The Legends and Speedhunters DLC packs for Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed will be released for free on PC this week on EA's new digital download service,. Between them the packs add more than twenty new cars, five new tracks and new racing modes, including drag racing.The two packs were released in April and May this year on the Xbox 360 as paid-for packs. As of June 30, this Thursday, they'll be free to all PC gamers. Head over to the for guides on how to grab the new packs through Origin.The Legends pack adds a number of classic cars from the '60s and '70s and six vintage tracks, including Silverstone and the Rouen-Less-Essarts Short from way back in 1952. Here's a list of the cars and tracks included.
If you look back on the history of Need for Speed games oVER recent years, we have always made a point to become early adoptors of new forms of racing. Drifting for example, was included in Need for Speed Underground as early as 2003, well before this new scene had developed the international following it enjoys today.The first Need for Speed game that I worked on personally, was the 2006 Need for Speed Carbon release. While I didn't have much to do with the overall vision for the game, it was interesting to note the inclusion of touge racing and drifting as a major part of the gameplay.So at the beginning of the SHIFT2 UNLEASHED project a few of the producers asked me, 'what's new in the world of racing?' 'Is there a new style of automotive competition that should be included in the game?'
I searched my brain for the answer, scanning the many thousands of Speedhunters stories for a new type of racing that would translate into a cool new game mode.The answer was pretty easy in the end: Standing Mile.Mind you this is Standing Mile like you've never seen it before. It's part of a new Downloadable package for SHIFT2 UNLEASHED that we've chosen to call the Speedhunters Pack.When designing Standing Mile for S2U, we had to rejig the competition style to be suitable for online racing.
So instead of one lane, you get eight cars running in parallel, each competing for the fastest trap speed.SMS has also gone to great lengths to include a whole new category of customization parts, allowing for the monster power figures needed to propel your speed demon to 250mph and beyond on three different one mile courses.Traction control and automatic transmission has been disabled for Standing Mile and you really have to work to launch the car cleanly.Choosing where to open up the throttle is part of the fun. Go to early and you will lose the car to wheel spin and will likely end up facing the wrong direction.Trying to control 1400 bhp is a pretty wild ride!Here's a shot of me taking the Twins Turbo Viper up past 250 mph at the new Miyatomi Standing Mile location.The whole point of Standing Mile is to really focus on tuning and car building. Playing with your tire pressures, gear ratios and wing settings may give you that 1mph advantage over your rivals that you're looking for.It's these small margins which will make the difference between winning and losing, all in a very quick, rinse and repeat, racing package. We hope you enjoy.Now if SMS was going to go to the trouble to create a Standing Mile mode for SHIFT2 UNLEASHED then it also stands to reason that some straight up Drag Racing should also be on order too.We know a lot of you guys wanted to see some 1320 action for S2U. Looks awesome!
Its good to see Somebody paying attention to what's going on in the automotive world as well as implementing suggestions and other input from car enthusiast themselves. I do have to agree with a few earlier post in the fact that a few things are missing. Matt powers car is a must #1.
Second, tandem would be nice but i do realize thats alot of time and work to get that set up the right way. The only other thing that i feel would be nice is the addition of more graphic categories in the vinyls. Give us a more options to create looks that will separate our cars from everyone else. You know, i really hope you guys are working on the twitchy steering and lag issues, this game has the potential to be the funnest racing game in a LONG time, i just cant understand why the steering is SO horrible to the point the cars are undrivable! God, please, take a look at GT5's Steering 'Feel' and try your hardest to come up with something similar!
(don't get me wrong i love the car selection and the game itself is fantastic, but i havn't played it since launch because of the steering!). I'm guessing spoilers don't make a difference on this game because I had a laugh seeing the unrealistic scene where you got the Twins Turbo Viper to 250mph in the standing mile while it has that huge ridiculous spoiler on it. That spoiler would drop that things back end down and lift the front just enough to send the car airborn and kill you before you'd ever reach 230mph. Let alone past 250mph.
I also think that somebody should wait and see what Bob Griffiths Viper can do in the standing mile at 1,400hp (without the spoiler) in real life before claiming that it can reach 250mph in less then a mile. Example: Richard Holts Underground Racing Superleggera only did 250.1mph at 1,500whp while being a lighter vehicle thats more capable of traction. Just sayin.Eitherway, cheers for the V8 190E thing and the standing mile. Oh and I halfway expected to see Rusty as an extra for some crazy reason.
Would've been funny to see, huh? To all the folk who don't like the game / have a pathological hatred of EA, fine, we heard you the 1st, 2nd & 3rd time! Give it a reast now and go play something else.
You could install the patches to minimise the lag, do some real work on your car setups and give it another shot, but it's up to you. Your clogging up the airwaves with your constant bitching though.I've been playing proper sims since the days of Sportscar GT, GPL, LFS, etc.
And I absolutely LOVE this game. It has it's faults, sure, but it's captured so much of the atmosphere surrounding a race meeting where games like Forza and GT seem to have gone out of their way to sterilise it all. I also actually like the physics: The cars do pretty much exactly what I ask them to do, they feel weighty and connected, and I'm suitably punished when I make a mistake or mistime a move on someone. I literally forgoe sleep to play it!I also didn't make much of the buzz surrounding this DLC pack, but having seen this post it looks like it might be worth it for the Hakosuka alone!Some constructive criticism though: The livery editor needs a comprehensive update/overhaul.
It'd be worth it for EA though, as it's exactly this type of feature that will keep a game alive for a long time if done correctly. Ideally it'd be good to have some of livery importer/exporter that would allow potential artists to paint cars in something like Photoshop and then imprt them into the game. That and a blank set of the GT1/2/E cars to play with. Not sure if that's even possible though.?In closing, excellent work, with a little further tweaking to it you could have something that will live for years.
A DLC that introduces new features? Try fixing the problems the game already has! The physics when racing are simply apaulling!
Shift 2 Dlc Pack 1
I have managed to make it slightly better with tuning and control settings but still far too light and twitchy. The other problem I have with it is the vinyl editor. The controls are far far too sensitive to create any livery accurately. The animal prints and camo are far too low resolution and when you increase the size, to recreate a Matt Powers style livery, the edges become so blurry they're barely recognizable.
I personally love to create liveries and make the cars in my 'garage' look wild but I've become so annoyed with the interface that most of them have no vinyls at all!Being a huge fan of driving games (GT and Forza included) and having played NFS games since Underground on PS2 I have to say this is the first one that has let the brand down. Go and play GT5, Forza 3, NFS Underground etc. Then come back and play this and tell me it's worth the £40 I paid for it! Huge disappointment! WHERE'S THE PC RELEASE OF THIS DLC?!I mean: seriously - I bought the PC version of the game, and now you release a DLC which was cut away from the game (yes, we did notice the videos from Speedhunters pack on our DVDs, as so we did noticed all the DLC cars) ONLY for consoles?!
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? We, the PC players don't want to be second grade customers - our dollars/euro/pounds/whatever weight as much as console players cash do, and we are ready to give it away to you EA and SMS, but nooo. You in some weird way figured out that it's better to screw us and keep silent. Ummm Standing Mile is cool.but that's basically drag racing anyway. And 8-lane drag racing is feat in itself no doubt. But HELLO.you guys just talked about how you introduced drifting way before its time. Well what about GYMKAHANA!
Geez that sport is where drifting was in 2003 right now! But you'd rather put in the standing mile? You guys had a jacked-up version of that in ProStreet anyway, so what would putting the actual version in your best game yet do? Nothing, quite frankly. Other than that, the special cars are awesome and I totally dig the fact that you guys are incorporating a much broader scope of cars into the game.
Shift 2 Unleashed Dlc Pack
Rod - YOU LIED TO US.You told us the physics were fantastic. That isn't the case, you misled your audience.
The game is buggy and there is no way this hold up against Forza. Why did you call this the ultimate sim. Have you ever looked at iRacer?I lost respect for you on this.I'm frustrated because I bought this based on your recommendation and convinced a couple of friends to pre-order.and it gets better, I'm on PC, so I don't get any of this content.The cars do look stunning, fantastic, just wish the rest of the game was up to that standard. Car list shows Forza and GT how to do it. I still cant get over the physics given SMS' previous games as Blimey.As noted in the comments, Standing Mile isn't new.
I thought you knew about car culture. Gymkhana is fairly new and US style Rallycross.one last thing, is it Speedhunters or SpeedHunters? Editor in Chief:Brad LordEditor at Large:Dino Dalle CarbonareCommercial Director:Ben ChandlerCommunity Manager:Mark RiccioniTechnical Editor:Ryan StewartConcept Artist:Khyzyl SaleemSenior Contributors:Jordan Butters & Trevor RyanContributors:Antonio Alvendia, Keiron Berndt, Mark Boxer, Ron Celestine, Cian Donnellan, Matthew Everingham, Blake Jones, Jesse Kiser, Stefan Kotze, Jordan Leist, Vladimir Ljadov, Paddy McGrath, Luke Munnell, Bryn Musselwhite, Richard Opie, Alok Paleri, Sara Ryan, Dave Thomas, Simon Woolley, Naveed Yousufzai.