Shift 2 Unleashed

[backstept]

got this for PC last night on impulse (I really have to stop that )
I only had time to play the first race which is basically a 'let's see how good/bad you are to set the difficulty' race

from the little I saw, the graphics are amazing, the cars look fantastic

Need For Speed High Stakes was one of my most favorite racing games (before I found GT and Forza ) and I really haven't liked the NFS games since then . . . they all seemed like poseur-fests that emphasized on the cool factor of the cars, and not the cool factor of driving them. For instance NFSU and NFSU2 seemed like they were all about making your car look ridiculous instead of racing
and the Hot Pursuit/Undercover titles seemed to glorify illegal street racing

I haven't played the first NFS Shift, but it looked cool
anyone else get this game? What do you think?

 

[Garrett]

I bought the game more or less on impulse, too. Shortly after buying the first one on impulse. As many bad things as I heard about the first game, I still mostly like it from what I've played of it.

Honestly, so far I'm pretty disappointed in the game. The handling, which was one of the main things criticized in the first game, almost seems to be worse here. I've heard it described like driving a boat, which isn't too inaccurate.

I was also hoping they'd take out the annoying voiceovers, like the queue that plays at the start of the race
"it's green, go go go", while they display the lights with an audible start queue on the green one. Instead they replaced that with a drift racer explaining various things about the game like how leveling and upgrading your car in unskippable cutscenes. Luckily, his voice over stuff during the race is less annoying than that of the first game.

I suppose normally this wouldn't annoy me so much, but after driving a bit I was beginning to regret parting with my money and was looking for stuff to nitpick (like the overly dramatic menu music). The presentation of the first Shift was a bit glossy for my taste, but I prefer to the feel of this game.

The career mode seems to be laid out a bit better than in the first game with the tiers and using stars to unlock the next races. I'm just not sure if I enjoy the feel of driving enough to keep with it. I've read some tweaks on making the driving better (changing the tire pressure helped a bit), so I might look into tweaking the steering and what not a bit before deciding whether to trade it in on something else.

 

[backstept]

yeah the handling is really bad, but I like everything else so far
can't stand the racer dude though . . . they should have hired Tanner Foust instead of Vaughn Gittin Jr
but compared to ProStreet this game is pretty slick

 

[Garrett]

After reading a thread about the game on xbox.com, I changed the deadzone settings for steering, and throttle (I don't remember if I had to change the brake deadzone settings or not). They were at 15%, and I lowered them to 5%. That improved the handling a ton. This is for the Xbox 360 controller.

I also set the voice to off so I don't have to hear the other guy, either. Hopefully there will be no more unskippable videos.

Between those two changes, I'm enjoying the game considerably more now.

 

[backstept]

I haven't looked through all the setting, so hopefully that'll do the trick

 

[backstept]

ok . . . how the heck are you supposed to go drifting? I won a drift car and wanted to try it out, but any steering adjustments made it go out of control
the steering either feels dead, or cranked all the way left/right, no in-between, and it lags like crazy, so if I find myself fishtailing too much and try to correct, it whips back and I go out of control
or in a regular race if I start fishtailing I throw in a dab of opposite lock and whammo . . . I'm doing the zigzags trying to get straight again . . .

I'm starting to think this game wasn't meant for gamepads or keyboards . . . you need a wheel for it to actually be playable

 

[backstept]

I've been playing around with the settings and I think I've found a combo that'll work ok . . . I was able to race Laguna Seca in my S15 without crashing
but there's still the minor issue of going wildly out of control on the most minor corrections . . . I essentially had to do a few laps fighting my natural instinct to countersteer and somehow it worked . . . it still tends to float around on straights, but it's somewhat driveable
I picked Laguna Seca because in my opinion it's one of the harder tracks to get through cleanly . . . you've got a few high speed turns that sneek up on ya, not to mention the corkscrew, the most evil corner ever

so in conclusion, I really think that the game was rushed, and the physics model is severely flawed . . . severe steering lag, unpredictable handling etc
Shift 2 is a phenomenal visual experience, but nigh undrivable

 

[Garrett]

Yeah. I thought I had a setup that was working for me, but after taking a break to play some Forza I find the handling in this game to be way too sloppy again. There seems to be some more tweaking I can do for the suspension, etc, but I'm wondering now if I want to waste my time trying to get this game to handle decently. Most other racers do that right out of the box.

I've heard the first Shift had similar problems until it was patched. I'm debating whether to hang on to Shift 2 and hope there's a similar patch that fixes the handling, or to just trade it in now. This could potentially be a great game if the handling issues were fixed.

 

[backstept]

I'm probably going to hold out for a patch because I don't know of any local places that'll do PC game trade-ins

 

[backstept]

well I played around with the settings, and it's been a while since I last played GT4 or Forza so I think I got that driving style out of my system, and this time around I'm finding Shift 2 to be a bit more driveable

I had to adjust the tire pressure (my Silvia was defaulted to something stupid high) and adjust the sway bars
that seemed to get rid of the wacky grip issues and the bounce that kept wiping me out

fun game