The difficulty is just your resistance to get out of your arcady comfort zone. Step to the track and earn those balls!
Respect the difficulty. Its for those who like conquering challenges and its well worth it. Once mastered you will be blowing the competion off the map and realize the difficulty was just your resistance to get out of your usual arcady driving comfort zone. Step to the track and earn those balls between your legs! ( can I get a hoo-rah G.T.R.2 fans)
It starts off easy (to those with gradual throttle and breaking skills) to get you accustomed to cars and handling and the different things going on like the precision vs aggression point tally system.
By the way this really works better with stick/clutch steering wheels ala logitech g25 or fanatec porshe 911 turbo wheel. Gradual throttle and braking and letting the car roll when neccessay will give you success in this sim..FLOORING the pedal thru out the whole race will only get you last place!
What you need to know:
Its Circuit racing
Gameplay:
The 1st tier is basically practice. Get used to how the game plays and all the points you'll be racking up. Races are a breeze Car handling and control settings should be adjusted as needed after a few races. Taylor it to what feels natural to you.
When you get to 2nd tier you will see that your typical lead ahead of the pack is significantly smaller or gone alltogether.
By the time you get to tier 3...I can guarantee you will be eating an order of last place, dirt with a side of rails if you don't have your driving skills and track memorization down.
The occasional drift competitions take the precision of a surgeon and are well worth the difficult learning curve. Once mastered you will be blowing the competion off the map and realize one again that the difficulty was your resistance to get out of your usual handling comfort zone.
In Some races, its a matter of tuning/upgrading (yes much available tuning
/upgrades)like adding better parts or even NOS (gotta love nos, but don't bet on 1st place...you don't know whats under their hood) or tuning like engine or tire pressure adjustment and etc... In the other races its a matter of driving skill and sticking the line.
Ai:
They've added Aggressive Ai that will occasionally run head to head with you trying to spin you out off the road ( if your a wussy stay in the womb) and sometimes they will stick the line and play low key. Or they will attmept overtakes and blocks. Most of the time its minor fender benders.
The dynamics of the Ai make the races unpredictable and ten times more fun. Some people call this ARCADY but It happens in real life maybe just not as often cause those guys get penalized but not in Shift ( we all know they secretly love making their competitor wipeout...just like we do! HA...TAKE THAT!) Speaking of the Ai's dynamics...they make mistakes aswell and in glorious fashion.
You will be driving rediculously fast and suddenly 2 cars in front of you connect leaving one defying gravity,a pile up ahead of you and slightest narrowest margin to enter and exit from what looks like to be hell on earth. And then you actually pull it off! To witness and partake in something so beautiful is comparable to seeing your first child born. Ah...moment of silence please!
Graphics:
Well they wanted to give you the drivers experience and wow what a gift!
The sense of seeped is heart attack worthy and rivaled by none especially in the faster cars. Its the blur effect combined with the feeling of being on the thin line of control and outta control of your vehicle that makes you almost crap your pants. For some reason you internally sense the car get lighter as if its approaching lift off.
Cars look great, you can almost see the pores on the tires, lol!
Tracks are decorated with detail like spectators, model getting pictures taken in front of your car, tire stacks and etc. All of those additions gives you the sense of taking part of somethign big.
The lost points for Tier Menu layout and point tally system. It just seems cluttered and unorganized.
Physics:
overall great and realistic. In some areas your car will be too bouncy and leave the track to frequently. They lost points their!
Sound:
Sound is just as real as the visuals. Pefectly excuted to simualte real cars. . The sound of the engines, track textures and miscellanoes stuff is more than well done. I sware it sounds like i'm on a real tack everytime I run over those red and white borders cause my little 2.1 subwoofer will blow hard enuff to vibrate the hair off my legs and thats not on high settings either.
Content: Good variety of vehicles but NO FERRARI...lost points there
Over 36 courses
Upgrade and tuning options, Vinyl and piant customization
Overall:
Lost points for no ferrari's, unorganized Tier menu and point system, and occasional car bounciness on a few tracks.
Alot of people say NFS4 is confused about what it wants to be. If they spent more time they would see clearly that is a simulator with great aggresive Ai that 'll give you a run for your money and keep the laps interesting and
unpredictable. I just played the forza 3 demo and its just boring compared to Shift. The Ai is not as dynamic...just sticking to the line gets boring without that feeling of that speed that shift gives you. This is not an arcade is a a simulator with occasional aggresive Ai and Its hard to enjoy anthing else. I'm a crackhead with a need for speed!