Learn more about Need for Speed: Shift. (Flash demo) You can feel the satisfying hum of power all around you as your car races through the streets. With sure, skillful hands, you guide your vehicle around tight turns and narrowly avoid obstacles that block your path. Adrenaline sings in your blood, and the pounding of your heart fades into the background as your concentration narrows on what you need to accomplish: Win this race, or die trying.Get ready to push your car ~ and yourself ~ to the limit as you experience the high-octane excitement of Need for Speed: Shift. Slip behind the wheel of nearly 70 photorealistic licensed cars and unleash the power harnessed under the hood as you rocket through real-world locations like Willow Springs and Laguna Seca, as well as fictional circuits like downtown London and Tokyo. Feel as though you're really in the driver's seat courtesy of sophisticated visual cues that replicate the true driver's experience, including a three-dimensional HUD that mimics driver head movement, inertia and G-forces. Discover what type of driver you really are with a driver profile that tracks your evolution from event to event, and make each car your own with comprehensive customization options that let you trick out your vehicle's appearance and enhance its performance to make you even more formidable in each race.
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All the reviews I read prior to purchasing told that this was the best ever NFS game, so I picked it up. VERY disappointed, right out of the gate. The sense of speed is WAY off in my opinion. I was driving with suggested lines off, and I ALWAYS found myself going too fast for the corner. The game just doesn't convey your speed acurately at all, so I was constatnly slamming on the brakes because I was 'going' 70 mph versus what seemed like maybe 30 mph. Also, not being able to turn off the racing music during the replays is a HUGE killer for me. At least I didn't find a way. Why have accurate sounding cars if the sounds are going to be masked by some of the worst music in a racing game I've ever heard.
Also, while sharp, there were a bunch of little 'glitches' in the graphcis. White lines and dots showing through the incar views, and even some of the outside views, near the map (which is extremely hard to see were you are on the course by the way, because of all of the checkpoints or markers that show as well, that look very close to how your car is represented). Not the killer that the sound / music was, but it didn't help.
I fired up Grid, just to make sure I wasn't crazy, and after playing Grid, having played Shift, I don't think I'll ever play it again. Forza 2 is even better than Shift, and now we have 3 on the horizon, and if we're lucky, a new Grid game. So, while we wait for Forza 3, I recommend rediscovering Grid for the ones that have it already, or if you don't, grab it used somewhere and you'll be a happy happy camper!
What's great about it: Great? Nothing really
What's not so great: Sense of speed / graphic glitches / stupid replay music!