Shift 2 Unleashed review.

The Need for Speed ​​series needs no introduction. Everyone knows it, everyone has played it at least a little. Need for Speed ​​has always been presented exclusively as arcade racing, but all this happened until Need for Speed: Shift was released. He gave a breath of air to a series that had been fading for a long time. Shift departed from the standard canons of the series; this already happened once, for example in ProStreet, but then it was not crowned with the expected success. Shift brought the series to another level, to the level of real hardcore car simulators. The game began to truly resemble being in a real car, on a real racing track. If you have a good steering wheel, then the game was made just for you, but therefore it was very problematic to play on the keyboard, but if you wanted, you could turn on the arcade mode, but of course more than half of the positive feelings from the gameplay were lost. As a result, the developers made a separate branch and gave Shift to the care of Slightly Mad Studios, who ate the dog on wonderful car simulators. And it was no surprise to anyone that Shift 2 Unleashed was announced soon.
Even before the game was released, the developers said that they had developed their own engine and a unique physical model, which was the main focus in the gameplay. The car’s behavior model had to be extremely similar to the real one, and the developers didn’t need anything more. Unlike other games of this genre, the game does not have high-quality graphics or thousands of cars, it has gameplay itself that should have overtaken Gran Truism 5 itself, they say, they have nothing but 1000 cars, and we will have no more than 150 of them, but each one will be worked out to the smallest detail. After such a screw up it would be simply unforgivable and the developers tried to do everything they could and for good reason.

And finally the game is out. The game was highly anticipated by many, including me. After starting a career, we, like last time, are immediately thrown onto the track to get used to the controls, and in the meantime the computer will select the optimal control parameters for us. As in the first part, if you play without a steering wheel, then you immediately understand that you will have a hard time. But I played on the steering wheel (Logitech G27 Racing Wheel) and experienced only positive emotions. There is basically no plot. We are a beginner racer who is being trained by a professional pilot. They show us videos from real life and tell us how dangerous and difficult the life of a real racer is. After the introductory race, which is also training, we are given starting capital for it, we can buy ourselves a car, which is quite enough for the first time. Immediately after this we set off on the path to our cherished goal, and the main goal is the FIA ​​GT1 Championship. As the game progresses, we upgrade our pilot in levels, receive money, access to new competitions, and all sorts of goodies. The following branches are now opened as we level up, and not by earning stars. The racing modes are standard, there are time trials, regular circuits and competitions for a certain class of cars.

The gameplay is not very different https://jackpotparadise-casino.co.uk/ from the first part, but as has already been mentioned several times, the physical model of the car’s behavior on the track has been seriously improved. The slightest mistake by the pilot or simply careless movement of the steering wheel can lead to flying off the track, or even leaving the race. Speaking of retirement from the race, now the car is beating much harder. Previously, you could crash into a wall at a speed of 200 km/h, and only the glass would be scratched, but now a wheel can fly off, the engine stall, and even tires burst. In this regard, racing turns into a real test. The rivals have also become much more lively. They push, ram, block the path and arrange all sorts of nasty things. Even on easy level they can be a fair competition, not to mention on the highest difficulty level. The view from the cockpit, as before, is simply beautiful, the interiors have been worked out to the smallest detail, but, perhaps, one of the main features is the view “through the eyes of the pilot”. With this camera view it’s like we’re moving to the track. The edges of the helmet are visible, the driver’s head turns when approaching a corner, when braking hard the head twitches, it looks simply amazing. Dirt, pieces of rubber and small pebbles get on the glass. One of the main advantages of this camera is the immersion in the atmosphere and the side stand in the cabin, which previously blocked half of the view and made it more difficult to play, has finally stopped getting in the way.

The graphics in the game have not changed much, because this was not the main goal of Slightly Mad Studios. But, despite this, the picture has become noticeably prettier. The sun shines in the eyes and blinds the driver; traces of tires, oil, and sometimes even car parts remain on the track. Reflections on the hood and asphalt are also at a quite decent level. The detailing of cars and tracks deserves the highest marks. All details on the car body are clearly drawn. The tracks are incredibly beautiful and also licensed, however, there is absolutely no time to be distracted by admiring the beauty. Unfortunately, we won’t be allowed to ride before the race and therefore we have no opportunity to memorize the route in advance. Of course, the night races were especially successful, another novelty. The road is practically invisible and this makes the game even more interesting, since if you turn off the mini-map, you have to drive almost at random. True, it’s not clear why you can’t break the headlights of a car, it’s more likely that this is an omission of the developers, no matter how hard I tried, the wheels flew off, the engine broke, but no matter how you look at it, the headlights remained intact.
There are approximately 130 cars in the game. All of them are licensed and are realistic copies of real cars. In terms of fleet size, the game is of course inferior to Gran Turismo, but this is not so scary. Each car has its own unique performance and behaves uniquely on the track. I don’t know if this can be felt on the keyboard, but the behavior on the track of two different cars is completely different. And sometimes each track has its own, most optimal car. Cars, as always, can be upgraded; there are a huge variety of different tabs in the car settings. You can rummage around in the garage to your heart’s content. For technology connoisseurs, you can configure the unit in more detail and as a result, everyone will be able to customize the “iron horse” to their taste. If everything that could be improved has already been improved, then you can send the car for factory modification, where they will squeeze everything possible out of it, and you can turn an ordinary car into a monster intended exclusively for racing. Each car has its own unique characteristics, engine sounds, and in the game you won’t find two identical cockpit interiors.

As a result, it turns out that Shift 2 is one of the best representatives of the car simulator genre, which can also appeal to fans of arcade racing. And even though there is no huge fleet of vehicles and there are minor mistakes and shortcomings of the developers, it turned out to be an excellent game about professional racing competitions, with good graphics, non-boring gameplay and excellent physics.

Pros: excellent physics of car behavior on the track, nice graphics, excellent sound, addictive gameplay.
Cons: lack of qualifications before the races, minor bugs and shortcomings slip through.