Talk about NFS - SHIFT

[Kaerar]

Not a single crash and I'm in Tier 2 now. Going to play with the sensitivity now.

I should mention I use the NODVD though (can't stand ruining good DVD's). Try it as it may solve the problem.

[Danyutz]

Using the same version. Here's what i found on EA official:

Just discovered that you can simply delete graphicsconfig.xml and it'll fix the crash issue. Can anyone confirm?

Ah, I also updated my DirectX to the August 2009 one. Just google for it.

As a future solve for everybody that has the same issues like mine. I didn't tried it, will do when i get back home.

[Hydro_PT]

I just got the game, and even though I only played about 30 minutes, I'm kinda disappointed.

First of all, positive things:

- No history at all, hell yeah!

- The graphics are really good and it ran pretty well on my machine with the highest settings @ 1024 x 1280 and AA on. Even with the opponents crashing in front of me and smoke/dust rising, the framerate wasn't hurt, and I made an average of 35 FPS (not much, but I had AA 8X and my machine is a bit old already).

- The sound is phenomenal! Really, it deserves a 10/10 here. I couldn't play it with high volume because it's night already and everybody is sleeping, so it's not a good idea. Still, it's greatly done. As a side note, forget the music on the track... it just doesn't fit, at least for me. I prefer to hear the sound of the cars.

- The car's design is gorgeous, the models and textures are pretty nice, and the tracks are well designed (I only played in 2 so far). I like to see the pits crew around your car before the start, nice touch.

- The overall aspect of the menus is good, not too complex, easy to navigate, simple and clean, yet attractive.

- The bodykits (for what I've seen) are finally official, not those ugly bodykits EA decided to invent. These ones are for real, or at least they look real because they fit very well.

- The game is hard... definitely. I decided to try it with the PRO mode (recommended by the game), with no assists at all, HARD AI and without that stupid "perfect line" that appears on the ground. It's hard, I had some difficulties managing the corners, and I'm thinking about playing with a MEDIUM setting on the AI, because they drive very well and they're also dangerous, because some of them try to hit you very hard. I've also had problems with the corners because I found a bug or glitch (for more see the topic "Bugs and Glitches").

Negative stuff:

- Visual tuning is overall weak. You only have 3 bodykits per car, and they come with everything (spoilers, hoods, etc), so you can't tune your car like in ProStreet or even the earlier games like Underground. There's no autosculpt either. The vinyls section is a bit weird and the controls aren't really good, but you get used to it. You can't use enlarge decals (they are very small even at maximum size). On the other hand, there's some nice graphics and it's just a matter of time until you start to understand how it works. Not good but not bad either. The painting system is the same from Undercover, but you cannot paint the rims. Oh and speaking about rims, there aren't many to choose from, just racing rims. They look nice, very detailed. And this is the visual tuning, there's nothing more. Disappointed? Yes, even though I wasn't expecting much from this. At least I can select true liveries for my cars everytime I don't want to lose time messing with the vinyls system. If you're looking for tune, don't play SHIFT. You won't like it... even Undercover is better.

- Handling... this is the most important thing in my opinion. As I said, I played with no assists and the hardest settings possible, with my MOMO FF Racing Wheel. I don't know what to say about this, honestly. It isn't bad, but there's something weird about the physics. When the car crashes is pure shiznit, compared to GRID, the crash physics in SHIFT seem to be very, very poor. When you go to the dirt or grass, it feels more realistic than GRID though.

The car's seem to have more grip than in GRID, they don't slide too much and they seem to have the right "weight" on the track (not too light, not too heavy). Still, I think there's something wrong with the way you turn. The car seems to "twist" a bit too much, like if the track is full of little holes that make you correct the wheel everytime. This might also be a case of getting used to it, however. I found the same thing when I played GTR2, but then I loved it once I mastered it.

So to conclude, I'm a bit disappointed with SHIFT at the moment. I only played a little bit, so I cannot take decisions right now. I hope to play more tomorrow and see if it's worth the money. Anyway, overall it seems to be a good game, not better than GRID (so far), but still it is much better than ProStreet or Undercover. I would give it a 7/10 right now, but as I said, I must play some more time until I take a decision.

My only advice is: don't buy the game without trying it first. I think you should really try it out before buying it, because it might be better than you think, but it might also be worse than you think, so be careful how you spend your money. Just my advice.

PS: Sorry for the big post.

PS2 (not the console): Here are my specs if anyone is interested: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0 Ghz, 2GB DRR2 PC8500, XFX 9600GT 512MB DDR3, Windows XP SP3, Momo Force Feedback Racing Wheel.

[TheNoobofFerraris]

One last review post.
Gamespot Rating - 7.0
http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/driving/nee ... ead-review
I know I said I'd "definitely buy Shift" before, but this review kind of bums me out. A majority of the scores have been high for Shift, but Gamespot seems to be the only website that holds me back from buying a game if they've given it a below average rating in comparison to other sites. Now I'm really aching for a demo..

[Summ]

^Don't buy it. It's a pig of a game. Utter trash. Read my post in the bugs post. It's all in there.

Hydro - happy the game actually works for you. My system's close to yours, but the game runs horribly on it. It's completely unplayable. Lots and lots of people are experiencing the same issues. Some say it's a multi-core issue (CPU), some say it's a PhysX issue (ATi owners got screwed). I don't know what to believe. People with all kinds of different rigs and combinations have been writing in and complaining about it. A good deal of people suffer from stuttering and crappy fps, like me, but a whole lot of others don't even get to play the game, as it crashes to desktop (CTD) either on load or in the first races. It's an unstable, untested, unoptimized piece of software that is definitely NOT worth throwing your money at.

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME FOR THE PC! DO NOT support badly coded, bug-filled games from EA any longer!

[Danyutz]

Summ, if it's any comforting, I got a geforce with physx and the game runs like crap, bugs, crashes and lags.

[Summ]

^I know, I read your post. I'm sorry you're in the same boat as me. At first it appeared to be an ATi issue, but people with GeForce's have also been writing in and complaining. It could be anything. A guy with a system almost identical to mine wrote to say it worked flawlessly on his machine.. go figure. It appears completely random whether or not your pc can actually play this game. GG EA. Good luck figuring this one out. Meanwhile people are returning their games like no tomorrow. Shift IS officially one big flop.

[jacoja06]

One day I am going to hunt down the person in EA who continuously decides on these ridiculous Hand Control Button Configurations.
I can’t drive the bloody car properly! The only reason why I haven’t touched Pro Street for two years, is because it has the same problem. How hard can it be to include a custom button configuration? Or how about a default configuration which doesn’t make me want to throw my Playstation at the television screen?
The only default setting only slightly playable is ‘Configuration 3’. Only, whenever I want to brake for a corner, the game pauses and ‘EA Messenger’ pops-up on the screen. Yet ‘x’ and ‘o’ buttons are still Unassigned!

Honestly, what a complete bunch of...

[Summ]

^You mean the controls cannot be redefined on the ps3 version?! What kind of a joke is that?! On the pc you can reconfigure to your heart's desire.. it doesn't run, but you can configure it..

[jacoja06]

^You mean the controls cannot be redefined on the ps3 version?! What kind of a joke is that?! On the pc you can reconfigure to your heart's desire.. it doesn't run, but you can configure it..

It gives you three controller options. One where accelerator, brake, and shift gears are assigned to the L1,2/R1,2 buttons... so the controller falls out of your hand. The second configuration pauses the game every time you come to a corner, and the third is just plain retarded. I’m surprised it didn’t come with a fourth option, where left is ‘select’, right is ‘L2’, and accelerate is Triangle.
They completely ignore the standard controls of all other racing games on consoles. Apparently 'x' for accelerate and 'square' to brake doesn't exist.

[Summ]

^Wow.. lmao, even more retarded than I imagined. Good job, EA. Keep screwing the pooch.. let's see where it gets you.

Hey, Andrew! You guys made a shiznit game! Why don't you show your face now and stand up to some of these claims? Why don't you explain to some of these nice people why they waited impatiently for a MASSIVELY OVERHYPED hunk of trash you call a game - across platforms, I might add - and thrown their hard-earned cash at your feet just to be raped one more time?

Christ, you guys really made some shiznit design decisions here.. Aside from the instability issues, you can't configure any rather BIG and IMPORTANT sides of the game, such as.. I don't know.. CONTROLS?! And how about the ability to turn Motion blur OFF? Or scale the sound of engines from NPC's so I can actually tell my car apart from theirs? Let's not even go into the whole customization aspect, which was actually the one thing previous NFS titles did well.. you couldn't just take that and use it.. no.. you had to firetruck that up as well!

Well, sir, you guys are idiots. Good job. Congratulations on firetruck people in their asses. Mark my words - it won't happen again.

[Danyutz]

I really had my hopes up for this game and I was glad that they finally managed to make a game that could save their ass, but seeing this, it's almost like they don't care.

[Strafer]

Been playing for about 2 hours on the PS3-version. I think it is a great game. Better then Carbon and Undercover.

[Hydro_PT]

@Strafer: it wouldn't be much hard to make a NFS better than Carbon and Undercover. It's not surprising that SHIFT is better than those crappy games.

@Summ: well I see things aren't going nice for you. This remembers me of GTA IV (PC version). A lot of people has problems with that game because it was a bad port (luckily I haven't had any). SHIFT seems the same thing, a bad, unoptimized port of the consoles version. Even though it's working almost perfectly for me, it sucks that they couldn't do a better job. I wonder why we, PC gamers, always get firetruck up when it comes to ports? I mean... it's a constant thing now, isn't it? I hope the developers start paying more attention to the PC, and deliver optimized games like Codemasters does, for example.

Anyway, I hope they do something about this. They can save SHIFT if they work hard and release a nice patch. Believe me, if the game would run well, you would probably like it. The driving is similar to GTR2, but a bit more arcade and easier if you play with PRO settings (no assists whatsoever). The sounds are nice and overall the graphics are very good. The visual tuning isn't great because it's very limited (more limited than in Most Wanted). The tracks are nice, the AI is challenging, the game can be really hard and challenging and there's a nice track/car list. IMO the game is worth the money IF you can run it perfectly. Of course, and I'll write this in big size letters:

TEST THIS GAME BEFORE BUYING IT, SERIOUSLY. DON'T GIVE EA MONEY JUST BECAUSE THE GAME LOOKS GOOD FROM TRAILERS OR BECAUSE IGN GAVE IT A 9.0

[Summ]

^Wholeheartedly agree with the last bit. As for the gameplay being good - I agree that it's hard, but I wouldn't agree that it's GTR2 physics. In fact, I would say the two are as far apart as can get. Cars are precise and cornering is sharp in gtr2. In shift - from what I have experienced - they are not. Doesn't mean it's a bad game, mind you. If I could get it to run smoothly, things could be different.

[Kaerar]

So far the only true review is that gamespot one. The others are all paid jerkoff reviews.

[Hydro_PT]

It's not equal to GTR2, but I find it pretty similar, just more arcade and easier. I played GTR2 at the highest difficulty settings (no assists whatsoever), and I didn't have much trouble to finish the races. It takes time, of course, to master all cars in all weather conditions, but I could drive well with any car on any track (I only played this game fore 2 weeks though).

I find SHIFT similar, even though you can master the corners easier than in GTR2. It's true that the cars slide a bit more, but I only tried 2 cars so far, and in GTR2 there are some cars that spin a bit too much too. Overall I think they're pretty similar, specially the crash physics, which are an absolute shiznit to be honest lol. In GTR2 the crash physics are a joke too. Nothing beats GRID on that, the game is absolutely amazing when it comes to crashes, it feels and looks realistic.

I don't think SHIFT is a bad game. Heck, compared to Undercover, it's way better. It isn't everything I was expecting (specially after reading IGN's review), but it's nonetheless a good/medium racing game. If EA fixes the problems with a nice patch, it will help to make this game even better.

And now, to everyone who said this game was going to be better than GRID: it isn't. I always said this is a "GRID à la EA". In other words, EA tried to copy GRID but added their own things, which probably only made things worse. Race Driver GRID is one of the best racing games out there that mix simulation and arcade type of gameplay. It has some problems, yes, but they are very few and overall it's a great experience. SHIFT isn't so good as GRID, no matter how you look at it or how NFS fan you are. I'm a NFS fan and I'm happy with SHIFT, but I cannot deny GRID's quality, and the work Codemasters does when it comes to racing games. Blackbox guys, you should learn with them. Look at ToCA, GRID, DiRT. That's racing games. And now we have F1 coming too.

[jacoja06]

With those controller issues, I've made a switch to another room of our house where I can use a steering wheel instead (which works very well). Shame about the tiny television though.
The game itself is very enjoyable! Although I'm still trying to adjust to everything, I've had great fun over the first few races. IMO, great job EA. Looking forward to the rest of career mode.

Also... best engine sound I've ever heard from any game.

[Summ]

^Not to enter a touchy subject, but.. I tried GRID the other day and, though they did fix the problems with the G25, it was clear to me that it was an arcade racer. I did not find many aspects of it that are simulation-worthy. Perhaps the crashes are better, I don't honestly know. All I know is that the cars were far too planted and could take far too much abuse. I was rolling with a Viper at 500 bhp and I won the first 3-lap race at the first try on the hardest mode. Every time it would slide, I could catch it very easily and it was able to take certain swings at absurd speeds. So.. simulation it's not.. not in the least. The ffb was rather poor, imo and the steering felt a bit loose at the centre. The graphics far from blew me away. Overall I still think it was quite a decent game to tell the truth, but I didn't find that it lived up to all the hype and praise I heard about it. Just my 2c. Oh, I couldn't keep going in the career, because the damn game kept crashing after the first race -.- . Might be a win7 issue.. don't know.

As for GTR2 - I haven't paid much attention to the crashes tbh. I mostly chased the split seconds on the track . People in the know find GTR2's driving physics are some of the very best out there. Personally I find it and GTR Evo to be too unforgiving. If the car does start to slide, you've had it. Not much an ordinary mortal can do to save such a slide. In GTR Evo I know it's possible to tune and tweak your cars to make them more manageable, but I never got that much into GTR2's tuning options. Most likely the same applies there. Whether this is more realistic or not I don't know. What I do know is that GTR2 features a ton of settings you can tune, each of which has an effect.. I know that it accounts for mechanical errors as you go and that crashes have lifelike consequences, performance wise, on your car. I know that if you readline your engine too much in GTR2 it gets damaged and might go on fire and that the tires don't get warm before lap 3 or 4. I know that if you overheat your brakes, they will start losing efficiency. Tirewear and fuel usage matter in that game, as opposed to Shift and similar, in which you have a set amount of fuel and a certain set of tires - if that - and you just go. No variable conditions whatsoever. The entire mindset is uncomparable. In GTR your usual races are at LEAST 10 laps. Often more. People do endurance races of 4 hours in that game. In NFS/GRID/Whatever you do 1-3 lap races. It's just another world, really.

If you managed to become decent with GTR2, then BIG kudos to you, mate! That is quite an accomplishment =). I don't spend that much time racing my ass off and though I know enough to tell what's good and what's not, I never quite got to a place, where I felt I mastered anything. I must have driven around 10.000 laps around Barcelona with my Lambo, but that's it =). I never really left that track, because I never felt I was good enough. A bit of the same in GTR Evo with the Gumpert on Anderstorp.

[Danyutz]

Doesn't mean it's a bad game, mind you. If I could get it to run smoothly, things could be different.

So true, i'm with you on this mate. If I could only pass the non-sense crashing, i'd enjoy the game.

[Hydro_PT]

If you managed to become decent with GTR2, then BIG kudos to you, mate! That is quite an accomplishment =).

Hehe thanks.

GRID is an arcade game. Yes it is, I never said it wasn't it. You drive with style. But it's much more exciting and rewarding than SHIFT, that's what I mean with being better. It's true that the graphics in SHIFT are better, but GRID is from 2008 already. If you have played the game when it was released, you would have been blown away with the graphics. Btw, the tracks have a better design in GRID than in SHIFT, mainly because they're very detailed if you look over the barriers. You see the crowd and other small details that bring life to the track. Most racing games don't have living tracks, if you know what I mean. The sound is better in SHIFT and the cockpit camera too, but everywhere else, GRID is better than SHIFT IMO.

When it comes to crashes and accidents, nothing beats GRID, honestly. Maybe DiRT is better. GTR2 is pure shiznit on that, and so is SHIFT.

When I compare SHIFT and GTR2, I compare the physics and the way you drive. I know that GTR2 has a lot of other details, like tires warming up, fuel and tires usage, engine's usage, etc, etc. And yes, you race for a lot of time and if you firetruck it up once, it's done. If you start losing control, it's really really hard to avoid a crash or a spin. So you must race perfectly on all 10 or 20 laps, which makes the game truly realistic. I would be tired after a 10 laps race in GTR2 lol. Sometimes I was even sweating, like I was in the cockpit of the car.

But I'm just comparing the way the car's handle and the physics, nothing else. And in that matter, I find them similar, with SHIFT being more arcade and forgiving, but not much. When I was playing around in the first track, I lost control a few times and I was able to recover from a spin only once. All the other times I couldn't recover in time, so my BMW ate some grass and dirt.

[Summ]

^tbh, I find the handling in Shift rather peculiar. Might be a G25 thing, but what I wrote about throttle applies to brakes as well. Driving with no aids on, I find it really hard to brake decently before a turn and accelerate through it like I should. It feels like.. like the brakes will lock somewhere down 70% of the run of my brake pedal, rather than down in the 90'ies zone. Throttle seems to come on ful strength earlier as well. It's strange. I don't feel very in control of the car. Definitely can't push it to the limit. I lose control in places and situations, where I go 'huh? why the hell did that happen?'

I have also just tried advancing to the first race in the career (bought a bmw 1 series thing.. somehow managed to get to the 3rd place in the previous race and earned some cash). Even after the NFS folder deletion, no fiddling with graphics settings and applying the Processor core trick, it was still slideshowy, albeit perhaps a little less than before.. don't know. It's insane with all the cars there at the start. It runs borderline decent, when I'm in the M3 alone, but as soon as other cars get on the track, I'm done for. While I'm at it, I find it extremely unfair that we get aggressive points for actions taken by the AI. I start, take the corner, the car behind me slams into me and *I* get points for trading paint?!.. wtf?! The AI in general is far too aggressive in this game. I swear, it looks like it's on a mission to kill me.. was coming down the long side, preparing to take the corner wide, when an AI controlled car SHOT past me, tires squealing and brakes locked. It speared right into the grass at what must have been WAY more than the optimal entry speed! In other words.. the AI drives like a maniac from hell and we (precise drivers) get penalized for it!

Aside from the weirdness when braking and taking corners, I usually catch slides rather easily, but I have a hard time feeling the car and the velocity. Some times I feel the entry speed is correct, only to understeer wide. Some times the opposite happens.. it gets too much throttle and the back steps out, even without the pedal to the metal. The floatiness is still there also and the force feedback is practically nonexistant. If I don't catch a slide (rare) it usually is because I get no indication of it from my wheel and the sound is drowned by neighbouring engines.

To sum i up, the controls through my G25 suck. The cars feel twitchy and respond weirdly to my inputs. Input lag is still there and I suspect it might have something to do with the generally low fps (in the 15's I would say).

[Danyutz]

Have you tried the all-so-mighty sensitive adjustments?

[Summ]

Jep. Don't help squat.

[Danyutz]

That means i should cancel my Logitech Momo wheel? Got it for a nice price, meh, i'll take it