My take on Shift 2: Unleashed – Need for Speed? No, it's not even Shift...

⤢ ВІДКРИТИ

Developer: Slightly Mad Studios CIS Publisher: EA Worldwide Publisher: EA Genre: Racing System Requirements: Pentium DC E5400/Athlon II X2 240, GeForce 9800GT/ATI Radeon HD4830, 2GB RAM Recommended System Requirements: Core 2 Duo E8400/Phenom II X2 550, GeForce GTX 280/ATI Radeon HD4890, 4GB RAM

Revisiting the past...

Every NFS fan (if any still exist) remembers the Shift 2 promo trailer: its realism, stunning visuals, and meticulous detail. I remember what they showed us, and I'm well aware that not everything EA presents can be taken as gospel. But how did a new game manage to gain absolutely nothing compared to its predecessor? The original Shift was practically ideal: good handling, decent damage models, and a physics engine that was a bit weak but sufficient for an NFS title! Let's be honest, Hot Pursuit was far more engaging than this new Shift 2 pseudo-simulator... Sometimes it feels like the racing genre in gaming, much like RPGs, has simply run its course. Consider this: FlatOut UC was nothing more than a slightly improved FlatOut 2 – and many of you reading this might wonder why I'm even bringing it up. But look at other genre representatives from that era (2006): Carbon? Most Wanted? With their janky controls straight out of 2000? The only game that truly pushed the genre forward, then and now, is Colin McRae Rally. DiRT 3 is coming out soon, and only after its release can we truly assess the state of racing games. For now, all I can do is get to the Shift 2: Unleashed review.

Going nowhere fast

So, here we are with another NFS title, dedicated to the series' fans, as I mentioned earlier. Players familiar with EA's Shift series will find this a bit awkward. While the controls nominally remain at the same level, they now feel 'sluggish,' with noticeable input lag during turns. This isn't dependent on your hardware, steering wheel, keyboard, or even gamepad; it just lags. Sometimes this means hitting a wall, sometimes an opponent, but most often it means countless retries of a single race – and our nerve cells don't regenerate. Diving deeper into comparing the new installment with the last, I'd say the opponent AI has definitively regressed. Case in point: You typically brake on a turn, but a 'smart' AI car decided to take it at full speed. Watching it slam into a barrier, dragging a few other cars with it, I suddenly wondered if I'd be next. The very next second, a BMW M3 T-boned me on a turn. Don't get me wrong, it's not all terrible with the AI, but there are definitely specific, and frequent, instances like this. There are some positives, though: the damage model is finally adequate. Wheels, bumpers, hoods – you can lose it all during a race. But even here, there's a catch: the visual representation of this damage is pretty pathetic.