EA’s to release new cars, tracks and game modes for Shift 2 Unleashed as part of the the Speedhunters DLC pack next Tuesday, May 17th.

Available for 800 MS Points (£6.85) on Xbox Live and £7.99 on PSN, EA says the digital expansion will introduce “a whole new career path with new game modes, cars and tracks inspired by the expansive network of automotive photographers, journalists and drivers at Speedhunters.com”.

“The Shift 2 Unleashed Speedhunters content pack contains two new branches including Drag and Standing mile. Each branch features nine new events, where players will only be able to use the manual gear change so that they can really feel what it’s like to be in the driver’s seat.

“Drag judges the fastest time over a quarter mile stretch, and Standing Mile judges the fastest speed achieved over a mile stretch. Both branches allows for new high-power customisation options where players can create 1000 horsepower engines capable of reaching speeds of over 250 mph.”

Cars in the Speedhunters pack:
Cars:
Dodge Challenger R/T Speedhunters
Lexus LFA Speedhunters
Mazda RX-7 (FC3S) Speedhunters
McLaren MP4-12C Speedhunters
Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.5-16 Evolution 2 Speedhunters
Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Speedhunters
Mitsubishi Lancer EVOLUTION IX MR-edition Speedhunters
Nissan Fairlady 240ZG (S30) Speedhunters
Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R (C10) Speedhunters
Nissan Skyline GT-R (R32) Speedhunters
Pagani Huayra Speedhunters
Toyota Supra Speedhunters
Dodge Viper GTS by Twins Turbo (Rival/reward car)
World Racing Pro-FWD Reaper Scion tC (Rival/reward car)

Tracks:
Miyatomi Drag Strip
Miyatomi Mile
Aguera Drag Strip
Agueda Aerodrome
Nevada Drag Strip
Nevada Freight Yard

Looks like a tasty new suite of content.

Hot Pursuit (2010) saw the series returning to its roots, with its fast paced, flashy gameplay again, but now, Slightly Mad Studios is back with another installment to the franchise. Is Shift 2: Unleashed the next big competitor to GT and Forza as many are making it out to be? Does it improve upon all the mistakes from the original Shift? Is it worth your time and money?

The game looks brilliant. IS it brilliant?

Plain and simple answer: yes, it is a very enjoyable game. It does have a few minor flaws, some that hamper the overall experience and stop it from being the fierce Forza/GT rival it had the potential to be, but overall, Shift 2: Unleashed is a damn good game.

Shift 2: Unleashed cannot really be described as a game of a particular genre. It technically should be a racing sim, but it has an equal number of elements for it to be classified as an arcade racer. For one, its handling can be a bit finicky at times- finicky if you are playing it as a racing sim, but thrilling and exciting if you’re playing it as an arcade racer. Turning around corner is unpredictable, which means you will almost always be on the edge of your seat. Sometimes, drifting and steering can be as crazily fun as in games like Hot Pursuit.

However, this takes away from the racing simulator feel of the game, making it feel less real, and more arcade, which means some might automatically strike it off as competition for Forza or GT. But that doesn’t really matter when you see just how fun Shift 2: Unleashed really is. It has awesome races, some of which will make sure you are glued to your seat.

What adds the most to this “awesomeness” of the races, and to the fast-paced, thrilling nature of the game in general, is the amazing sense of speed. Every time you hit the fifth gear, and your speed reaches over a couple hundred kilometers per hour, the sound that the cars make and the way the environment just blurs around our vehicle gives us excitement enough to match a shot of adrenaline. You get an amazing sense of speed, with the revving up of the engine, the blurring of the trees and the stands around you, it all just feels and sounds… exciting. That’s the only word for it.

Add to that the constant threat of crashing and totally smashing your car into little bits and pieces, and you are always tense, your heart always pumping. And make no mistake, the damage effects are absolutely brilliant. Just for the fun of it, please just crash your car into the boards on the side of the road, or turn your car suddenly on high speed. Not only are the animations impressive, it can give you sadistic pleasure to watch little scraps of metal and plastic flying through the air as your vehicle crashes. It sure looks ugly after that, but I think even loosing the race is worth watching how your vehicle gets wrecked. And it’s best viewed from the helmet view.

The cockpit view in Shift 2: Unleashed is the best ever in any racing game.

Oh, the helmet view. There just aren’t enough words with which I can describe how freaking awesome the helmet view was. And trust me, I know a lot of words. Not only does the helmet view make the crashes a whole lot better and more… frightening, it also gives the game a deeper sense of authenticity. The dashboard can be fully viewed with the help of this mode (obviously), and it looks great. Your jaw will drop. It’s so detailed, and the developers have paid attention to every tiny little detail, that if it were in 3D, you would have almost though you were in your own car. Without any doubt, the cockpit view in Shift 2: Unleashed has to be the best in the series.

It is these very crashes, however, that prove to be frustrating in the long run. If you crash near the end in one of the longer races in the later stages of the career mode, you would have to replay the entire race all over again. It can be very frustrating, and it makes the omission of a rewind feature a baffling one, seeing as almost all racers these days have the rewind feature. The faulty and non-responsive controls don’t help much either, and you will probably have to go ahead and buy the steering wheel accessory, which is nothing but extra money spent on a single game.

One of the many things that return from last year’s Hot Pursuit to make up for such flaws is the amazing Autolog feature. Having already been sold over the feature with its incredible implementation in Criterion’s entry into NFS last year, Slightly Mad Studios tweaked it a little bit and added it into Shift 2, which proved to be one of the best things they could have done. While it doesn’t work out quiet as well as it did last year, the Autolog feature is still great fun, and it lends a great deal of replay value to the game, making sure you keep coming back to it. What also helps in making the game more replayable is the revamped experience system, which has been heavily improved over the original Shift. It still needs a bit of polishing in some areas, like making it more expansive with the stuff we do all throughout the game and the achievements we accomplish, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun as it is.

The graphics are great as well. The car models look neatly detailed and the tracks are beautifully rendered. The interiors of the cars, as mentioned above, are jaw-dropping as well. The visuals and the animations are crisp and highly detailed, with little to no room for improvement.

Car models are really well crafted and very life-like.

Shift 2: Unleashed, ultimately, is a great game. It’s a game with fast, thrilling races, beautiful visuals, great authenticity sometimes and the pure arcade fun sometimes. It has some flaws, and it surely wouldn’t hurt to polish them, and maybe give the game a definite identity. Right now, it’s basically stuck between arcade and simulator, which can be confusing for some of the players. Just fix the huge errors from this game, and we will have a Forza/GT/F1/What have you killer on your hands.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

Latest trailer for Need for Speed – Shift 2: Unleashed is out and it features Dubai 24h winner, Tommy Milner takes a shot in SHIFT 2 Unleashed going around Laguna Seca in his Chevrolet Corvette C6.R GT1 with no driving assists in 1 minute and 21 seconds.    He is driving in the D-BOX chair and his time has been posted in the new Auto Log, think you can beat it? Shift 2: Unleashed will be out on March 29th in the US and April 1st in Europe for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.

Need for Speed: Shift developers, ‘Slightly Mad Studios,’ said in an interview with Videogamer that the project they are now working on, Shift 2: Unleashed, has been inspired by elements from games by Bizarre Creations, the recently closed down studio, like Geometry Wars and Project Gotham Racing.

“You know, absolutely unfortunate. Those guys, we’re kind of following in their footsteps with the work they set out on Project Gotham. Absolutely fantastic game,” designer Andy Tudor said.

“I remember playing that ’til midnight and beyond on some nights. And then things like Geometry Wars have inspired modes within our games as well.

“You know, with Autolog, when you look on the HUD, I can see your name on there, which is a constant reminder of your score, your fastest lap – something like that. And that was such a critical thing in Geometry Wars, like playing that game and seeing your name on there – which was frustrating as hell – and just wanting to beat you. Not necessarily wanting to beat my own score, but to beat you. That was really motivating.”

Shift 2: Unleashed will release early next month on the 360, PS3 and PC. Till then, get all the info you want on the game from our recent interview with the devs.

The latest trailer for NFS Shift 2 was just released and it give you a glimpse of how serious a simple turn can be racing in real life.  Time Attack Champion, Chris Rado explains all about the corners in racing and you better watch them, as one wrong move could mean the end.  Thankfully we get to experience this all in a video rather than real life bringing the thrill without the risks.  Shift 2 Unleashed will be released on March 29th, 2011 for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.  It’s been developed by Slightly Mad Studios and published by EA.  Check out the new trailer below and watch those corners!

News via VG247

The Need for Speed franchise of games has quite a few games under their belt.  With the release of NFS Shift 2: Unleashed we are getting the cool aspect of the Auto Log in the game.  It first showed up in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit released not that long ago and is a unique feature that lets you send messages bragging to your friends how you beat their time on a race or send pictures as well as integrating much more of the game into it.  It is even coming to the iPhone as an Application.  But check it out for yourself in the video below as real racers take advantage of it.  Shift 2: Unleashed hits shelves on March 29th for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.

The Pagani Huayra is one bad ass car that will be in Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed.  The developers want this game to be the racing game you want to choose out of so many others and with the Pagani in it, there is definitely an intrigue.  Check it out in action below, as thing thing is a beast on four wheels.  Developed by Slightly Mad Studios, Shift 2 Unleashed will be out on March 29th, 2011 for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.

We recently interviewed Slightly Mad Studios’ Marcus Nilsson, executive producer of Shift 2: Unleashed. Mr Nilsson says the development team’s goal is to make “the franchise to an obvious choice within the genre, actually even the obvious choice.”

When we asked him if the Shift sub-series has the potential to or the capability of achieving as much success as the Forza and GT franchises have, Nilsson said , “It’s certainly the goal for the franchise to be an obvious choice within the genre, actually even the obvious choice.”

“To build commercial success you need a lot of things, first of all you need a great product, you then need brand awareness, you need a faithful front row of consumers,” he continued. “Thankfully, Shift 2 Unleashed is shaping up so well I believe we can hit all those three things.”

“To reach GT and Forza brand awareness is going to take time and iteration but with the original Shift and now 2 I must say we are off on a flying start.,” he carried on. “We bring innovation and fresh blood to the genre, we put you in the head of a race driver and take you for the most intense ride you have ever felt in a game.

“We make every race count as the people you play with will always try to beat you in Autolog. We do night better than anyone else. And we do so much more.”

He signed off with saying, “I guess time will tell if I answered correct but I am confident we have a value to the consumer that can take us all the way.”

In the same interview, he also said Shift 2: Unleashed will “change the racing simulation genre forever.”

Stay tuned, we will have the full interview up soon.

We recently got a chance to sit down with Marcus Nilsson of Slightly Mad Studios, executive producer of Shift 2: Unleashed and we talked about how the project was coming along till now.

Being a racing sim game, it’s obvious that comparisons with games like Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo would be drawn. We drew the very same comparisons, and Nilsson told us he believes Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed will “change the racing simulation genre forever.”

“We are actively working to make the simulation genre more exiting and accessible,” he said. “We have a clear goal, deliver the true drivers experience.”

He said he believed the genre needed “new energy” and that the Shift sub-series will soon be the number 1 racing sim franchise. “I truly believe this genre needs new energy, new fresh blood to make it stand out again and I think we are on the money with Shift 2 Unleashed and we will carry on building this franchise to become no 1.

There is also room for several players in this market and with us climbing up there to the top hopefully the added competition will generate more innovative products in this genre.”

Before signing off, he told us that “[Shift 2: Unleashed] changes the racing simulation genre forever.”

Stay tuned, we will have the full interview up soon.

EA’s released a whole list of the key gameplay features of Shift 2: Unleashed. Check it out below.

• Next Level of Immersion – Experience visceral first-person racing like never before. The all-new helmet cam recreates realistic driver head movements that deliver an unparalleled sensation of speed: lean and tilt into the apex of corners, feel the impact of every scrape, bump, and crash, experience true in-cockpit vibrations, and more.
• Change the Game with Autolog – Autolog is a revolutionary system that connects friends and changes the gameplay experience by allowing you to share virtually every aspect of your racing career. Compare Driver Profiles and career status, share and comment on pictures and videos, send challenges, and pull news feeds directly from NFS.com and Speehunters.com. Autolog recommendations amp up the social competition of real-world racing by delivering challenges based on friend activity, creating a dynamic, competitive, fun new way to play both online and offline.
• True Realistic Racing – Shift 2: Unleashed redefines the racing simulator genre by bringing the atmosphere of race day to life.. Featuring the FIA GT1 World Championship and GT3 European Championship plus real-world drivers, tracks, and cars, this is truly tomorrow’s sim for today’s adrenaline-fueled racer.
• Amazing Career Depth and Variety – Earn unlocks and participate in multiple racing disciplines on the way to becoming the FIA GT1 World Champion. Featuring everything from new Endurance races to muscle and retro cars, Shift 2: Unleashed gives you the flexibility to choose the path that fits your individual racing style.
• Customize for Show or Customize to Win! -Unleash your creativity to turn some of the world’s most elite high-performance vehicles into fire-breathing weapons. Customize the engine, the body, the suspension, and much, much more, then put your ultimate racing machine to the test in any mode. Whether your goal is to race a 1000-horsepower Econobox or a tricked-out GTR, you have nearly limitless options to reign supreme on the track where every second counts.
• Photo Real Cars and Tracks – Over 130 licensed cars are available including the Nissan GT-R GT1, McLaren MP4-12C, and GUMPERT Apollo. There is also over 50 real-world locations like Bathurst, Spa de Francochamps and Suzuka as well as fictional circuits like downtown London and Shanghai.