Shift Blog

SHIFT DLC Podcast is Live

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:10:00 GMT

The seventh Need for Speed Community Podcast is now live and available as a free download from iTunes as well as from our RSS feed.

With today's announcement of the free Team Racing Pack for Need for Speed SHIFT, DLC is top of mind this week. If you haven't read the announcement, the DLC features five new cars and a brand new mode: Team Racing.

We go in-depth about all the cars, which are the 1998 Toyota Supra Mark IV, 1971 Dodge Challenger R/T, 1969 Dodge Charger R/T, 1967 Shelby GT500 and 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray as well as the Team Racing mode, so be sure to check out the cast.

Also in this week's podcast is an update on the forthcoming SHIFT patch, a re-cap of this week's Hot Lap, in which NFSMike takes us all to school in the Toyota Corolla AE86 at Donington GP.

Don't miss my self-indulgent lamentations about DLC being available for SHIFT before a new Van Halen album, with the lights remaining off in perpetuity at 5150.

Feel free to contact Andrew@needforspeed.com with your questions and comments about the podcast.

Need for Speed SHIFT Team Racing Pack Announced

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:47:00 GMT

It’s been a couple of months in the making but now we’re finally able to reveal the contents of the upcoming (and free!) Need for Speed SHIFT Team Racing Pack.

The content is broken down into two sections: the first is a new online Team Racing mode which pits Team Red vs Team Blue in an intense battle for track domination. With the new pack you can join your friends and fight for the right to be called king of the track. All cars are stock; no vinyls, no works package, no modifications of any kind just a wicked combination of skill teamwork.

Create a team, invite your friends and race using any means necessary to come out on top. Don’t kid yourself, your opponents will be trying every move in the book to get ahead – it’s up to you to fight them off and take the podium.

The second element of the pack is a range of new cars. When we were looking at which cars to add we went through all the emails, comments and forums to see which were the most requested cars and worked hard to get them into the new pack.

By far the most popular was the Toyota Supra so we’re very happy to reveal that the ’98 Supra will be returning to Need for Speed very soon.

After the requests for the Supra is was clear people really wanted to see more American Muscle back in the game so we brought back four legendary muscle cars from a time when cubic inches were king. Once downloaded you’ll be able to get behind the wheels of some of the finest cars Detroit has ever produced.

We'll be taking a closer look at each of the cars in the following week but here is just a quick snapshot of what you've got to look forward to.

The Team Racing Pack is available December 1 on Xbox 360 and PC and December 3 on PlayStation 3 in Europe. North American gamers will having to wait until December 10th. It is a FREE download.

1967 Shelby GT500

1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray

1969 Dodge Charger R/T

1971 Dodge Challenger R/T

SHIFT nominated for Best Driving Game at Video Game Awards

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:25:00 GMT

This just in: Need for Speed SHIFT has been nominated for 'Best Driving Game' at the seventh annual Spike Video Game Awards, which take place December 12 at 8 p.m. on SPIKE TV.

Winners of the VGAs are determined by your vote, so vote for SHIFT early and often - you can cast one vote per day, per category - for Best Driving Game. Only 23 days until the ceremony.

SHIFT'ing into music

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:18:00 GMT

As we showed you yesterday with a look at a Japanese promotional video for Need for Speed SHIFT, there are plenty of creative ways to show how cool this game is.

Australian rock band Regular John are one of 25 acts featured on the SHIFT soundtrack, and they made a very cool music video for their song "Transmitter" featuring some action from the game.

The SHIFT soundtrack was released September 15 and features many of the most popular artists in music today, including Kanye West, Eagles of Death Metal and Kasabian.

SHIFT promo video from Japan

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:31:00 GMT

Every so often we come across something really cool that someone has done relating to the Need for Speed series.

Check out this promotional video made for SHIFT's Japanese site.

Even though you may not understand what's written on the page (I don't!), keep watching - it's worth it.

NFS Hot Lap – Week 6

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:31:00 GMT

First off, congratulations to all the winners from Week 5! Now, with Week 5 barely behind us, it’s time to move on to Week 6! Going through with the change that I announced last week, I am proud to announce that Week 4’s winner of the fastest lap (MrKingRawana) has chosen the car for this week’s challenge while the winner of the most viewed video (billyaris) has selected the track! So, without further adieu, here is the set up for this week’s NFS Hot Lap!

Car: Toyota Corolla GTS
Track: Donington GP

Anyone who wants to beat my time can record their own video and post it as a video response to mine. The contest will run until Monday, November 23th, 9am PST, so be sure to submit your entries by then.

Make sure to use the same car and track, keep it to one lap per video, and however you choose to record it, make sure your final time is clearly readable. Post it to your YouTube account and submit it as a response to our Week 6 video (embedded below). And, there’s no limit to the number of video responses you can post, so if you see your best time beaten by someone else, get back in and record a better one. And to make your video easier to track, please remember to tag it with NFS and put a link to needforspeed.com in the video’s description.

As always, if you have any questions, please drop me a line at michael@needforspeed.com and I can help you out.

Here’s my video this week!

Scion tC turntable out now

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:25:00 GMT

The Scion tC, a car aimed at the fickle youth market by Toyota, is the focus of our newest 3D car turntable for Need for Speed SHIFT.

Introduced in 2004, the tC fills the 'sports coupe' requirement in the Scion line.

The car was an immediate hit with young people who were looking for an affordable two-door but couldn't afford a Toyota Celica, which was eventually discontinued in favor of the tC.

As one of 72 cars featured in SHIFT, tC is the fourth 3D turntable to be featured on needforspeed.com this month, following the Porsche Cayman S, Coke ZERO® Dodge Viper SRT10, and BMW M3 GT2.

Another win for Chris Rado

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:04:00 GMT

Need for Speed SHIFT collaborator Chris Rado and his WORLD Racing team won yet another event this past weekend, as he took first place at the Redline Time Attack's FWD Unlimited category, posting a record-setting 1:39.381 time.

Chris posted the time in his prized Scion tC, which has also led him to victory at Willow Springs, AutoBahn Country Club, Nashville Super Speedway, Carolina Motorsports Park, Spring Mountain and Phoenix International this season. It's been an outstanding 2009 season for Rado and we at needforspeed.com congratulate him on his success. WORLD Racing finished with 150 driver points this season, taking the Unlimited FWD class with ease.

Earlier this year we spent some time with Chris and his team when we were making the Driver's Experience films so we thought this was a great opportunity to run one of our favourite SHIFT films. We called the video 'Passion' as Chris spoke a lot about the subject and how important it is to his racing psyche... clearly that passion is paying off.

NFS Hot Lap – Week 5 Winners!

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:16:00 GMT

It’s about that time again – time for us to announce the winners of this past week’s NFS Hot Lap challenge! And we had quite the milestone reached today. Again, something I did not think would happen for quite a while. It just goes to show that if you keep at it, you can achieve greatness =P

What is the milestone you ask? Well, someone has gone and won each portion of the NFS Hot Lap! By that I mean, this person has won the random draw, the most viewed video AND the fastest lap portion of the NFS Hot Lap, all in separate weeks!

So who is this wonder-Need for Speeder? Well, it’s joewillburnsa! He’s built quite a reputation for himself in these past few weeks. He’s ever present on our Facebook Fan Page and he’s always a contender in our NFS Hot Lap challenges! This week, he won the fastest lap portion of the contest. He was able to speed around Silverstone International with a spruced up Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R in just over 1:26. Quite the accomplishment! Along with winning a prize package, joewillburnsa will be picking the car that will be used in Week 7’s NFS Hot Lap challenge! Check out his video below!

In case you’re curious, Joe won the most viewed video in Week 3, and was the random draw winner in Week 1. Well done, Joe!

The second winner this week is LIEUTANG, who was able to gain the most views on his video. He churned up 306 views this week, which is incredible! He’s been a constant in the challenges for a couple of weeks now, so if you want to challenge him for his title, something tells me he’ll be around this week as well :) Along with winning a prize package, LIEUTANG will be picking the track that will be used in Week 7’s NFS Hot Lap challenge!

Our random draw winner is AppelST. Another constant in our week-to-week challenges, so I’m really glad to see him get a prize package this week :) Way to go!

As I mentioned last week, we’re going to make these week-to-week challenges more about what YOU guys want, which is why joewillburnsa and LIEUTANG will be picking the car and track for Week 7!

Speaking about the challenge being about you: check out our NFS YouTube Channel and you'll see that the 3 winners are proudly displayed front and center on our YouTube channel :) An extra congratulations from the NFS team!

Happy racing, everyone, and here are the 3 winners’ videos!

joewillburnsa

LIEUTANG

AppelST

Adding spice to the Challenger

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:29:00 GMT

When the Dodge Challenger was re-introduced for 2008, fans of muscle cars rejoiced as one of the icons of the 1970s - complete with Chrysler's new HEMI engine and not sacrilegiously styled with four doors like the Charger - would return, updated for a new generation of car buyers.

Fast forward two model years and the Challenger - which is featured in concept form in Need for Speed SHIFT - is one of three cars modified from its original specs by tuning mogul Steve Saleen's new company, SMS.

Saleen is adamant that his new company isn't a tuning shop, but rather an original equipment manufacturer. And who could argue with him? His name is legendary in Mustang and auto racing circles, as the designer of the Saleen S7, one of the most beautiful and dominant racecars on the planet.

Saleen's first Challenger, branded the SMS 570 - as the Challenger R/T features a 5.7-liter HEMI V8, Saleen chose not to use the SRT8 because it was already bored out from the factory - strokes the motor out to 6.2 liters, increasing its power to 500 ponies, but if you opt for the top model, the 570X, power is tricked out to 700 horsepower and 725 lb/ft of pavement-destroying torque.

Pricing for an SMS 570 starts at around $65,000, but if you're willing to pony up, you can have a 570X for $85,000. For a full review, check out Autoblog's take.