Gaming Shift 2: Unleashed Review

Played this in a local shop, glad I did as I was going to buy it on the strength of this review. The handling is absolutely woeful using a 360 pad. Massive steering lag, somehow they've managed to make the cars feel like 20 ton trucks yet weight shifting is impossible. All this means if you do get a corner almost perfect, if you oversteer just a tiny bit that would otherwise not be a problem, then you'll oversteer a lot because of the lag and make a total mess of it. Never even looked at the rest of the game, and have no interest to; simulator or arcade, a driving game begins and ends with the handling. Shift 2's handling is unconnected and poorly done in my personal view

 

let's hope that ps3 version with steering wheel is ok otherwise i'm gonna cry but i remember i've spent some time setting up the first shift with my steering wheel (GT Force from Logitech)

 

Dunno about gamepads, but theres a youtube video (are we allowed to post links?) of a guy testing out the lag, and did a frame by frame on it, he calculated that theres around 200ms input lag on the steering wheel, with all sensitivity settings. Hopefully, this will be fixed, but I know from Shift 1 and TDU2, physics or other stuff wont get changed :\

 

I really wish I'd done the same. I liked Shift 1 so I bought Shift 2 without thinking about trying it out first. Now I'm stuck with a £30 game on Steam that I'll most likely never play again. If I'd bought it for the PS3 then it'd be traded in tomorrow.

The handling for cars on Shift 2 is woeful. Hell, even TDU2 feels better.

 

Good to see I'm not the only one who thought the handling wasn't up to scratch in this =/ After a few races with my G25 and messing around with the settings (good to see out of the box support for all the major wheel btw) I gave up and just went back to using my Xbox 360 Controller.

I'm still enjoying it though, on the Modern A Invitational now.... the Green Hell is as terrifying as I remember it back in Shift 1 during that Veyron only race

 

After playing it with three hours straight with my DFGT here is what I found:
1. After the test lap with the Nissan GTR the game grades you and put your settings and will revert back to Auto transmission no matter what I do. This is very very annoying.
2. On a plus note, the difficulty changes with each race depending on how good/abysmal you are. But still changes back to auto....
3. FF is there, same as first game though handling wise seems like the GTR was so twitchy and the lowest rank cars were better off. Another problem is with the dead zone in the middle. At high speeds you could actually get away by making minute adjustments at the wheel and not be punished. For now, I stick to default settings as whatever I do upsets the balance even more which is even more annoying. On the plus side, this game accepts more than 270 degree turn so you will have to turn the wheel more-which was not present in the first game.
4. The game settings are like one big nanny. It starts off with everything off trying to gauge you, then turns everything on even Assisted braking (since you didn't get the hang on the game the very first time) then slowly gives you freedom.
5. This game is unforgiving. Gone are the days where I used cars as cushions in the race. In Dirt2 you can still get away with it. Most of the time you either spin out with your cushion or hit the wall.

If anyone has a solution how to make manual transmission stick let me know. If not this is going to be one boring game. I can override with upper and lower shifts, but there are loads of times especially in corners I want to maintain that gear rather than going up and going down again losing traction.

 

Last review I said said "Absolutely do not buy this game" It's apparently unplayable and in need of a patch.

Strange how it gets reviews at both end of the point spectrum.

http://www.techtree.com/India/Revie..._NFS_Shift_2_Unleashed_PC/551-114997-699.html

 

First thing that surprised me were the dated graphics in the finished game. The pre-release videos suggested we'd be getting very nice visuals, now the game is here it seems they have done that age old con trick of substituting greatly reduced graphics.

The steering feels very poor with my logitech wheel. I gave the game a try, didn't like the dated graphics or the handling. It feels wrong.

 

Also, I forgot to mention that the best playable graphic on my specs were all medium. You can turn everything on, though there is a noticeable jerk, not much, but its there. Graphicwise takes a beating for night racers where even medium is not good. Car models are now better and rubber flying is everywhere. Your car will be dirty no matter how good you drive to the finish which is quite realistic. I noticed that they spend more time on updating the environment than the track and car itself. The lighting is better now. Previously it was just ambient light to differentiate dusk/dawn/day. Now there is sun glare.

I'm going to finish off the remaining challenges of dirt2 first before I come back to this game. I can see the potential here, and it should not take EA that long to fix it.

 

been playing the game for last 3 days and although it does crash, it doesn't do it during the races. it crashes in menus (upgrades, paint) but not always. apart from that it's really good fun.

but some twats who play online don't play by the rules and cut corners! ******s!

 

I thought you can't cut corners?

BTW-what is the recommended graphic card for this game? I'm struggling on medium settings on the ATi 4770 HD

 

I didn't rate ns:shift as much of a simulator but this has certainly promted me to consider.

 

i don't know why but i really find the game rather unresponsive or i might not get the hang of it as i 've completed the career around 10%. There are no proprietary visual buttons for X360 controller in game. The game requires a beefy cache'd dual core & a HD5770(atleast) to run smoothly.
Now the worst part to mention is that the HANDLING. I m using the X360 wireless controller & it feels like driving a 16 wheeler with 5 tires punctured & the truck doesn't have power steering! Unless u own a pro-racing wheel, the game will make u feel an out of world game.
It seems like they only make the game for those people with hefty pockets & totally forget about the us poor one. I feel i totally wasted my money on this game & i should've saved for the quad core CPU. I regret buying this game.

 

And they wish that they can take on GT & GRID. The game requires some serious patching & yeah do read that techtree article soopahfly mentioned.

 

Glad I'm not the only one struggling with the steering problem. I have played with all the settings for the xbox controller and found a setting that's just about manageable but it's a shame as I was really looking forward to this game after the fun I had playing shift1.

 

I',m on an I7 920, with 6gb Ram and a GTX285, games runs smoothly with very little jerkiness with everyone on high for me. On the Miami tracks so far suffering jerkiness and only for a sec or 2 and general only the first time I play the tracks.

Also works fine with the F430 FF Wheel, but I must admit to get anywhere with the game, I need to play on Normal driving set up, some tracks I need easy on.

The first race to determine my level, was so ridiculous to try to steer the car, I would be very interested to see someone conquer it with no assists on.

 

Just tried the Drift race

What a load of W**K

this game seriously needs a patch or fix, Something.

Ive tried some mods but they didn't do anything.

 

Wow, Faunus got mind controlled!

I think he made a fair comment although it quite obviously pissed MrCraigL right off. Which I thought the response only proved Faunus to be correct by showing you could only reference 3 out of the 6 questions, and those 3 included were wishy-washy-could-be-any-game and supplied comments from the games publisher!
The review IS very generic and could have been based on any platform. When you review a game like Crysis for PC you wouldn't review it in the same style as this (One would hope..).
Performance details are important with a PC game in my humble, techy loving, opinion.