Nukezilla Review: Shift 2: Unleashed (PS3)

Slightly Mad Studios is a team consisting of members from SimBin, the well known PC game developer who create racing simulations, including the GTR series. Signing on with Electronic Arts, they released their first game in 2009, Need for Speed: Shift, which saw a large change in direction for the arcade series; Shift was to be a simulation with the goal of competing with Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport. Shift was a good starting effort for the company and sold well but its potential felt like it wasn’t quite there yet. Now, two years later, Shift 2: Unleashed is out, dropping the Need for Speed name (but still being associated with the franchise) and introducing vast improvements across the board.

Under the bonnet

You begin your career in Shift 2: Unleashed with an introduction from Formula Drift Champion Vaughn Gittin Jr, and as you progress through career mode you’ll be introduced to other race car drivers and the events they represent through short FMV cutscenes. This includes drifting, endurance racing, time attack, works cars (stock cars upgraded to race cars, more on this later) and the FIA GT1 and GT3 Championships. All of these disciplines are based on real-world motorsports. There are other racing events that cover everything in between as well and will introduce you to every class of car and type of racing imaginable.

Progressing through your career is done by completing races and gaining experience earned by: pulling off clean lines, mastering corners, passing other drivers, coming in first place, and staying in the lead. The catch here is that the level cap is only 20; I reached this cap in about 5 hours and 30% of the events complete. This is too small considering the vast amount of racing there is to be had and it would have been nice if the game turned any experience after level 20 into credits to be put towards buying new cars and upgrades.

As you progress through your levels you are given large sums of money; spend them wisely, after level 20 that money dries up and races simply don’t give enough to cover some of the more expensive cars. On the plus side, you can sell your car and all of its upgrades for exactly what you spent. Those of us used to having large car garages in our racing sims will find this annoying. You can, however, spend real life money (yes you read that right) to buy cars, and that car becomes free to purchase forever.

Autolog (which was first featured in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit) tracks every single racing event and time attack with a personal leaderboard for you and your friends. I would have liked to have seen overall leaderboards and the ability to download ghost replays of the best drivers, but the feature works great as is and creates a sense of competition between you and your friends.

Outside of racing, you have your car customization and upgrading; as you upgrade your car you will see a progress bar that works its way towards allowing you to upgrade to what is called a works conversion, essentially a stock car upgraded to racing spec. Car upgrades are what we’ve come to expect, you have your engine upgrades, brakes, transmissions, weight reduction and so on.

Cars are broken up into multiple classes; D, C, B and A. D being the slower vehicles, while Class A are the fastest machines in the game. The car list covers everything from the Lancia Delta up to the Pagani Huayra and has all of the FIA GT1 and GT3 licensed race cars from the 2010 season. There are also cars earned by doing well enough in events in the career mode. Absent from the list is Ferrari, but you get Lamborghini and Porsche so it’s not a bad trade off.

Feel the road

Shift 2 has a steep learning curve, which wouldn’t be nearly as bad if the default controller/wheel settings and the tuning settings for each car were set to something resembling realistic. Through a lot of research and time talking about this with other players on the internet, some good settings have become known that will bring the feel of driving closer to what you’d expect. On its default settings the cars feel floaty, like they don’t have a lot of grip with the road. It is important to note that Shift 2: Unleashed is marketed as a racing simulation, and there are certain expectations in terms of realism that players want.

The actual act of racing, when everything comes together, is exhilarating and visceral. Whereas other racing sims are very clinical and sterile in their presentation, Shift 2 is very in your face and fast-paced. The sense of speed is exciting and very realistic; Shift 2 is just very immersive.

One of the new major features is the helmet cam. The goal of this camera view is to give a general idea of what it is like to be in a race car. The cockpit blurs as you go faster and your view looks to the apex when turning corners. Crashing feels real and almost physically hurts when it happens; the screen goes blurry and becomes a disorienting mess as your car crumbles and parts fall off or are crushed from the impact. The windows crack, hoods and tires can break off and debris will litter the track from collisions.

By far, Shift 2‘s biggest strength is its presentation, which sets out to give the player the feeling that they are in an actual race car. You can look around the cockpit and see exquisite detail in everything. Driver animations look smooth, the cars’ interior views look like the cars they represent. Cars get dirty as you make corners too wide and go off track into the sand or grass, and dust and gravel picks up and flies into the air; I’ve witnessed pieces of car and rocks hit my windshield, and pieces of dirt and bugs will splatter on it and stay there for a few seconds before disappearing. It’s a very cool effect.

Heel and Toe

Bugs and glitches get in the way of the experience; debris floats in the air, strange graphical flickering and vinyls not showing up in replays are the least of the games problems. Shift 2 hard locked my console twice. Wheel users will have a tough time as the game has a half-second delay between inputs on some wheels; there are numerous videos on YouTube showing examples of this.

Multiplayer was the most important feature for me when I became interested in playing Shift 2. It needs to be easy to get into games and the races need to be balanced, fair and prevent grief as best as they can. It’s easy to get into races at least: you can create private lobbies, invite friends, and there are quick matches that just throw you into a random public lobby. The host can set the number of players (12 total), class restrictions, the track, and type of racing event.

Where things start to fall apart is when you play with random players. You will run into assholes who will hit you in order to gain an advantage. Bad drivers aren’t punished nearly enough for hitting other players. Going off course will result in a 5 second penalty, which is infuriating when it is not your fault. Stick to playing with people you know, you’ll thank yourself later and avoid a lot of headaches. You should also be aware that there is no replay saving or ability to take photos of multiplayer races.

Shift 2: Unleashed is insanely comprehensive and detailed. The selection of cars is perfect, I couldn’t ask for a better list of tracks. What holds the game back are the bugs, crashing issues, strange controller settings, and input lag. Hopefully Slightly Mad Studios will fix these problems and all will be well. With that said, the game is still a lot of fun, it’s just not as polished as it could have been. The more casual players will want to give this a rental first before buying. Racing sim fans who don’t mind a little work will appreciate the attention to detail and intense racing feel.