Speed SHIFT is coming in late 2009, and you don't want to miss this extremely promising evolution of the simulation racing genre.

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