Need For Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed Diary

Jan 24, 2016 Sunday 07:15:00 PM CDT

Purchased this game in 2011 from NewEgg for $7.64 (including shipping). This was back when EA was still selling DVDs of their games, and Origin was in its infancy.

I really enjoyed the first Shift game. When I found this game for cheap, I couldn’t resist. So much so that I hadn’t played it for 4 years.

After 2500+ hours of Battlefield (both 3 and 4), I want to get back into single player gaming again. Hence why I resumed F.E.A.R. as well.

I think Shift 2 is definitely worth the $7 I paid for it. I am not sure I would pay anymore than that though. It has some extremely annoying design choices. Unskippable intro sequences before every race is definitely one of them. The developers, in their effort to create “an immersive” experience, managed to create an extremely annoying experience. Had I paid full price for this game, I would be even more annoyed.

Also, its not really a sim game. I not as much of an arcade racer as Need For Speed Most Wanted, but by no means is it a simulator. Don’t let the marketing fool you. That doesn’t make it a bad game though. Its still fun. As long as you paid no more than $7 for it.

Jan 26, 2016 Tuesday 04:56:00 AM CST: The Schizophrenic Difficulty

This game’s difficulty doesn’t make any sense. There are times when I lead an entire lap without any real competition and then there are other laps where I struggle to reach the podium (3rd place or better).

I think it has something to do with scaling difficulty with car upgrades. I should try removing all upgrades and see if I can do any better.

Or maybe, I am just very bad.

Jan 28, 2016 Thursday 05:00:00 AM CST: Manufacturer Showdown Events Are Fun

These are probably the most fun events so far. I get to try out different cars, and I don’t have to worry about difficulty spike based on the type of car I select, and usually the cars themselves range from retro to exotic.

Speaking of difficulty spike, it still bothers me how unbalanced the game is at times, even when I turn the game difficulty to easy.

Jan 30, 2016 Saturday 05:38:00 PM CST: The Intrusive Interface

Modern day game interfaces are getting ridiculous. I can think of at least three EA games that have this HUD clutter problem. Battlefield 4 when it first launched was insane.

Shift 2 also has the same problem. There is an option to disable the HUD, but that leaves out some of the information I care about. I am not sure why the developers won’t give us the option to disable, resize and move UI elements.

I think simple tweaks to the UI can greatly impact the experience.

Jan 31, 2016 Sunday 08:51:00 PM CST: Gameplay Padding

Sometimes it feels as if developers are trying to pad the length of games by arbitrarily increasing the difficulty of races or the time needed to finish a race in the Time Attack mode. Also the fact that a lot of these tracks are recycled between different game modes makes the career mode tedious.

Maybe I am getting old, but I find it extremely difficult to stay focused on a single race for 6 minutes! This leads me to make mistakes, and it takes longer for me to get through the career mode.

This is the low hanging fruit of adding longevity to a game, in my opinion.

Feb 04, 2016 Thursday 04:29:00 AM CST: Downgrade Performance to Win

I was playing some Time Attack races with a highly upgraded Lamborghini Murciélago, and I kept losing. Over and over again. Couldn’t even get to the podium let alone win the race.

The Lamborghini Murciélago is a Performance Grade A car. I decided to try the Ford Shelby GT instead which is a Performance Grade C car, and I am having much easier time winning races.

Using the Nissan 240 Drift Alliance, which is a Performance Grade D car, makes life even easier.

Yet another difficulty scaling issue, it looks like.

Mar 06, 2016 Sunday 12:14:00 PM CST: Not Going For 100%

My initial idea when starting Need For Speed Shift 2: Unleashed was to get 100% completion in the career mode. After playing this game for a while I realized that there is a whole lot of padding going on, and its starting to get repetitive. I wanted to give up and move on, but I realized I am fairly close to getting to the final championship, and I don’t have to get anywhere near 100% for that.

I am at a point where I don’t know why I am playing this game, other than because I started it, and I want to finish it. I have far too many games in my collection to be wasting time on a game like this.

Mar 14, 2016 Monday 04:53:00 PM CST: The End Game

On March 12, 2016, I played through the final championship in Need For Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed - the GT1 Championship. It was a painful 10 stage tournament with the average stage time of 6 minutes or more.

The game really got to me. Padding the gameplay in this manner really made me dislike the game towards the end. The repetitive tracks, long race times, unskippable intros.