Need for Speed Shift 2 – New Previews + Q&A

EA’s Rod Chong has released a massive preview article on Slightly Mad Studios’ upcoming Need for Speed Shift 2 Unleashed title over at Speedhunters.com

The article includes 49 good-looking previews and a very interesting Q&A session with community members. The questions touch a variety of issues and reveal some interesting new facts regarding the availability of post-release DLC packs, steering animations, AI and endurance races.

Interestingly, one answer confirms that tire wear is indeed modelled by the title, even though Slightly Mad Studios’ Andy Tudor stated this wouldn’t be the case at the Gamesblog Live event a few weeks ago.

A couple questions though: how realistic is tire wear??? Do different pressures and compounds impact tire life.

A good question Rook. I went to SMS’ physics guru Doug Arnao to get the answer here. He said:

Tire wear (along with heat) is modeled and is pretty realistic. Safe to say you’ll know you’ve abused your tyres. For pressures, they affect the tyre spring rate, and the across the tread heating, so ultimately will affect life of the tire.

One question also touches on the subject of realism:

Fantastic…?? Now, is this going to be a sim-style or will it have the arcade-styled handling?

Mike S2U is firmly in the simulation style of physics.?? We’ve layered in a full ensemble of driving aids to make the game accessible to different skill levels, but at the base of it all, we’ve focused on the direct experience of realism, especially the feelings of danger, speed and intensity. I should point out that this is a different sense of immersion(superior IMO) than some of the more mathematical focused simulations engines but the difficultly level is similar.

For much more questions and answers, make sure to check out the full article here.