{mp3}Need for Speed Shift 2{/mp3}
Year: 2011
Genre: Racing (Cars) / Simulator / 3D
Developer: Slightly Mad Studios
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Shift 2: Unleashed (or Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed) is a computer game in the driving simulator genre, which was developed by Slightly Mad Studios and published by Electronic Arts in 2011.
Shift 2: Unleashed is a direct sequel to the critically acclaimed Need for Speed: Shift and expands on the gameplay and functionality introduced in the original. Shift 2 will also include the Autolog feature, which is available in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Shift 2: Unleashed features 148 cars from 36 manufacturers and 35 different tracks where players can compete in multiple types of races.
Review: Playability ( Lexington )
Hello. There is probably no fan of interactive entertainment who has not heard of the Need for Speed series. The series includes almost two dozen games of varying quality and genre branches. Over its long history, this franchise has been an arcade, a simulator, and an online race. And probably each of you has played at least once in at least one part of this famous series.
Shift 2: Unleashed (or Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed) is a computer game in the driving simulator genre, which was developed by Slightly Mad Studios and published by Electronic Arts in 2011. The decision is quite strange, because Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2010 recently appeared on the shelves, and it was logical to assume that the next NFS should be expected by next fall, but EA unexpectedly announced that the game will appear in March.
Shift 2 is a continuation of one of the most controversial parts of the series. Need fo Speed: Shift is positioned as a purebred simulator, but in reality it turns out that the game is far from both a simulator and an arcade. The physical model never ceases to amaze with the unpredictability of the car’s behavior, and perfect cornering is comparable to a feat. But at the same time, the game also had its advantages: excellent graphics for that time, quite an impressive fleet of vehicles and real tracks. To play at least somehow comfortably, you had to play with a high-quality steering wheel, or, at worst, with a gamepad. The game was quite warmly received by the players.
What awaits us in Shift 2? In terms of career, changes are minimal. We are still starting with an inexperienced newcomer who has attracted the attention of a seasoned racer. It gives you a chance to prove yourself. After the first timed race, we are asked to choose the game difficulty and controls. I’ll immediately make a reservation that the most adequate and pleasant, oddly enough, is the most complex control mode. Having figured out the settings and completed the first race, we use the money we earned in the race to buy our first car. And then championships, money, cars and cups.
Among the main innovations, it is worth noting support for Autolog, which showed itself well in NFS Hot Pursuit 2010, the game also added night racing and one of the most interesting innovations – a camera from the driver’s eyes. In this mode, the view of the helmet frame is slightly reduced, and when turning, the camera smoothly turns in the direction of the turn. Playing like this still takes some getting used to, but with this camera mode the effect of presence is doubled.
The fleet includes more than a hundred cars, from budget Ford Focus options to heavy-duty Pagani Huayra sports cars. Traditionally, the game has ample opportunities for tuning cars, both appearance and performance. Even now, for each car, having upgraded it to the required level, you can purchase a factory modification that turns an ordinary car into a jet racing car. The game has almost 2 times more racing tracks compared to NFS:SHIFT (both real and fictional ones), and given the change of day and night, this number can be doubled. The standard set of modes includes: circuit racing, drifting, time trials and pilot battles.
As I said above, the most enjoyable game mode is the most difficult. At lower levels, the game is plagued by the same ailment of the first Shift – inadequate physics. It may have been modified and improved, but keeping the car on the road is still unreasonably difficult. Also, the constantly shaking camera has not gone away, which, other than inconvenience, does not bring anything else to the gameplay. The game looks very good, only the car models cause criticism (this does not apply to the interior design), but only the most sophisticated racers who have played the console masterpieces Forza Motorsport 3 or Gran Turismo 5 will be able to notice this defect.
We invite you to evaluate part of the game walkthrough of Need for Speed Shift 2: Unleashed, where you can see for yourself the quality of this product:
Overall, Need for speed: Shift 2 – Unleashed is a good and high-quality game, of course not without flaws, but it’s quite enjoyable to play, and you can while away another week.
Review: Graphics
Graphically, Need for Speed Shift 2: Unleashed is not much further away from its predecessor Need for Speed Shift. As the developers stated earlier, the main emphasis was placed not so much on the visual component, but on a more advanced physical model, which was really developed and improved, conveying more realistic behavior of cars on the track.
One of the main distinguishing features of the game was the view from the camera mounted on the racer’s helmet, and it is from this angle that we have the most attractive picture. Car models and environment textures are at an acceptable level, although today it is already possible to implement a more powerful graphic component.
Next, we move directly to the game testing itself and find out which system requirements are most relevant for Need for Speed Shift 2: Unleashed.
Review: Resource-intensive game
All video cards were tested at maximum graphics quality using MSI Afterburner. The purpose of the test is to determine how video cards from different manufacturers behave under the same conditions. Below is the configuration of our test systems.
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Hardware configuration |
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Processors |
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T BE 3.33@4 GHz product provided by the company AMD AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE [email protected] GHz products provided by the company AMD AMD Athlon II X4 620 2.6 GHz products provided by the company AMD Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550@ 4.25 GHz Intel® Core™ [email protected] GHz Intel Core i5-760 [email protected] GHz |
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motherboards |
Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H products provided by the company AMD Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H products provided by the company AMD Maximus II Formula socket LGA775 product provided by the company Asus MSI X58 Eclipse Plus socket LGA1366 product provided by the company MSI MSI P55-GD55 socket LGA1156 product provided by the company MSI MSI 790FX-GD70 socket AM3 product provided by the company MSI |
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Memory |
GOODRAM PLAY 1600MHz (8-8-8-24) product provided by the company GOODRAM GOODRAM Pro 2000MHz (8-8-8-29) product provided by the company GOODRAM |
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Video Cards |
GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB |
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Multimedia equipment |
3D monitor LG W2363D Monitor LG E2750 3D Vision Kit product provided by the company Nvidia |
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Power Supplies |
4xSeaSonic S12D 850 Silver 850W product provided by the company Syntex |
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System software and drivers |
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Operating system |
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition x64 |
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DirectX |
DirectX 11 |
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Platform Driver |
Intel INF Chipset Update Utility 9.1.0.1012 |
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Graphics driver |
Nvidia GeForce/ION Driver Release 270.51 AMD Catalyst 11.3 |
Less productive video cards up to the level of GeForce GTS 250 and Radeon HD 4830 are tested on the basis of Core 2 Quad Q9550 and Phenom II X4 940 BE processors, and more productive ones on the basis of more powerful solutions. Overclocked versions of video cards presented by sponsors were equal to conventional analogues by reducing their clock speeds.
Our video cards tested in two separate screen sizes in normal mode and at 3840×1080 for AMD Eyefinity with and without full-screen anti-aliasing activated, not the maximum level. NVIDIA 3D Vision has not been tested, since the video driver is currently rated “not recommended.” Using our graphs, you can evaluate how your video card behaves relative to other modern solutions in almost all modern visual modes. As you can see later, the game is very CPU dependent, so video cards were tested in a less processor-dependent place. The performance of our overclocked Core i 7 4.2 GHz in this case reached 62 frames at the minimum and 81 frames at the average.
Testing at maximum quality settings 1280×1024 no AA
At a resolution of 1280×1024 at maximum settings, without activating full-screen anti-aliasing, video cards of the Radeon HD 3870 or GeForce 9600 GT level will be required. Comfortable performance can be provided by video cards of the Radeon HD 5770 or GeForce 9800 GTX level.
Testing at maximum quality settings 1920×1080 no AA
At a resolution of 1920×1080, video cards of the Radeon HD 4750 or GeForce 9800 GTX level will show an acceptable level of performance. The most optimal for these settings should be considered video accelerators of the Radeon HD 6850 or GeForce GTX 460SE level.
Testing at maximum quality settings 1280×1024 AA
When full-screen antialiasing is activated, the performance of Radeon cards drops significantly, which is most likely due to an unfinished version of the drivers. At a resolution of 1280×1024 at maximum settings, with full-screen anti-aliasing activated at the maximum level, video cards of the Radeon HD 4860 or GeForce 8800 GTX level will be required.Comfortable performance can be provided by video cards of the Radeon HD 4870 or GeForce GTX 260 level.
Testing at maximum quality settings 1920×1080 AA
And finally, at FuLL HD resolution 1920×1080, with activated AA, video cards of the Radeon HD 6850 or GeForce GTX 460 SE level will show an acceptable level of performance. The most optimal for this game should be considered video accelerators of the Radeon HD 6950 or GeForce GTX 280 level. Based on the purchase of video cards specifically for this game, then currently the Radeon HD 6950 or GeForce GTX 460 look most preferable.
AMD Eyefinity Technology Testing
All our video cards were tested at maximum quality settings on two Full HD monitors combined thanks to Eyefinity technology in a resolution of 3840×1080. As always, turning on this mode did not cause any problems, and you can safely enjoy an open wide-screen panorama.
Testing at maximum quality settings using AMD Eyefinity technology on two monitors at a resolution of 3840×1080 no AA
Testing at maximum quality settings using AMD Eyefinity technology on two monitors at a resolution of 3840×1080 AA
With the use of Eyefinity technology, card performance is reduced by 30-45% of the standard mode, depending on the video cards model. The minimum that is necessary for comfortable gaming at a resolution of 3840×1080 is a video card of the level of Radeon HD 5830 in mode with full-screen anti-aliasing disabled and Radeon HD 5870 with activated. For comfortable gaming experience, we recommend the Radeon HD 6990 or higher.
CPU dependency testing
We tested processor dependence on 9 models of basic configurations, which are the most relevant today. The test was carried out in those places where the value of video cards for the game is minimal and its load was less than 99%, but this time at a resolution of 1024×768 with maximum quality settings. For this purpose, a quick game with 15 cars was chosen.
Testing processor dependence at maximum quality settings 1024×768
As we can see, Need for Speed Shift 2: Unleashed poses a difficult challenge to modern processors. There is an effect from multi-cores, but it is not as significant as we expected. When all cores are not fully loaded, the game manages to slow down. Hyper-Threading technology is not supported. An acceptable level of performance will be shown by processors of the level AMD Athlon II X4 620 or Core 2 Duo 8400. More comfortable performance will be provided by processors of the Phenom II X4 940 and Core i 5 760 and above. We advise our readers to resort to slight overclocking to increase comfortable FPS in the game.
Conclusion on system requirements
Need for Speed Shift 2: Unleashed is a good racing simulator with quite nice graphics, which requires a fast processor and a modern graphics accelerator. We think we cannot do without a patch that will correct the drop in performance on multi-core configurations and a new AMD driver that increases performance when full-screen antialiasing is activated.
We express our gratitude to all the manufacturing companies that were able to provide test equipment for our GPU tests and we hope that in the future their number will increase significantly!
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Rating 100%