Have the racing genre become so over-saturated with perfection that the final improvement to the racing simulation can only come in the form of the clattering of rubble on the road?
Need for Speed Shift 2 Unleashed is the latest of a franchise that has prided itself on being highly competitive in the arcade racing genre. Some would even argue that many of the NFS games are the best in the genre such as Underground 2 and Hot Pursuit. These games have captured the exhilaration of speed and the heart pounding thrills of corners, but that wasn?t enough. Being the best in the arcade racing scene wasn?t enough, they want the big prize: racing simulation.
And the result is staggeringly abhorrent. What the result of chasing for simulation from a fundamentally arcade-minded team is abominable. There?s a constant tug-of-war between simulation design and arcade thrills, which combines to form a simulation that tries to evoke the same arcade excitement or an arcade racer that is forced to tweak itself to simulate simulators.
The imitation is simply terrible. From a simulations perspective, the art of the car is in passion, not just science. Nobody ever gets excited about precise engineering except precise engineers. And Shift 2 suffers both traumas of passion and engineering.
The game lacks passion, this hidden x-factor that takes a little extra polish and dedication from the team. Passion is when Morgan grows a tree dedicated to the production of your car. It?s about doing things extra just to make the customer feel special. For most sims, it?s about the details. And nothing in Shift 2 is detailed.
It?s designed in broad strokes. Here are some cars. Here are some specs. Here are some tracks. And here is how these specs perform on these tracks. The end.
The second flaw is in the simulation itself. Shift 2 is not a simulator. Just because the game has included the sound of rubble hitting the tires and the idea that the racers watch the apex while racing, doesn?t make this game a simulator. Yes, there?s a moderately nice presentation to act as facade over the broken mechanic underneath, but the mechanic really is broken.
Take the Honda S2000. It?s iconic for being the most precise handling of its time and can be upgraded to outperform supercars?ideal for many young enthusiasts. In this game, however, driving the Honda S2K is like dragging a caravan with a Kia Rios. And the problem is in how the game handles inputs. Instead of having the input of left mean turn the car left, the game translates the input of left as ?turn the wheel left?. This results in an input lag so that it takes a while for the animation of turning the wheel to take place, then takes a while for the wheel to actually be turned to the amount that matters for the turn, then after the turn, the wheel takes a while to be turned back.
This is a disaster. The wheel turning is simply way too slow for any precise movement, causing the already dreadful and unrealistic amount of over steer to be accented to an inexcusable degree.
Now, I?m not going to say that this game is unplayable. It?s almost unplayable without a wheel. But I will say this: avoid this game like the plague. And I would recommend that if you are looking for a racing simulator that?s also borderline arcade thrills, get Grid.
article [http://www.playstation54.com/?p=256]