Shift 2 Unleashed: Need for Speed for PlayStation 3 Reviews by Gamers

I must say I was a little reluctant to even rent this game given all the low reviews, but I'm glad I tried it out. The game is a bit less refined and detailed than GT5, but it does offer full damage from the very first race instead of requiring you to virtually beat the game before unlocking it as in GT5.

The graphics are on the same level as GT5, but the crashes far exceed anything I've seen in any game so far. Intense crashes will blacken and blur your vision temporarily, and leave you with a ringing in your ears. Go sliding sideways off the road hit the sand and you'll be rolling over a few times, destroying your car (try keeping up with only 2 wheels).

Now don't get me wrong, overall GT5 is a better game in my opinion, but Shift 2 does have it's good qualities and may even be preferable to someone looking for an insane audio-visual experience and a game somewhat less serious than GT5.

This is a pretty good arcade/semi-sim racer with many of the car upgrades one would expect from a racer claiming to attack the sim racing world. The main problem for me was that the calibration of the GT Force Pro steering wheel was not as precise as other sim racers I have played such as Gran Turismo. I did enjoy the different feel of shifting gears on manual in the game. The in game menus do provide you with variable settings that you can tweak manually to your liking to come close to the steering wheel responsiveness of Gran Turismo but I personally was unable to get it to that total control level but maybe you might be able to. I usually do not play driving games without the use of a steering wheel on any home consoles or PC but the game is very enjoyable with a control pad. The head cam which is the staple difference that separates it from others is interesting and takes some getting used too but I found myself switching back to regular in cockpit view when races got close. Probably should have given the user more in game points as an incentive to use the helmet cam more like how it was done in GRID with the locked to head cam. Very good car body damage/physics in the game though, I especially liked the way the car would roll over if you got into a turn wrong and get wheel lock. Lots of fun.