Need for Speed: SHIFT concentrates solely on the racing with a new detailed driver cockpit point of view. It specifically details every part on the inside of the car with rearview mirrors and all. In the heart of the race, you’ll feel just about every sensation with the screen in front of you getting blurry due too the gravitational pull during the intense moments. You’ll feel every nook and cranny of the car from every crash into a wall too another car. As you race your driver profile tracks everything you do in each race. It will award you points that increase your driving ability allowing you in a sense to level up. You’ll get points for aggressive driving like; rubbing paint, spinning out another driver, or forcing your way through the race by any means necessary. Outside of that if manage to clear your way through the track with no problems you are also awarded for that as well.

The game features 65+ licensed and customizable cars. These range from the Honda Civic SI to the Ford Focus ST and the Mazda MX-8. You obviously have to earn enough cash for these cars before you can even drool at them. After owning the cars you’ll have plenty of options to customize them any way you like. You can even tweak your cars for better performance on the track. There are also 15 tracks in the game spanning across many locations around the world leading up to the World Tour and the championship. As you race you will earn stars depending if you land in 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd place in the standings. Every star you earn helps you unlock new race tracks.

There is a quite a large career mode that will see you starting off in the settings mode. Here you’ll get the chance to get a handle for the car before the first race and get your difficulty settings set as determined by your test lap. If you don’t like the settings set by the game you can always change them at any time. While the competition may be tough you will be guided with the race line indicating the speed in which you should be driving to give you the best opportunity to move ahead. There is a lot of variety to behold in the game, you have extras like time attacks, hot laps and drift competitions.

Shift will have a wide range of options for online multiplayer getting you facing off against 7 other drivers. You will even be able to take your customized hot rod online to better increase your chances of winning. There will be a matchmaking system to make sure you are matched with other drivers at your level. Slightly Mad Studios seems to have done a good job so far with what we’ve played of the game. With the shift to realistic racing for the series, they just might pull it off for its console release.

Look for GamePlasma’s review later next week. Need for Speed: Shift releases for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and PlayStation Portable September 15th.