Comments on: Need for Speed Shift – Two Gameplay Videos

By: logos

logos — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:02:43 +0000

Here’s an excerpt of Gamespot’s NFS: Shift “Hands On” from EA recent press event in San Francisco:

“Compare that to the other station running the game, which featured a race full of 1970s-model Nissan Skylines running a street race in Tokyo. In contrast to the McLaren race at Willow Springs, nearly every assist seemed to be toggled off in this version of the game, resulting in a Need for Speed game that felt completely unlike any other, save maybe for the classic Porsche Unleashed. Here was a car that was slow off the line, loose in the corners, prone to drift at the drop of a hat, and completely uninterested in making up for your driving mistakes should you lose momentum through a turn. Here, too, were unforgiving and demanding race opponents, not at all afraid of bullying you in corners or ashamed of leaving you in the dust if you couldn’t keep up. This was about as far from traditional rubber-band Need for Speed-style racing as can be imagined, and it felt very good, even if we did get our proverbial butts handed to us.”

A link to the full preview: http://www.gamespot.com/events/ea2009/story.html?sid=6208604

A video interview with Jesse Abney, where he confirms the damage will have impact on the performance of the cars: http://www.gamespot.com/events/ea2009/video.html?sid=6208580

By: kkv

kkv — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:38:07 +0000

t’s hard to tell anything about graphics yet beyond those trees and sun reflecting. The color gamma and overall visual sensation are very unnatural on those videos captured most probably from strongly wrong colored and over-contrasted typical modern display. I do hope it would looks much better if would be captured directly from a cable and seen on a color calibrated monitor. Still images look better at least. Demonstrating those hand captured videos does rather negative advertisement imo. Looking forward for a real gameplay video and hope it will be no blur option in the game.
.

By: Jos

Jos — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:13:11 +0000

Im not a fan of blur and certainly not a fan blooming :P

however I do like real-time shadows on the track and sun reflecting on it and some nice trees that are not cutout board.

By: paupau

paupau — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:10:13 +0000

Jos:
well graphics/sound wise it shits on anything simwise we can play now off course.
physics seems pretty accurate too as far as I can tell.
now the only thing this game is need to be is moddable!

I consider SimBin models much better in terms of rendering. The difference is made in effects. So, does blur turn you on? I prefer better physics then racing with impressions of sensation.
So now its a Sim for you guys ? Looks like ProStreet all over again, with some changes.
Strip down the effects and you get Need For Speed:Hot Pursuit

By: vali

vali — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:16:54 +0000

I think they exaggerated the speed sensation.

By: hayhayhay

hayhayhay — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:37:55 +0000

hmm… wonder if this game has flag rules… coz the car crashed liek that but i see no yellow…

By: Siggs

Siggs — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:15:46 +0000

Hehe, funny how everyone has different, positive things to say about it now
.

By: Jos

Jos — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:33:56 +0000

well graphics/sound wise it shits on anything simwise we can play now off course.

physics seems pretty accurate too as far as I can tell.

now the only thing this game is need to be is moddable!

By: kapten_zoom

kapten_zoom — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:14:05 +0000

Looks better than I’ve expected! The graphics are just way beyond any of the current sim and it really gives the immersion of speed!

With that said it doesn’t mean I´m an arcad racer it’s just that with for example RACE or GTR tha cars feels a bit slower compared to those vids. I acctually timed the zonda and got the tim 1:32.xx. Don’t know if that´s either good or bad for the zonda but it seems a little bit too fast if you campare to the track record 1:09 by Nigel Mansell. If you drive that car properly you would probably come down to 1:15 so it’s probably faster than in reality.It might not be the best sim but to me it looks fair enough!

And oh boy have I’ve been waiting for a good looking sim!

anyhow i was wondering if there is any word out yet when the demo will be released?

/Regards Fredik

By: phil23

phil23 — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:58:19 +0000

The Porsche video definately shows the game in a better light. Especially as the Ai is obviously set to a higher level than the Zonda Vid. Physics look decent, but no video can give a proper impression without actually driving it for ourselves.

I’ll be looking forward to trying the Demo when it’s out.

By: Howie47

Howie47 — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:22:15 +0000

These videos lay to rest the question about this being Sim or strictly Arcade. They definitely drive Sim like. I’d say those were in full Sim mode. But only when we get the Demo will we know for sure. Is this the only new Sim we have to look forward too this year? Well at least one with the latest game engine abilities. Might just tie us over until Rfactor2. But I probably won’t buy untill the price comes down to at least 40USD. Heads up EA!

By: hayhayhay

hayhayhay — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:52:56 +0000

overall i thinkt he game looks not bad… not sure if it is just me… but i’m not relaly enjoying the 2nd track… it feels… very arcade to me… all fast turns… not much variations… but that’s just me i guess…

i am not sure if i’m enjoying the blurring effects… especially when it also blurs the mirrors… so when u’re going fast… u don’t seem to be able to look at behind u that well…

still looking forward to it tho~

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:52:54 +0000

I think it apears these videos are showing someone using a controller and not a wheel which would explain the very jerky steering, acceleration and braking.

By: XaliaS

XaliaS — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:52:05 +0000

Well personally after 2 and a bit years now, you’d think we would have moved on. New recordings, better more unpredictable integration methods perhaps. I’m a huge fan of transmission whine as part of my ultimate sound experience but when the same sound is in every car in every sim, the brain becomes extremely accustomed and it’s very irritating. There’s been a few alterations over time but it’s still programmed exactly the same at a constant volume, looping over and over no matter what.

I dunno, maybe I’m just one of those mental audiophiles, and I thought EA would do better with their crazy good library of sounds, rather than just porting over.

By: Sensekhmet

Sensekhmet — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:24:08 +0000

Why the complaints about transmission whine? All competition transmissions (sequental, dog-box and/or with straight cut gears) are loud as hell.

By: JAGUAR1977

JAGUAR1977 — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:04:41 +0000

It looks closer to GTR2 than Grid, and these guys were obviously using the full compliment of driving aids as they even used the driving line, yet were still all over the place, oversteering, understeering and missing their braking points.

By: XaliaS

XaliaS — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:00:55 +0000

The Porsche video was the more interesting, I think the guy actually did a good job (do these people realise they are the initial demonstrators for the masses on the internets?)
He showed us acceleration from standing on two occasions – both which are horribly wrong in GRID but look much better in SHIFT. The only comments I can give to the Zonda video is about the blatant use of GTR2 transwhine, but I still cant gather enough about the physics.

The thing you’ve got to look out for is the difference between real physics and manufactured effects which look good on video, both are difficult to tell unless you have control.

E.g. We saw things like the RWD Zonda stepping out under throttle all the time. – Looks a bit manufactured to me, like the dev’s watched a episode of TopGear and said our Zonda needs to mimic this cars ‘spoken of’ behaviour in faith that the general public will agree that it’s realistic because it was stated so by other sources. So the physical effect would exist, but in some sort of scripted form so it would be easy to control/recover from (if you were an arcade racer not used to such things)

Just my two cents, looking forward to the demo!
The real great thing about EA is there’s always lots of news coverage to talk about.

P.S. I don’t think they have recorded/completed outside engine sounds yet, so no worries.

By: Uff

Uff — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:47:55 +0000

Good videos: it’s good to see that you do need to use brakes. I also like the sound when Porsche passes under the tunnel in the second video. Motion blur is also less than expected, at least for me: it seems that it may become a fun game!

By: joseki

joseki — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:20:33 +0000

In fact it looked quite good. Definetly better than I expected. It might be cool if it have decent physics – even if the rest of the game is arcade.

By: ScHiRoCk

ScHiRoCk — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:16:59 +0000

Dunno, how i see the car “driving” because imo it looks like it’s floating on the track…
Looks like it’s the handling of GRID…

My hopes aren’t that high anymore.

And i hear no difference between exterior and interior sounds, well at least not at the porsche movie…