Hear the words "Need for Speed," and two things come to mind: The classic line from "Top Gun," and a bad-ass racing game. And the latter has come to Android in the form of Need for Speed: Shift, from EA.
The premise is simple: Go fast. Turn left. Or right. Hit the brakes if you have to, but I'm gonna call you a wuss if you do.
We've spent a few minutes with the game, now in the Android Market for $4.99. Download the app and fire it up, and you're prompted to download the rest of the game data. That took just a couple minutes over Wifi.
You'll be introduced to a tutorial track first, where you're alone on the road. That's nice for getting a feel for the steering, and it took just a couple of laps to get the hang of things. You turn by tilting the phone left or right, and brake by pressing anywhere on the screen. (Again, you're a wuss.) You can change the difficulty and enable manual transmission, disable driving assist and braking, if you want.
You start out with two cars from which to choose -- a Volkswagen Golf GTI and Mazda RX-8. As is the norm with games like this, you can purchase other cars and upgrades for existing cars as you win races and earn cash.
The graphics are top-notch, as you'd expect from EA, and the soundtrack is as well. Depending on the device, you might well blow an eardrum. This one's well worth the $5 even if you're only a casual fan of racing games. We've got video of it in action, as well as download links, after the break.
Reader comments
Android Quick app: Need for Speed: Shift
Cool!! Played NFS on my tiny Palm Pre...I'll be rock'n it on the EVO this time!!
Phil... did you just call the Tab a phone? >.>
This just came out???? Ive had it on my vibrant for at least 3 months now and the full version not the demo and for free..... Wow they took awhile to release this ive beat the game and havnt found any bugs
will this work on the Desire? I'd love to get it but with the new refund policy and no demo that I have been able to find I don't know if I should risk it.
Phil, is that you just getting the Dell Streak? I've had one for about 6 months now, get with the times man!
Doesn't work on the Tab, Market lets you install it anyway. WTF? And for the record, I was so excited that I bought it off the market before I watched the video >.<
This is so badass....I usually don't buy apps as expensive as this one, but I'll be purchasing this :)
just downloaded this...this is a must have game for racing fans on the go!
hahahah...
eh.. driving looks a little slow. controls could be better too (maybe have both gas & brake button on screen, brake could be anywhere on left side, gas anywhere on right. double tap brake could make you slide out, double tap gas for turbo.
that might be worth $5
It says that my Evo is not supported when I tried to download the final 150 mg. Wish I would have known before I paid.
I had downloaded the demo for this game, somehow, I think my 4 year old bought the full version for me, as a $10 charge showed up on my verizon bill last month. Now the game is back to demo and they are asking me for $10 again. Really pisses me off.
lg optimus s....doesnt work...no refund, that sucks...DONT BUY
got it for my galaxy s...looks and runs great, no lag at all and the graphics really jump out at you with the samoled
SO I downloaded NFS SHift the other day, played the dog out of it (it is really a great game app), and now have a "out of allocated memory" error. Looks like I need to change what is allocated but don't know how. Running this on my G2. Anyone else run into this?