Over the years, NFS managed to win many fans but due to the game’s arcadey nature, it never appealed to the car simulation seekinggamers crowd. EA tried hard with Pro Street but failed miserably and now they’re back again with the latest creation Need for Speed: Shift. As like most of NFS games, Shift promises to give gamers the freedom to drive number of real-life cars but this time with greater control so as to give the simulated feeling. We tried out the PSP variant and here’s what we have to say.
The ultimate goal of the game is to become the undisputed leader of the road. Your journey as a racer begins by entering the World Tour that will allow you to race different cars, upgrade them, unlock new tracks and beat different road kings to acheive your goal. This may sound all fair and good but there’s a roadblock, in fact a major one. Despite EA touting NFS: Shift as more of a simulation game, it still has that arcade-ish feeling and is restrictive too. By saying restrictive, I mean that the game does not allow you to fine tune your car to give you an extra edge over competitors. You just race, accumulate points, unlock tracks and earn upgrades in the form of loyalty bonus. The upgrades include better handling, nitro boost, body kit and a company sponsored livery. I guess EA’s reasoning had to do with PSP’s portable nature and that the user wants to keep it straight and simple as most users tend to play PSP while traveling and wouldn’t want their playing time to be minimized by fine tuning their car. The only customization option you get is of modifying livery or colors of the car. Users can also import their liveries by placing a JPG file in the Photos folder of the PSP.
However, if the aforementioned issue is not a big one for you, you’re all set for all the fast pace action. You’ll be racing on tracks from San Francisco, London, Chicago, Paris and Tokyo. Although it gets repetitive over time, track variations like ‘’extended”, “reverse” and “short” add some uniqueness to each race. The track and environment detailing is not top notch but it’s not bad either. In fact, it’s the last thing you would see when you’re accelerating at high speeds.
As for the cars, you start with couple of options to choose from and unlock new ones as you win particular races or events. EA has licensed some good cars like Ford GT, Porsche Carrera GT, Porsche 911, Merc-Mclaren SLR 722 Edition, BMW M3 GT2 and many more to keep you in the racing loop. The car detailing is not bad either as EA has tried to convincingly utilize PSP’s available resources effectively.
The gameplay is a no-brainer. Just race through different circuits on different events at different levels. There are 14 different types of racing events that will come during your career. Winning races will be easy at Rookie and Amateur level but suddenly gets trickier when you advance to Street. Make sure you learn all the moves (driving tips under Extras section can be handy) and get a car with decent upgrade before jumping into the big league.
The game also offers some visual treat with animations like blurring of surroundings when Nitro boost is activated or while drifting or a car crash going through slow motion. One thing to note about car crashes are that no matter how fatal they look, the car will be back to normal but you’ll lose a few precious seconds.
NFS: Shift also features a Multiplayer mode where up to 4 users can go head to head to burn some rubber.
To sum it up, the latest iteration may not be termed as the best NFS game for PSP yet but given its fast paced action and a chance to drive in world’s best cars, it will surely give you endless hours of racing fun. The game is available now in India from Milestone Interactive and can be bought online at Game4u.
A remarkable game Need for Speed SHIFT, PSP version I liked