NFS Shift, Pretty Cool Game

[kimokalihi]

I just got Need For Speed Shift yesterday and played it for 5 hours straight last night. It was pretty fun. Even with the controller. Best racing game I can remember playing, maybe even ever I dunno. Most wanted was fun but this is far more realistic.

I used the Toyota Corolla AE86 and it's pretty fun. The upgrades are not realistic. For instance after getting every stage 1 upgrade and stage 2 upgrade for this car I'm pushing something like 230hp along with 698ft lbs of torque. What?

But what really pisses me off about it is they give you actual specs such as HP, TQ, weight, 0-60 and 0-100 times, etc. Or you can view them just as Acceleration, Top speed, Handling and Braking bars. These two types of specs which are like advanced and basic specs which you can toggle between one or the other, do not seem to correlate with one another. I toggled between them when doing upgrades to my car and noticed that when it would say that the upgrade wouldn't give me any more HP or TQ or faster acceleration times or weight reduction or anything, the acceleration, top speed, handling and braking bars would move. When the advanced specs would show increased acceleration in 0-0-60 and 0-100 and HP/TQ the basic bars wouldn't improve at all!

And I'm pretty sure it goes by the basic bars as to whether your car really does improve or not. Not the actual specs.

I also don't understand why they can't get the money system down right in video games. You earn money for races and sponsorships but the parts cost ridiculously too much money. Why couldn't they just give you less for winning races and be more realistic with the parts pricing? I can't remember anything specific off the top of my head but it was like $10,000 for a weight reduction or something. C'mon! Or like $25,000 for an upgraded turbo.

This game should be even more fun when I get this:

Logitech G25



Flatout and Flatout 2 are great games too. Really fun to play and I used the Subaru Brat in one of them to beat the whole damn game. Not that realistic of a game but very fun offroad racing game.

I plan on buying Dirt 2 as well. I have the first Dirt and it's pretty cool but didn't really keep me interested long enough to beat more than 2/3 of the game. I was pretty excited about Dirt 2 after watching a bunch of videos for it but then right before it launched they released some more videos showing stupid XGames stunts with fireworks or explosions and that stuff is dumb and I was hoping for more of a realistic rally sim. So I dunno how that game will turn out. Probably still decent.

[magicmike]

lol, I think its funny that you don't think the artificial game correlates accurately to reality as you would like. Dude, its a video game...

[speedmaxx]

ill be picking up the game in a few days...

to bad they dont make that wheel set up for a 360

[Mattheww044]

im getting that game soon, but DIRT 2 is pretty freakin sweet, other than the fact that its like KEN BLOCK KENBLOCK TRAVIS PASTRANA KEN BLOCK! o well at least they mentioned Colin McRae's name in the beginning, you get his car to start off with. I havent bought any of the cars besides the Subies, and McRae's car that he built. Are there any subies in Shift?

[kimokalihi]

The only one I've seen so far is the STI. Which I bought for Tier 2. Haven't even come close to getting used to the difference in handling with the STI after driving that AE86 for nearly 5 hours.

lol, I think its funny that you don't think the artificial game correlates accurately to reality as you would like. Dude, its a video game..

Yeah but it's supposed to be a driving sim pretty much. It's made by one of the best racing game developers in the world. I don't think it's much to ask that they get something so small as that right.

[kimokalihi]

WOW, check it out. This guy is seriously serious about his racing simulators.

Custom Aluminum Steering Wheel Adapter for Logitech G25

ebay link






He's got a sick setup there. Must have a lot more money than I do or I would have the same thing! lol Looks like fun.

Here's a cool video of him driving with that setup.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEtVSqQw ... r_embedded

[kimokalihi]

This setup is pretty cool too but it's spendy at about $1,000

[HappyFrog]

Heh, I built this one last year. Unfortunately I built it a bit too short and too low for me to sit comfortable in it, so I wrapped it up and gave it to my nephews for christmas. They stayed in it all week playing GTA on their PS2.

[kimokalihi]

That's awesome! Got any more pics of it? Looks really nice. I bet they loved that. If I was a kid with that I dunno what I would do. I'd play that all day and all night!

[HappyFrog]

I only have a really lousy one from a cellphone, it is much darker IRL. I'll see if I can find some better ones at home.



It was built for a G25 wheel (the hole in the right side was for the gear shifter), but I thought it was a bit too expensive for my christmas budget, so my other brother bought a PS2 wheel for them.
I meant to cut a complete set of decals for it, but I had a daughter last summer so I ran out of time

[kimokalihi]

Now that I'm in Tier 2, I'm not doing well at this game anymore, whereas I was kicking ass in tier 1. I haven't really driven the STI much because I wanted to get my corolla tuned in for drifting. I'm failing at that. At the tuning and the driving. I can't drift the thing for shit and I can't tell what's wrong with it, therefore I don't know how to tune it to fix the problem.

It basically has way too much torque. Like I said it's got like 230hp and 700ft lbs of torque. Go figure. Once I get into a drift I can barely control the thing and if I happen to flip the back end the other way in a drift and start drifting the opposite direction, I lose it completely and it won't respond to me turning the wheel, it just goes straight into the wall. Or every wall for the next 100+ feet while I struggle to get it going in a straight line.

This is frustrating. The throttle sucks. It's not smooth at all. It's as if there's 4 points of acceleration in the trigger. Super slow, slow, not as slow and then it jumps right into wide open throttle and you lose all your grip and the car goes all over the place.

I'm pretty sure the game changes your handling for drift races only and makes it so you cannot accelerate in a straight line full throttle because I'm pretty sure you can in the other races just fine. I remember in NFS underground it did this. The car would NOT drift at all in regular races but then in drift mode all of the sudden it was all you could do to keep the damn thing driving in a straight line.

I hate that about games. It's annoying. Why does my car all of the sudden slide all over the place just because I'm on a drift course.

[Redlined]

Thats kinda the NFS thing. do what you want with the settings. a car will grip on a race course and tail slide on a drift coarse. I think pro-street had the most broken drift physics. You could go into a corner, tap the brakes and steer, the car would go straight while sliding in the direction of the curve.... think of drifting with the tail hanging in twords the middle of the curve instead of out to the outside. REALLY fucked with your prespective of how things are supposed to work.


In a game. figure out HOW the game wants to to drift and work with that. Dont bother with actual drift techniques.

Only game ive played that didnt fit this mold was the Grand Turismo series. though I have to admit to never trying the latest version.

[kimokalihi]

Yeah it's pretty lame. I did take my AE86 out for another spin on a regular track and it indeed handles like a totally different car then it did on the drift track. You can accelerate hard through pretty much all the gears without going sideways on a straightaway whereas once you hit about 3rd gear on a drift track you better let off the throttle or you'll be face first into a wall before you know what happened.

It's pretty shitty that they have to do this sort of thing to appeal to non-enthusiasts. For fear that it would be too difficult to race the car on a race track without losing control or to learn how to drift properly on a drift track. Instead they change the whole handling properties of the vehicle so it's easier to race and drift on each type of track.

I turned off all the settings when I first started the game. I wanted to learn how to drive the car without assists like anti lock brakes, traction control, brake assist, etc. When you complete your test lap in the beginning it analyses how you did and suggests your difficulty setting and which assists and what level you should use. I did pretty bad on the test lap and it suggested I use them all at a certain level but I turned them all off anyways and learned how to drive the car.

You know what else I found funny. My STI has about the same acceleration specs (Almost fully upgraded) as the lamborghini mercielago of around 2.9 second 0-60, etc, yet if you look at the idiot bars that display basic acceleration,top speed, handling and braking, the mercielago's bars are way higher.

I guess what I'm getting at is, how hard would it be to get simple things like this right in a video game? When you pay $60 a game plus tax and gas money to the store after dropping $500 on a gaming system, I think you have the right to expect more.

[Suigintou]

I've played pretty far into the game. It's even harder on computer because you only have two throttle options: WOT/nothing

I've adjusted to that ok, though it does force you to do some pretty funky pulsing of the brake and gas to get the correct speed and angle you want. Heres a pic of me in my fully upgraded Subie.



Subie is my second fav car in this game, next to the Porsche 911. I'll post pics of that gal later.

[kimokalihi]

I got dirt 2 yesterday and played it for 10 mins. WAY different game. NFS has more realistic graphics and handling. But NFS takes longer during load times.

[Mattheww044]

oh, did you not like Dirt 2? I think its pretty fun I live the rally events and trailblazer

[kimokalihi]

I haven't played it long enough to get a feel for it and determine my opinion of the game as a whole.

That being said, I do not like how they changed the way the co-driver gives you directions. In the first Dirt the upcoming turns were described as 1,2,3,4,5 and maybe 6 I can't remember. The lower the number the tighter the turn. Now I got some chick who just says easy right, medium left, fast right. I don't like it. I was really used to the number system and it gave me a quicker better idea of what kind of corner was up ahead.

I placed first on the first course which was an Xgames event or something but then got my ass kicked on the rally course where I placed 12th or something and then came back after a few restarts and placed 3rd. That's when I quit playing the game. I was really tired and had a headache.

Have you played shift Matt? It's pretty sick. The cockpit view on shift is much better than dirt. Dirt feels so rigid inside the cockpit. It's like you're just watching someone else race through a camera mounted in the car rather than through the driver's eyes.

[SILINC3R]

have NFS Shift, Dirt 2, NFS Undercover, FMS 3. beat NFS Undercover pretty swet game of course it isnt very real but sounds good and fun to play. beat Dirt 2 b far one of my favorite, played the first as well not sure which one i like better. McCrae' car is pretty fun once you learn how to control it. also the video you get as a tribute is pretty sweet. lots of subuars as well as our cars. started NFS Shift played for a little then played FMS 3 and haved turned back. by far much better than NFS Shift. has a lot of cars that i wanted growing up. wait im stillgrowing up, anyway they have 300zx, 22b, Talon, GSX, no 240z, Supras and lots, lots more. only hard part is when you get to the GT cars the wheels burn out up 4th gear so you have to be careful of which gear your in and trigger pressure. also once yo get far into the game you will start using the tuning options. this is when the game gets better i think. pretty accurate as far as games go. lower ride hide, camber, toe, aero, tire pressure; can feel the difference in just adjusting one specific option. hope this helps

my 3 cents

[kimokalihi]

I didn't care for Dirt 2 as I didn't care for the new Gymkhana video with Rob Dyrdek. They didn't take it seriously like the first dirt was and I didn't like how they changed the co pilot and how he called the upcoming turns. They dumbed it down and made a joke out of it and that pissed me off. Wasted my money. I couldn't get into that game. Dirt 1 was far better.

[SILINC3R]

how far did you get into the game and i thought they always called out the upcoming turns?

[kimokalihi]

They call them out still but instead of saying "left 2" they'll say "left easy, medium, hard" or something like that. There used to be 1,2,3,4 and 5 I believe and now there's just 3 and it sounds dumb. I just didn't like the overall feel of the game and the direction they took it. I didn't get very far, maybe an hour and said screw this game. Waste of money.

[SILINC3R]

well as they say "to each there own" or something like that but thats sucks you didnt like it. have you played FMS3 yet? i dont think you'll be disappointed

[kimokalihi]

Forza 3? Nope, probably never will since it's 360 only. I'm a PC gamer 95% of the time and then a little bit of PS3 when a game comes out on consoles only or is better suited for a controller. I still love my PS3 even though it doesn't see much use most of the time.

[SILINC3R]

yes forza 3, well if it comes out for PS3 you need to play it

[kimokalihi]

Well I won't hold my breath on that one lol but if it does come out on PS3 I will buy it for sure, used. haha