NFS Shift 2 review: Avoid. Play NFS:Shift 1 instead if you want a tidy little car sim

[Please be patient I have autism]

NFS Shift 2 comes as a massive disappointment after Nfs shift 1.
The mandatory (ugh) career mode feartures unskipple cutscenes of crass "formula d" drivers giving you the "low down" during your progress. Absolutely disgusting.
Addtional new circuits of note include Mt Panorama and f1 Burgerking, which are pretty good inclusions.
Car roster is still limited in comparison to a Forza or GT, no real depth in that department.

The thing that really kills the game game though is the physics: very floaty, they lack the solid feel that made the first shift enjoyable and all the cars seem to behave like marshmallow puffs floating around the circuits. It almost feel as though the Shift 2 was primarily designed to run on tablets rather than console/pc. Something about it just doesn't feel right.

If you want a realistic driving sim with an impressive selection of cars and real world tracks/roads then avoid Need for Speed: Shift 2. Unfortunately it is a step backwards from the first Shift game which laid impressive frame work for more of a simultion appoach to the Need for Speed franchise.

3/10 (would rate 0/10 if the dev's hadn't been so diligent with their track inclusions)
Also the pricing for oceanic buyer's is greatly inflated in comparison to other regions. Terrible

[chrisdash]

Gotta agree, unfortunately. The graphics are nice but that's about it -- the driving itself is a huge step backwards. I can barely keep it on the track at speed. "Floaty" is an excellent description is how the cars feel. I would like to add that, using an FFB wheel, I get a _lot_ of input lag, I can see on the screen that the ingame steering lags about half a second behind my physical steering wheel. This makes it undrivable and I've seen other players complain about the same problems on the forum here.
Having the Nürburgring is nice but its not laser scanned so don't expect too much, and it is also in Shift 1 which has better driving physics and no input lack. I can actually go back and forth between Shift 1 and iRacing without much of a problem. In Shift 2 I drive like a drunkard.

Get Shift 1 instead.
If you must get Shift 2, make sure you are from the U.S. or trade with someone from the U.S. - the price is $6 there at the moment but about $20 in Europe and other countries.

[Raiden_chino]

@ZacMacCrac here you can solve the inputlag:

Go to the game's folder and to ControllerDefaults/PC. There you will find the controller setups. Open the one you are using and edit DampeningEnabled="1" string to "0". I actually edited all of them just to be sure : P
I play with a G27 and the difference is noticiable, after this it should be 1:1.

Personally, after getting used to Shift 2, is very hard to go back to the first one. The Shift 1 AI just kill the game for me. Shift 2 AI is not perfect, but at least they try to avoid you and other cars. In the first one, they just kill each other.

And frankly, neither Shift 1 nor 2 are sims. Not even Slighty Mad consider them sims. They do have sim features, but mixed with an arcade feeling.

[chrisdash]

Roguetwo,
I appreciate the advice but I am using a Fanatec Porsche GT3 RS wheel with the fanatec_porsche911turbo_sequential preset (as suggested by the game). That preset has DampeningEnabled="0" by default. So nothing to edit there.
I'll kill VSync and try to get above 80fps, see if it helps,
Zac

P.S.: Alright, I minimized the gfx and resolution, turned off vsync and it has helped some. Almost playable! The downside is it now looks like TOCA 1 ;-)

[Raiden_chino]

Oh I though dampening was always enabled. Maybe if you have customized the controls in any form, the game start using the "custom_wheel" file? Like I said, I edited all the files long ago, I even modified them to read only, just in case the game try to revert the changes : P

[Devias]

Quick revival of this old thread, just to say that I find Shift 2 unplayable with my Fanatec CSR. I've fiddled with the game settings and wheel settings for hours and I simply cannot get it to behave anything other than the "floaty" feeling the OP described. I just got a new Wheel Stand Pro for my wheel and decided to fire up Shift 2 again to see if anything felt different - two hours later of screwing around with settings (and the horrid Options menu, ugh) and I'm back where I was in the summer of 2013 - just time to give up.

I own a ton of other racing and simulator games and for the most part, they work perfectly with my CSR, and only require a few minutes of tweaking. I'm giving up on Shift 2.

The game is fine with a controller. I just have zero luck with my wheel.