I have always been a fan of the Need for Speed series, and own each installment in the series (well, except for Undercover - I think other fans will understand that though). I liked the simulation direction EA/Slightly Mad took with the first Shift, and was eager to jump on board, as prior to that I suppose Forza was my favorite racing game (although I was disappointed with successive installments after the first, not feeling they did much besides update the graphics -- and, in the case of 3, add an obnoxious voiceover to the interface). Shift didn't let me down at all, and stole my heart as my favorite racing game.So here we are, two years later, with the release of its sequel, Shift 2 Unleashed, having mostly dropped the pretense of including the Need For Speed prefix in its title. I'd call it a success, although it has its ups and downs.First of all, I own the PS3 version of the game, and on the topic of graphics there's not much to complain about besides a bit of antialiasing, but hey, welcome to this console generation. The shadows look far better than do Gran Turismo 5's, but if they didn't, this review probably wouldn't be nearly as positive. Interior views are still here, and the car selection has been expanded; although a few more cars might be nice (where's the Celica?), I definitely empathize & agree with the developer's commentary about the purpose of this game being a simulator, not a car encyclopedia as with the Forza/Gran Turismo ideology. Actually, in the hype for this game its nighttime races were indeed mentioned, which was something I kinda blew off and paid little attention to, but after playing the game for a while it is actually one of the features I like most about the game: not only are the nighttime settings neat, they are gorgeous and also significantly increase the stress on you as a driver, especially the ones set out away from surrounding cities. Seeing that full low-hanging moon drop into your field of view out on Nurburgring when leading the pack by just a fraction of a second in the cockpit of a screaming LFA is one of the more surreal moments I've had in a racer, and that's awesome. This should become a part of why we all buy racing sims. The interface here is redesigned in accordance with the autolog feature we saw spring into life in Criterion's Hot Pursuit, and it's a bit... well, different. The career selection features the poster-style event selection almost familiar to players of MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. It works, and the interface in-race is configurable in the same way it was in Shift 1, with the additional choice of a telemetry view. (I do recommend 3rd- or 1st-person nighttime racing with the HUD turned off, it's gorgeous.) There are a few gripes to be had about the UI design, that now that I think about it apply to the first game as well -- namely, when picking a track for quick race, you should be able to see your completition or mastering status of each layout in some way, shape, or form, especially now that track selection is presented in more of a graphical format (through track layout graphics). Also, why doesn't the level progress bar at the top go away when you reach the level cap? (More on the level cap down a ways.) While on the topic of graphics, I do find myself wishing for the more epic, vectorized classiness of Shift 1's cinematics; what we have here in Shift 2 are JPEG-artifact'd compressed prerendered movies that seem cheesy -- since when does a sequel get less flashy? There's some real-life racing figures in here that'll talk to you in these movies; I don't know how I feel about that, but I essentially liked the presentation of the first game better. However, I can't say that's a very pressing concern for a racing game, as you're in it for the cars, the tracks, the graphics, and the driving engine.And on that note, the engine feels just about the same as in its precursor. Drifting is still very difficult, if not more so, and yes, that Ebisu drift event is in here too, except that now there are a few more Ebisu configs and you get to drift them all, and sometimes at night (argh). Score targets for some of the drifting events in particular are just ridiculous; unattainable, frustrating. Turn the difficulty down to easy for 'em, you won't ruin any trophies/achievements or anything. Sadly, the trophies for this game seem less thought-out and don't have the same cool balance of "you choose between online or offline play"; in order to earn all of them, you'll need to be playing online, which I personally feel is a bummer, especially for those that buy the game well after release. The "Corners Mastered" feature is still here, and harder than ever in that there are just a TON of tracks, and mastering a corner in the daytime versions of tracks is separate from doing so at night, so that'll keep you going for a while. I personally like that a lot, lots of stuff to do to keep me staring at the back ends of my favorite cars for quite some time after beating the career -- which I feel could be a bit longer, but is still quite lengthy when you take into consideration the sheer difficulty of some of the events (although I did play most of the game through on hard, those few events I had most trouble with didn't seem to get much easier when I turned the difficulty down).You seem to be able to apply the works conversion - which is just as sweet as ever - to a higher proportion of cars than in Shift 1, which I think is a major improvement. Too many of the cars in the first game were just bought and unmodifiable, which I feel is one of the major points of sims and tuning-abled games like these. Speaking of which, the addition of on-track tuning is nice, but way more intuitive and rational is the inclusion of setting up tuning configurations for not only different circuits, but different circuit types -- e.g. ovals, GPs, etc. That's a great feature that we should have seen long ago.The level cap is just too low. It's 20, and I reached it when I was literally 52% through the career. At very least, let us see how many EXP we have, rather than just wasting our postrace screen with "MAX EXPERIENCE EARNED!", if not just include more levels for filler/satisfaction/a greater sense of progression through the career. That $10,000,000 total earnings trophy/achievement is tough enough anyway.Minor gripes aside, what we have here is a high-performing sequel to an almost unexpected arrival in the previously two-party simulator scene, and one that's multi-platform at that (yay!). Highly recommended; I'd say buy this one, and if you really enjoy it and want more, pick up the first one too. Not too often you can go backwards with sequels like this, but I'd say both games are fantastic, and only the night mode and the upgraded selection track- and car-wise makes this game noticeably better than its predecessor.After reading through other reviews here, I'd like to point out that the cars can be difficult to drive, yeah, but this effect is primarily experienced when you max out cars' performance, and I guess I've never been in the seat of any tricked-out Lamborghinis but I feel that seems pretty reasonable. I don't have a steering wheel, so I can't speak for that, but I do empathize with some of the difficulty-keeping-things-going-straight lamentations, but let me put it this way: if you prefer the slicker, slidier feel of Forza to Gran Turismo's engine, this game isn't that much different. You don't have to play most races, even the later ones, with your car's stats maxed out; don't do this if you don't want at least a bit of effort required to keep the car going straight. It seems to me that most low-rating players here are really meant for something more like Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, maybe they should check that out. Or turn on the assists; that's what they're there for, folks.Summary:DRIFT: Whatever happened to the joy of Carbon's drift mode? This is just difficult.RACE: Sometimes very difficult, but nighttime is just beautiful.UI: Pacific Rift meets Shift 1, with overcompressed cutscenesSOUND: Sweet. And how odd does that Zonda engine sound?WORKS CONVRSIONS: Still sexy.GRAPHICS: Thank goodness the shadows are better than GT5.CAR SELECTION: Needs a Celica, and also Ferraris. Good otherwise.CASUAL GAMERS: Not for you.