Shift 2 Unleashed shifts to stores March 29

@BrianZeluz

I agree with you, and I very much like the fact that 3 of those games are from codemasters... Dirt 3 looks very promissing

@BrianZeluz - I don't know that I'd really call GRID and especially DiRT realistic but I agree with the rest.

and that's no knock on either of those games as I think they're both amazing and I can't wait for DiRT 3.

@BrianZeluz
Most realistic racer... first person camera may be what they were aiming at

@Crayola Q Pants ESQ first person camera is in grid, dirt and f1 2010 its nothing new and done way better in those games

@Pure Black World Tendency

Shift: 15 September 2009
Shift 2: March 29, 2011

That was in NFS Shift too. It's the first game where I really wanted to play from the cockpit view. Right stick was great for using side mirrors and taking a quick glance around you too. Lots of neat cockpit effects in the first one. I''m quite happy to get this. For me Shift was more fun than Forza or GT. It's not as realistic, true, but it got me on the edge of my seat.

@ProfKOS

I have Forza, I love those. A bit more arcade-ish is nice though. If the first also had that I should just go get that one. Can probably get it for a good price

@syrik zero

first one did not have auto-look into the apexes, but did have a very good cockpit view

@Abriael Despite the fact that the first game pulled me - and many more - in for a longer period of time than Forza Motorsport.

Does that sound like Mediocre?

@MintagedVortex maybe you just have mediocre taste.

@neoXmahi EA? quality? lol good joke, yeah you're right too many too quickly

@Axe99

Except in racing there is almost never a black flag for crashes unless it's incredibly blatant, and your precious GT5 doesn't black flag either so you're just being a pedantic ass.

Also, don't talk about AI GT5 fanboy, even your own ilk say it's still horrible in GT5....but have fun playing your 1/5th new racing game, it will be 10 years before you get another one.

@satn Getting defensive much? I'm not sure if you played Shift or not, but in that game you got rewarded for spinning people off the road - which in pretty much every motorsports I've seen (other than those focussed on contact) is a black flag. That's _not_ sim-style racing. Given the AI was also clearly playing more aggressively than in real life (go on, watch some motorsports - how many races start with a car being flung upside down in the air, like in the NFS:Shift 2 teaser trailer?) I'm calling out Shift 2 for being more of the same. That doesn't make it a bad game - for most folk, unrealistic games are far more fun than realistic ones. However, it doesn't make it a sim, and it's a little sad to see people (who clearly don't watch motorsports) thinking NFS:Shift was a sim - it's not quite as bad, but on a similar level as thinking NBA Jam is a realistic basketball game.

On the by, I didn't say Shift was a bad game (I actually said it was fun) - and I didn't actually say GT5 was a good game (or defend GT5s AI, or its many deficiencies) - however, in GT5, the cars drive like actual racing cars (again, watch the real thing, and compare). In NFS:Shift, they most definitely did not.

On the by, online in GT5 you do have the option of penalties, and heavy penalties are pretty harsh - but I completely agree that they should have penalties in A-Spec and in arcade mode as well. Never said they shouldn't.

@satn Sorry for the double post - if you want to see contact racing done right in a sim-style setting, then the TOCA race driver series is the place to go - great physics, plenty of cars on the track, real damage (you could actually knock the wheels off in TOCA - Shift's 'full' damage was still pretty average) and the best racing AI I'd seen until Ferrari Challenge came along (and Ferrari Challenge's AI eats GT5s for breakfast).

@Axe99

I watch australian, german and FIA touring car racing series, GT1, GT2, GT3, F1, WRC, Dakar, MotoGP , to name a few. I watch more racing in a given week than you probably play games.

Touring car racing (especially australian) has decent amounts of unintentional and legal contact that can and does lead to crashes.

Saying that A_Random_CRASH01 in the TEASER CGI, without any context about how it happened, means the actual game is unrealistic is just you being stupid.

Also Shift 1 had achievements for racing professionally, without contact and going through turns correctly. You clearly haven't played the game and are just talking crap to make you feel better about paying $60 for a delayed and unfinished game.

And would you people please stop with this crap about GT5 having realistic physics? It's arcade, get over it. Richard Burns Rally and the GTR series are the standard for realistic physics and damage, the fact you mention TOCA shows how little you know.

@satn You know, you do watch far more motorsport than I do. Which is a little confusing - you seem to be in a pretty heavy sense of denial. If, as you say, Australian motorsport has more crashes than average (I'm an Australian, and watch far more V8 Supercars than anything else - best racing in the world in my opinion, but that's just one-eyed patriotism ;)), then NFS:Shift is off the charts when it comes to contact.

On the by, NFS:Shift absolutely gave points for driving professionally (which was my focus in the game - I had the platinum on clean overtaking - which I got finishing the game, which I paid far less than $60 for - best not to assume lad ;)), the point I was making was the behaviour of the AI drivers. In NFS:Shift, while I tried to drive professionally initially, about half the AI drivers would try and barge me off the track any chance they got (including going off the driving line to do it - I dare you to tell me you see a lot of drivers IRL motorsports leaving the driving line to knock other drivers off the track - I can't talk for the other codes you've listed, but if you leave the line to intentionally make contact in V8 Supercars, you'll get in trouble). This meant that trying to drive professionally often put you at a disadvantage and (kind of ironically, given the schtick GT5 (rightly) cops for it, but NFS:Shift got a free pass on) the most effective way to drive in NFS:Shift for me was with a lot of contact - the amount of contact that would absolutely get you black flagged in V8 Supercars.

I'm not sure where your physics talk came from - I actually backed Shift's physics - my main argument here was all about Shift's AI turning a potentially sim game into one that played more like something out of a Hollywood movie. On the by, at no point did I actually say GT5's physics were realistic. But if you're going to talk physics, in terms of GT5, I have a mate who drives rally in real life, and says GT5's the closest to the real thing he's played. I know other folk who've driven a 350Z in real life, and that GT5 is as close as it gets while sitting down in front of a TV. While GT5 isn't as sim as a proper PC sim (just like IL-2:BoP isn't a proper flight sim), if people that do it in real life are saying it's just like the real thing short of changing tyre pressures (yet another of GT5's ommissions, given the kind of game it is), that's enough for me. But in terms of this argument, the only thing I said was that GT5 had better physics than Shift - a point which after all your rambling you haven't actually addressed.

In terms of TOCA, the main point I was making there was that the AI raced like a real race, which was in counter to the point I'm making about Shift, where the AI clearly do not. We'll sort this out far more quickly if you actually address the arguments I'm making - going off on tangents either turns any discussion into a bit of a mess, or is an attempt to avoid addressing the initial point in the first place ;).

@satn you're right. It's yellow flag. And yeah, in basically any major racing series that kind of crashes would lead to a yellow flag and to the cars pacing slowly behind the pace car for a while.

That trailer has NOTHING to do with realism in basically every element.

GT5 might not have flags, but it has better car handling than any need for speed will ever have, especially if cars in Shift 2 handle like in this trailer (no loss of grip at all after a hit and a full-wheels trip in the dirt? yeah sure).
But yeah, there'll always be some goons that fall for EA's gibberish marketing slur :D