[quote name='Strategy101']For what its worth, you wouldnt want it for the PS3, there have been MASSIVE reports of issues for the PS3 version, particularly completely disappearing save games, and this isnt a game you want to lose your progress in.
I have it for Xbox, and while I'll say its the most fun racing game I've played, it certainly has its issues, and I'll list a few things below;
Pros;
1) Easily the most "intense" racing sim/arcade game of the major 3 (GT5 and Forza 4)... the cockpit racing is unrivaled from a sense of immersion.
2) SOUND... incredible sound. Forza has upped its game in this respect, but even so the visceral sound of Shift 2's engines and collisions is unmatched. The Maserati GT1 engine is sexy as hell, and most other cars in the game sound fantastic as well. The convertable/open top cars add extra wind sounds and the tires squeeling as they slide and lose traction is phenominal.
3) Track roughness and verticality. Compared to both Forza 4 and GT5, which has most tracks riding very smooth and very little feel of actual altitude change between sections Shift 2 has a much greater sense of vertical climbing and descending. Nords and even the Aussie track are great displays of how I imagine it would feel driving on these tracks.
Cons;
1) A variety of bugs/game save issues between all systems. PS3 is the worst of them, but even on Xbox there have been issues. I can confirm this personally in that after getting about 65% through career and racing over 300+ hours, that about 9 out 10 times my game will lock itself at the start screen and I have to use a save file I backed up on a USB drive... so basically I can no longer progress any further in the game, as whatever I do will simply be erased when I quit my current session.
2) Out of the box (without messing with game settings and car tunning) its FAR from perfect. The "twitch" of the controlls with a regular Xbox or PS3 controller is AWFUL. Anyone who buys this should IMMEDIATELY go into settings and turn the sensitivity to about 5-20% of the 50% default, and it'll greatly help making the cars much more controllable at high speeds. Also MANY of the cars require tunning to make them drive as they should. Only a few cars are actually nice to drive with default setup. There is a REALLY great website with some great tunning (Renown Tunning Setups on a GT5 forum), which you can literally just copy from and enter into your game, and will immensily improve your fun and driving with most cars.
3) Collisions are a little too overboard, unlike GT5 and Forza 4 which have underwhelming crashes, the crashing in Shift 2 in real life would have racers leaving in body bags in virtually every race. Its fun from a "holy **** did you just see that!" perspective, but can be frustrating if you're racing a tough track or a long race and a light tap knocks you out of the race (unless you're playing the AI on easy).
All in all, at this price I HIGHLY recommend the game, and I've only said all this because I do recommend the game, but I would definitely warn people of some of the games downfalls.
I'm playing a lot of Forza 4 right now myself, but if it wasnt for the save game issue I'm having, I might not have even bought Forza 4. (Though let me say Forza 4 is lots of fun as well).
If you like sim style racers (as its more sim than arcade) I highly recommend it, at least from the standpoint that there is no other racer which feels as intense when racing from the cockpit.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the great breakdown of the game.
It just saved me $10 as I don't think it is the type of game for me, in combination of some of those bugs/issues it still seems to have.
