Need for Speed: Shift Q&A Feature

It's almost certain that Need for Speed: Shift would never have appeared under the old EA.  It's taken a shift (pun intended) in corporate philosophy for EA to recognise the significance of quality, and perhaps the fact that the last two titles (Prostreet and Undercover) have dropped below the customary Christmas No.1 and No.2 spots.

Partnering with Slightly Mad Games certainly shows EA's bravado.  Shift may be the UK studio's first title, however their pedigree on hardcore racers such as GTR2 and GT: Legends gives an indication of where the series is heading.  This won't be your typical arcade racer; it won't have police chases and it's extremely doubtful that Hollywood's C-list will take any starring roles.  By doing so EA is taking a considerable risk with one of their most bankable franchises.  Need for Speed has been a reliable Christmas best seller since Underground emerged back in 2003, so the decision to alter the format presumably wasn't an easy one.

TVG recently had the opportunity to grill Slightly Mad Games' producer Suzy Wallace, on the direction Need for Speed is heading.

TVG: Mass-market driving games are traditionally nitros-boosted arcade racers like Burnout or obsessive car-collectives like Gran Turismo and Forza; Need for Speed: Shift has a different feel to it given the previous games in the series, so what elements do you feel make it stand out the most?

For us it's very much the core of what we call the 'driver experience'.  It's very much the focus of making the game really feel as though you're in the cockpit of a racing car with g-forces affecting the camera or the hud depending on what view you're in.  Lots of little things like at high speeds the cockpit will blur out, the depth-of-field changes so you can focus more on the track ahead of you, the camera shakes at high speed, little changes in the animations of the way the driver holds the steering wheel.  Lots of small little details that go towards make up this real driver experience.

Oh and crashes as well, can't forget crashes.  We want to make crashes a scary experience for the player, something that you don't want to encounter rather than just 'yeah I'll just bounce off the wall, I'll just rip of a wing mirror and it doesn't really matter'.  There's lots of visual effects going on there to try and disorientate the player, not to affect the way they play the game, but just to cause this fear of crashing like you would have in real life.

That type of game has been a little niche in the past in the sense of a loyal fanbase but not achieving huge sales, but with the Need for Speed brand behind it do you feel this is a real chance to break through to a bigger audience?

Yeah, our previous titles have been very hardcore, it's very niche market so we're really happy to be working with EA and to be bringing the title to, hopefully, many gamers.  It will be a bit of a change from the average Need for Speed game, but it's something we're really looking forward to.

You've managed to retain the style of previous games (GTR2, GT: Legends) but seemingly slimmed it down a little for the more general gamer; for example damage doesn't appear to be quite as harsh as it used to be, in previous games you hit a wall and you'd be out of the race but this appears to have been curtailed a little.  Was this balance important?

It was very important to us to keep the core driving model.  Driving real cars in real life is an exciting thing to do, and we want to get that across to the player.  It's core to us that our driving model still feels realistic and you still feel like you're driving a real car.

Shift is a bit of a departure from GTR in that's it's core driving model is more accessible to the average gamer, but not dumbed down at all, we're still modelling everything that we modelled before, actually we're modelling more than we used in GTR2.  I do think the average Need for Speed gamer is going to find it a bit of a challenge, but will ultimately be more rewarding because you can feel yourself improving with the driving model.

I personally find it a great change of pace, no driving game quite manages to nail the feeling and this does.  It's primarily the little changes that you've discussed before; can you give us a little on the thinking procedure behind this?

We've got a lot of team members that are really into driving cars in real life, Patrick races Porsches.  So we all agreed that you've never played a driving game that portrays all these different types of experiences that you have when you're sitting in a real car. 

You get affected by lots of different things, such as the audio and how in your face the audio is in a real race car.  The g-forces is a really important one, and obviously you're limited on what you can communicate to the player, but so far driving games have all been about just making it look as real as possible, but to us it's very important to get across the actual physical feel.  Core to that is the g-forces.  It's the most noticeable thing if you've ever been out in a fast car on a track, when you slam on the brakes you go hurtling towards the windscreen.  So that was really important to us, to try and get as much feeling as possible and we're very much convinced that a fully, immersive driving experience is fun, and to get as much immersion as possible it's lots of small details working together, it's not one overall core gimmick, but lots of small things that actually make you feel as though you're in a race car.  So like you say there's the depth-of-field change, the slight change in grip at high speeds, the g-forces, there's lots of small things that combine into making an overall driving experience.

Loads of them are really subtle so when I point them out in a demo they go 'oh yeah look at that, I didn't really see that', but subconsciously you're thinking it looks realistic but can't quite put your finger on what it is that's different.  But like I say lots of small details going together to make the greater picture.

It's the eye of an obsessive that would pick out those elements, actually having that link with cars in the real life.  The Pagani Zonda sounds like a Zonda, it's instantly recognisable, you seem to have been obsessive with getting things right, how important is that?

We're really anal when it comes to details.  We've worked closely with the car manufacturers, all the way down to getting pads for the car models and interiors, the audio is sampled form the real world cars.  We noticed when you sample audio and stick it in the engine it can sound a little flat and not quite how you'd expect it to sound if you're sitting in the real car.  So we've gone through a tweaking process to beef it up and make sure it sounds... there's something that doesn't quite come across in the normal recording.  It's the same as watching a video, if you've ever been on a track day when you're in the car it feels really fast, but if you're videoing it and watch it back it looks really slow.  You have to emphasise it to get across the full feeling of actually being there.

I guess adrenaline plays a part...

Yeah very much, the feeling of impending death.

I understand you can't be too specific about tracks and vehicles at this stage...

No, but over 70 cars are in there providing a really good variation and lots of different types of handling, so everybody will find something that suits their driving style.

A lot of the models look like GT versions, is that the style you're adopting rather than the Gran Turismo approach where the models look like they've come directly off the production line?

Customisation is a core feature of Need for Speed we feel and it's something that ties us into the Need for Speed franchise.  So yeah as you can see you're not driving standard cars.  I'm not giving details about customisation but you can see the results we've got at the moment, it's very much about having these real world based tuned cars.

Will weather effects will play a part?

We're not going to have weather effects in I'm afraid.  We've got a full dynamic time of day on the engine, but no, no weather effects.

Regarding the damage, you can obviously see the effect it has and you've stated it can affect the handling slightly, did you have any troubles with manufacturers as I understand the franchise has had troubles in the past?

That's not just the Need for Speed series, I believe it's across all racing games.  A few years ago all car manufacturers were reluctant to allow you to smash their cars up in any way really, but I think they're definitely coming around to the idea a bit more. 

We do have strict things that we're not able to do, so for instance the cockpit always has to stay intact, so you can't rip the doors off which is a shame.  We had it running in our engine earlier, you could smash the doors up and the doors would flap about and as you go around corners they would swing out, which was really cool but unfortunately car manufacturers are not very keen on you doing that sort of thing.  But they're definitely coming around to smash the cars up in general, so that's pretty cool.

We saw the demo running on PC.  Presumably you've got quite a rig there and it will be scalable, will the console versions look like a top spec PC version?

Yep, we're using exactly the same engine, exactly the same art assets and effects so it will look exactly the same as it does on console as it will on PC.  That's really important for us as we have a very PC based background, but we've worked very hard to get he consoles up to a similar level and we're hoping that the next time we can show the game we'll be doing so on console.


TVG would like to thank Suzy Wallace for taking the time to answer our questions.  Need for Speed: Shift is scheduled for an Autumn release on Xbox 360, PlayStation3, PC and PSP.