I do remember saying when this was announced that Shift would pale in comparison to RD: Grid, and the demo on the PS store didn't do anything to change my mind. However, did get the special edition for £15 off in a sale before Christmas and I've been really enjoying it. It's not Grid, but it really isn't bad at all, and they improved the handling from the demo. I very much like how it differs from other NFS games by (A) not being extremely buggy and crashing (B) giving completed races full prize money so it isn't really hard to get the higher end cars. I do like the sense of speed created by blurring the cockpit out at really high speed, and the blurred vision and greying out after a big bump. Makes going off the course and crashing a much less attractive prospect and has made me sharpen my cornering and passing up. The AI is rather single minded on the driver duels I've noticed, tactic does seem to be to nudge or bump you just right in the corners to put you in the wall rather than win fair and square. All in all though, good fun racing, good selection of cars, great selection of tracks and decent online racing too. Anyone else enjoying as much as me? Oh favourite cars are the Zonda R and my works-tuned E36 M3 btw.
I saw you'd picked it up the other night! If it's anything like Burnout I'll spend my time trying to beat your laptimes!
