Need For Speed Shift/Blue Moon Belgian White

Game: Need For Speed Shift, Electronic Arts, 2009, PC
Beer: Blue Moon, 12 fl. oz., 5.4% abv
# of beers consumed during play: 2
Level Reached: 2 or 3 races or something
Level of Intoxication: Buzzed

Game
I've been a longtime fan of the NFS series since the beginning, when a major focus of the game was detailed descriptions behind the cars and the cockpit view was a new and innovative feature in an already well tread genre. In the intervening years, the Need For Speed franchise has seen many different iterations, and has had its share of ups and downs. The latest entry in the NFS pantheon is a strategic hybrid of many previous Need For Speed games, and while it excels in certain aspects, it falls very short in others.

Gameplay
This game brings back the closed-circuit tracks and professional-type racing that Prostreet had, while presenting an eclectic mix of vehicles that span all the way from street tuners to ultra exotics to fully branded and tuned race machines. Since this is professional sanctioned racing, gone are the spike strips, roadblocks, and red and blue flashy-woo-woos. Also gone is the sandbox-style sprawling cities found in entries such as Most Wanted. In fact, this is one of the most "simmy" NFS offerings in recent memory, trying to edge in on the closely guarded market that games such as Forza and the venerable Gran Turismo inhabit. Indications as such include the green-yellow-red racing line, driver levels, dedicated races such as manufacturer races and car rivalries, and penalties for cutting portions of the track, on which we shall expound a bit more later. All these elements add up to a rich, if slightly confused buffet table of racing goodness. The game starts out using one of the more recent overused tricks of game design, and one that EA has used in previous NFS offerings to great effect. You get to race one race with a nice, highly tuned race car just to get a taste of what's on offer before the game strips you back down to an entry level car and forces you to build your cars up to something resembling a competent racer. In the eloquent words of one of my friends, "It's a total dicktease."

The crux of the game hinges on you working your way up through several race tiers en-route to the ultimate goal, the NFS World Cup. Yeah, I know, creative name isn't it? They couldn't spend five minutes coming up with a name like The Super Circuit World Cup Finals, The Pakalolo International Championships, or even Mr. Speedybritches Trophy Winnin' Race Thingy. One thing's for sure, I'd totally wear that last one on a t-shirt. As you work your way up through the tiers, you will accrue more cash to buy cars and upgrades, and you will also improve your driver level, which will also bestow sponsorship bonuses, new race series, and unlocks for parts, cars, and visual upgrades. Forza did this first, but NFS: Shift actually does up the ante by making the driver levels easier to achive and more dynamic. Instead of getting a set number of points for completing a race, you get points through your driving, and if you really tear things up on the track, you get more points, thus increasing your driver level faster. Racking up big points in a race also translates in many cases to obtaining stars, which, much like every Mario game released since the N64, allow you to unlock and graduate to higher levels of play. The ever important stars in NFS can be obtained through a variety of methods. In addition to the already revealed race point thresholds, stars are given for podium finishes (come in first, second or third and get an equivalent number of stars), achieving a race landmark (hold the race line for a certain amount of time or go faster than a certain speed for example), or finishing a lap under a specified time limit. Once you collect enough stars, new races and race tiers are unlocked. Mario would be jealous.
As mentioned somewhere up above, the selection of cars that facilitate you getting to the NFS World Cup is wide ranging, and at times doesn't make a whole lot of sense. In the lowest tiers, you'll find all-purpose street legal stock vehicles such as Honda S2000's and Chevy Cobalts, which I think has appeared in more recent racing games than any other car. As you move up in tiers, the cars on offer will begin to be Porches and BMWs, well known staples of real life circuit racing. The highest tiers are where the true envy machines lie, including The Bugatti Veyron and the so-awesome-I-need-to-go-take-a-shower-because-that-car-looks-like-a-stealth-fighter-with-wheels Lamborghini Reventon. No joke, I'm not the kind of guy to have unobtainable dream cars for his computer wallpaper, but the Lamborghini Reventon makes me begin to reconsider that stance. But I digress.

The cars in question all handle differently, although having played more than my fair share of sim racers, there is still a very pronounced taste of arcade action to the cars. If you turn all the driving assists on, all you have to do is keep the gas pedal pegged and steer, and even then, the game tries to help you negotiate tough corners. Turn all the assists off and you'll swear the track is made of glass coated in baby oil. Fail to control your car means you go slipping off the track into the dirt, and in addition to losing a few slots in the standings, the game engine may just turn its Sauron-like flaming eye of hate on you and ding you for cutting the track. Confused? Allow me to explain. NFS: Shift being a sim-type of racing game, and borrowing many conventions from real life circuit racing, it will penalize you for trying to cut sections of track in order to gain the advantage. This is reasonable, since some of the s-curves or tighter turns can be shortened or sped through unfairly if you just take the track out of the equation and skim along the dirt berms. What sucks though is that many times, the game engine is unsure what constitutes track-cutting and what doesn't, and more than a few times, I've been knocked off of a straightaway by an overzealous computer driver and when I veered back onto the track as quickly as possible to resume racing like an upstanding, rule-abiding citizen, the game told me I had been cheating and penalized me. Other times I actually did cut the track in a move designed to cheat and the game said nothing. Cut the track too many times and you can even get disqualified from a race, so it's kind of a big deal if the game can't tell what's cheating and what's not.
If that's not enough, here's the truly great part: the game wants you to drive like a douchebag. While other racing sims may turn a blind eye, or maintain the motto "Rubbin' ain't racin'", NFS: Shift goes entirely the other direction and actually encourages you to race like an asshole. Use that guy ahead of you on a curve to slow down from 100,000 MPH to 40? Twenty points. Sideswipe that dude as you overtake him? Ten points. Spin homeboy off the road completely? Hundred and fifty points, great work bro! Don't get me wrong here, I think it's just peachy that a game has finally given me some reward for fighting back against computer controlled racers, but the entire game as a whole begins to look a bit two-faced. On the one hand, it adheres to this strict but inconsistently enforced rule of staying on the track, on the other hand, annihilating your opponent is fair game, even if they get punked twice, once by you pushing them off the track which is bad enough, and again when they get penalized for "cutting" the track. It's unfortunate, because I want to be excited about a mechanic that allows me to race the way I want to, and allows me to build up this virtual driving style that becomes known to the computer racers, but the knowledge that a single slip up or unfair bump by another racer can cost me the entire race tempers that happiness, and prevents the gameplay from really reaching a higher echelon of bliss. I understand the whole "turnabout is fair play" concept; but turnabout would be even fairer if I wasn't constantly peeking out from under the looming fear of the game's wrath. The player losing because they screwed up is one thing, the player losing because the game is an idiot is another thing entirely.

Graphics/Sound
The graphics are really, really pretty, the vehicle models are well done and when paired with some good hardware they look fantastic. The tracks are all very nice, with lots of people standing on the sidelines, waving flags, jumping up and down, and basically making everything that much more immersive. Hay bales, tires, cones, and other barriers and props are all freestanding and tumble realistically when you hit them. Particle and lighting effects are cool, dust kicked up when someone goes off the track is soft and voluminous, vehicle reflections are sharp and detailed and lens flare, while a tad bit overused at times is a great effect, particularly during replays, which really highlight the cinematic quality of the game. The car cockpits are absolutely stunning, each one is different and all of them are exquisitely detailed, even elements such as labels on the windshield wiper stalk and contrast stitching on the upholstery are amazing, and add a great deal to the car. In this game, the bar for graphics has been set very high. The only drawback to this is that you had better have a beefy system to push all those polygons. If you have a sub-par graphics chip, expect the game to bog at even the lowest graphics settings. Some track elements are a bit lacking, such as distant hills or whatnot, and sometimes object clip onto one another, but such shortcomings are few and far between. One of the greatest effects in the game, and I mean greatest in the definition of a royal title, as in undefeatable, is the visual effects when you engage in a particularly hard crash. Your vision blurs, goes black and white (or even red), you become disoriented and your point of view lolls uncontrollably about the car. I've been privy to a few injurious moments in my life, and this game has the sensation of getting rocked to the core down pat. When I crash into a wall at 200MPH in this game, I feel like I just got hit, and it has a similarly debilitating effect on my concentration as I try to recover. The only drawback I can see to such a graphically rich game are the load times. They are hideous. Level loads can take literally minutes to complete, but what's even worse is the wait time as the game loads new cars in the garage or car selection screens...waits can be as long as 15 seconds just to see a new car! I was always under the impression that hard drives loaded information much faster than discs, but somehow EA proved me wrong. So remember, when you've got your adrenaline up and are just coming off the high from finishing first in that really difficult race in the series, you'll have plenty of time to calm down. Get used to seeing this:
The sounds are pretty good, the sound design screams a well-funded budget, and there's a ton of Transformers-esque flanged out sound effects. The voice-over of your crew chief is well done, even if the guy never says anything particularly helpful or relevant. The car noises and other ambient effects are...well, perhaps I've got a bad sound card or something, but I've heard better sound effects. Many of the engine sounds seem as if they were recorded a little too close to the microphone, as they sound a bit blown out and flat. Many of the engine effects simply sound like one sample that's been pitch modulated, which whisks me right back to memories of NFS II and having to manually configure my old Soundblaster 16 card. For some reason I would have expected more progress in sound design in 15 years of the franchise. Again, it could be my sound card, but it works just fine sound-wise for about a zillion other games, so who knows, perhaps EA has something against less than bleeding-edge tech.

Story
It's a racing game, so a full, meaty story isn't really high on the list of absolutes. It's my humble belief that many game developers like racing games because, aside from a certain number that actually do have deep storylines, the racing genre really saves on having to hire scriptwriters. This game kinda-sorta has a story, in the same way margarine is kinda-sorta the same as butter. Your ultimate goal is to get to the NFS World Cup, and there are some named rivals out there who want to make your life miserable, there's a lot of your Crew chief telling you how awesome the NFS World Cup will be, and his words are just hungry enough to make you start to believe he's only doing this for himself, and you are as much a tool to his ascension as is the cars you drive. But aside from some slick narrated cut scenes of cars racing, crashing, and apparently disintegrating into snazzy pinstripes, the story is largely nil. Just goes to show, if you want a story, play an RPG.

Beer
I'm just going to get this out of the way, because it's important: This beer sucks. Oh sure, it tastes really good and smells great and stuff, but none of that is worth the suffering I had to endure to enjoy it.

Let me start from the beginning...Blue Moon Belgian White (from now on referred to as Blue Moon because it's the biggest words on the label) tastes rather nice, with a mild bite and a smooth consistent tickling taste. There are definitely hints of citrus and a subtle sweetness that hits all the right spots whether it is being sipped or chugged. There is a light, beery aftertaste, one that sticks with you until the next sip but isn't nasty or annoying and helps to accent any food you might pair with it. The carbonation is full, but not overwhelming or explosive, making drinking this beer a cool, refreshing sensation. The beer avoids the trap of most light brews, and doesn't try to hard to be everything to everyone, making it a satisfying and unique entry in a pretty crowded market. The sensation of the liquid as it goes down is smooth but just a smidgen thicker than most beers, making it actually feel satisfying to drink. The smell is clean and citrus-y, making one want to close their eyes and inhale deeply, savoring the perfume of this wonderful brew. The odors tease the olfactory senses in much the same way a high maintenance prom date may be prone to teasing her male accompaniment, playfully and without a hint of regret. Everything about this beverage makes a statement of self-confidence, from the custom molded brown glass bottle and black and blue woodcut label art, all the way down to the taste, consistency, and smell of the brew itself. The 5.4 percent alcohol even gives a nice quick drunk, ramping up predictably as more is imbibed, culminating in a nice sleepy feeling that puts one to bed long before they drink too much. The whirlies are obvious but not overly pronounced, impairing concentration and coordination in subtle, amusing ways. Blue Moon even passes my special, secret Englishman test with flying colors. Truly, if this review ended here, Blue Moon would have vaulted itself into my top five, usurping one of my old favorites with little effort. Unfortunately for New Moon however, the review doesn't stop until I say it stops.

I'm no stranger to beer and its effect on the human body and mind. Any alcoholic beverage will by its very nature alter the body's chemistry and the brain's operation. Alcohol is classified-among other things-as both a poison and a drug and anyone who stayed awake in third grade knows that poisons are, as a rule, bad for you. Now, I've never tried to ingest arsenic, cyanide, or any other known poison, but I'll be the first to state that were there a sliding scale on toxicity, Blue Moon would be edging out ricin in the "Oh my god my vital organs are failing" category. Not even Corona Extra on a serious 24-pack binge has done to me what Blue Moon did to me. Blue Moon ruined my shit, in every sense of the word. I nosedived into bed early that night, slept like a stone, and woke up late the next morning with an urgent need to get to the bathroom in a frighteningly short time frame. Once I got there, I spent entirely way too much time suffering at the fermented hands of the Blue Moon Brewing Company. I spent half the day with a headache, an upset stomach, and a roll of toilet paper duct-taped to my hand. And this was after only two beers!!! My mind recoils and my bowels shudder at the thought of what the entire six-pack would have done to me...I would probably be in a light coma, happily shitting the bed as my body convulsed in a cold sweat. To wit: this beer really hurts, and there is nothing I would like less than to have to subject myself to its wrath again. To any international secret agents that may be interested in capturing me and getting me to divulge any secrets I might know, save yourselves the trouble of having to beat me up or run electrical current through me, just wave a cold bottle of Blue Moon under my nose, I'll tell you everything I know. I really cannot stress this enough, I'd rather drink Earthquake or Joose or even Thunderbird than have to ever, ever drink Blue Moon ever again, it just tastes so good, the torture afterward is magnified exponentially as a result.

The Matchup
Need For Speed: Shift and Blue Moon both follow a predictable pattern. Both are properties that have had their surface qualities polished to a blinding sheen, no matter the cost of their fundamentals or what condition they leave their user in after consumption. In the case of NFS, the graphics and slick presentation rests upon a cobbled up framework of gameplay that isn't bad, and at times can be great, but ultimately fails to maintain that high ideal and can leave a player feeling empty when the intersecting parts inevitably fail to mesh perfectly. In the case of Blue Moon, the business of drinking this beer is so good, that one won't realize until it's a tad too late that all that great taste and smell is hanging from underpinnings of what can only be described as deadly nightshade, and after a few rapid fire trips to the bathroom, will leave the drinker feeling empty. Just because that water at the bottom of the cliffs is pretty, doesn't mean it's deep enough to dive into.

Cheers/Game on.