EA Raises Interest for "Real" Racing Game: "NFS: Shift"

[YSSMAN]

Hmmm, just after I pretty much throw in the towel on the NFS franchise altogether, EA has the stones to tell me that they're making a proper racing title again:

Need for Speed: Shift

Electronic Arts has come a long way with the Need For Speed series since its 1994 debut on the 3DO game system. They've partnered with Slightly Mad Studios, developers of the enthusiast PC racing sims, GT Legends and GTR2 for the newest release, Need For Speed: Shift. We're told to expect a heightened sense of realism as opposed to the more arcade racer-feel of the last few games in the franchise.

How will they do it? The new title will focus on on-track racing rather than the tuner, street-racing crowd out of a desire to put a little heat on upcoming games like Forza Motorsport 3 and Gran Turismo 5. Both are seen as more "realistic" than what the Need For Speed franchise has become.

So what should we expect from gameplay? Shift will provide gamers with an involved racing experience with fully modeled cars including highly detailed interiors that will be accurate down to the little touches like radio knobs and the Corvette's heads-up-display. The visuals are impressive, as evidenced by the above images, but we're curious to see if that level of detail is truly carried through to the final product. Performance attributes will be highly detailed as well, meaning that big rear-wheel-drive, front-engined V8 cars will handle much, much differently than smaller, lighter, more nimble cars like the Lotus Elise.

Jalopnik Article HERE

Joystiq Article HERE

After looking through the pictures, and reading the initial impressions, I'm coming away from these early views skeptically optimistic. Given how much the franchise has let me down, consistently, following Hot Pursuit (perhaps the only stand-out titles were Underground 1 & 2), I really can't put too much stock in EA for doing the right thing... But if the guys behind GTR2 are in the dev team, I'm banking on the gameplay to actually work, and quite obviously, there isn't much wrong with the graphics engine overall.

My first thought when looking at it was GRID, arguably the best racing game of 2008, arguably the best racing game on this current generation of consoles. If it can do most of what GRID can, I'm willing to give it a shot. Considering how stripped down GRID is, that is saying a lot (particularly in comparison to Forza 2 and GT5P), but when you're working against a masterpiece like that... You know my expectations are high.

 

[Tornado]

Repost.

 

[niky]

I'll reserve judgement until I see reviews (and get some firsthand experience) of the "sim" portion of the game.

ProStreet was horrifyingly disappointing. My brother loved it, but it took me all of five minutes to get sick of it. A "Pro" racing game with nothing but arcadish game play? Thanks but no thanks.

Given the developer, though, one hopes that they will implement a nearly full PC-sim experience with all the nannies disabled.

 

[daan]

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=114104

Please keep all NFS talk in the NFS forum.

(Ignore the fact it's in the PS2 forum for the time being)

Repost.

Brilliantly helpful post there. Link, perhaps? Don't just call repost without showing where the post/thread is.