Electronic Arts talent for redesign has one giant asterisk against it. Every year the company proudly roles a shiny new model in its Need for Speed range off the end of its' assembly line and out of the factory gates, only for it to splutter back a little while later on a manufacturer's recall after driving straight off the edge of a cliff of criticism. It's become so bad that the series has now had more makeovers than Madonna, but, unlike the queen of pop, so far none of them has been a success. Last year the series went through what might be referred to as its Guy Ritchie phase, combining its racing action with a straight-to-DVD quality plot that was so poor the only use it would ever have been put to in the film industry was propping up the wonky leg on the bargain bin at your local Blockbuster.

This time around, nothing has changed - in that everything is different once again. With the paddock of top quality driving games more crowded than it's ever been before, necessity has become the mother of reinvention for NfS, as the franchise tries to avoid being relegated to the back of the grid; but while Shift is a substantial improvement over past attempts, and includes some ideas that may well define the way the genre moves forward in the future, its' new mix of arcade and simulator racing means that, once again, the series can't seem to settle on a distinct personality of its own.

There's no doubt that Shift's career mode initially hits you at speed. Almost as soon as you've stepped into your flame-retardant overalls there are cars to buy, a multitude of different events to choose from - Drift, Time Attack, Car Battle and so on - stars to earn, profile points to accumulate, profile objectives to complete, badges to acquire and your driver profile to develop. Right from its' opening cinematic, with its lightening fast camera cuts, overblown "ffftttuuunnn" sounds as cars hammering past the screen, and shots of vehicles pirouetting through the air, it's easy to forget to stop and catch your breath. It's not just in the on-track action that Shift does a good job of conveying the pace and thrill of racing.

Nowhere, however, does the game capture the exhilarating high of speed better than when you're behind the wheel, and this is thanks totally to its' new driver view. Of course we've had in-cockpit cameras before, but Shift could quite easily be showcasing the first true driver camera. It's an unparalleled success, and one that more than does justice to the time and experience developers Slightly Mad Studios, who previously worked on the GTR titles, and Patrick Soderlund, the Senior Vice President of EA Games Europe, who also just happens to be a real-life GT racer, have put into it. Rather than the camera just providing you with a driver's eye-view, it's as if it's actually been mounted on the top of his neck muscles, so that your perspective is constantly moving around just as if you were in the car - rapidly juddering up and down as you pass over rumble strips, being dragged one way, then the other by the G-forces through a corner, and bobbing erratically in response to every imperfection in the tarmac. Combined with the game's subtle technique of blurring the peripheries of your view at high speeds to accentuate your natural tunnel vision, Shift really makes you feel like you're harnessed in to that Recaro seat; and when you bury the car into a tyre wall, the hammer blow of the impact almost leaves you with a concussion vicariously.

While the cockpit camera is nothing but a triumph, the same can't be said of Shift's other big feature - the Driver Profile. While the idea and its implementation may be innovative and derivative in equal measures, the premise of adding light RPG elements to a driving game is a great one. As you race in your own, natural way during the various competitions, the game is constantly monitoring and evaluating you to decide whether you're a precise or an aggressive driver. Keeping fastidiously to the racing line and mastering corners by meeting the game's exacting standards on your speed, entry and exit are the kind of traits that earn you kudos in the former category, whilst trading paint and spinning opponents are very definitely trademarks of the latter. Not only does Shift let you know what kind of racer you are however, it also awards you points for your actions, and when you have enough of these you'll move up to the next level on the driver profile ladder, being rewarded with sponsorship cash, new events and parts, both cosmetic and performance enhancing, for you cars.

The problem with the system is that, despite almost every human who plays racing games being a clumsy clubfoot who frequently rear-ends opponents, brakes far too late, if at all, for corners and tries to fit their car into gaps that even a pizza delivery boy on a moped would think twice about, doing all of this in Shift still sees you recognised as a precise driver. While earning aggression points is something you have to do with planning and a very deliberate intent, you'll rack up hundreds of precision ones without trying or even noticing, and this sadly makes much of the opportunity to carve out your own unique niche in the motor sport world obsolete.

As well as the profile points you also earn badges and stars in Shift for achieving specific feats, such as winning races and improving certain skills. Acquiring stars is the means by which you move up the different tiers of competitions towards the Need for Speed World Tour, which is home to the highest performance drivers and machines, and there are so many on offer in the game that you almost expect to see Mario looming up in your rear-view mirror in his little kart, licking his lips in delight. The way that you seemingly can't compete in an event without winning stars, extra profile points and other awards is a definite contrast to the usual winner-takes-it-all driving game mentality, and certain to appeal to those not so well versed in the genre. The problem with it though is this is meant to be nose-to-tail, on the edge, no-quarter-given racing, not one of those lily-livered 'everyone-wins-a-prize' affairs, and the two things don't really sit together all that well.

It's possible to get a fair way up into the 50 levels that the driver profile offers, and open up a large number of the events, whilst still being pretty rubbish, as Shift's career seems to reward dogged persistence almost as richly as increasing ability, and the game's issues with unevenness don't end there. While some events, such as the drift and car battle ones, are uncompromising in their demands, often causing you to resort to some form of underhand tactics to get through them, many of the others are pitifully easy and, as a result, the amount of free reign Slightly Mad allow you in deciding which ones you enter when is very thankfully received.

Another area in which things don't seem quite right is handling. While Shift does a good job of conveying the simple difficulty of just keeping a high-performance car in a straight line at maximum speed, controlling each of the greatly varying vehicles feels indistinct. While lithe-like motors such as the Lotus's don't seem to possess the grip and down-force that normally sticks them to the road, neither do super-heavyweights like the Bugatti Veyron have the bulk they should to anchor them to the asphalt, leaving all to skip far too easily across the tracks like you're controlling a full-sized version of a remote control car. Unless you cop out and turn on some of the difficulty reducing computer assists, such as those for steering and braking, the only way to improve on this is to accumulate cash to purchase better parts or delve into the murky complexities of tuning your rider, which all means that the best and most knowledgeable drivers end up with the easiest cars to drive, and that seems a bit back to font.

Apart from the driver-cam, the remainder of Shift's graphics are of a consistently high quality, without them ever managing to reach quite the same levels of photorealism as say, Gran Turismo; and despite a nice line up of motors that includes Audis, BMWs, Lamborghinis and Zondas, there also isn't the same breath of vehicles available as in Polyphony's pole-sitter. On the car personalisation front it's a similar story, with plenty of options on offer but not as many as in the market leading Forza series - although a wide range of liveries that even includes a group entitled 'Ninjas and Pirates' means that Shift certainly isn't selling anyone short on in this department.

One place where the game definitely does out-perform GT is in the A.I. department. Away from its less than half-assed attempts to try and create rivalries between you and the odd computer controlled driver, the A.I. cars actually act like they're being driven by real people, rather than just on a programmed course around the tracks. They'll spin out, cause incidents amongst themselves and frequently stray from the racing line when they make mistakes, often when trying to block too aggressively. They make well rounded opponents if you can't or don't feel like racing online, but when you do Shift offers a comprehensive set of racing options for up to eight players, that includes ranked and unranked competitions in tournaments and events such as Driver Duel with profile points once again awarded for every move you make.

In the end then, rather than being an exceptional driving game, NfS: Shift is a good one with one exceptional feature - driver-cam, and one interesting idea where the implementation is slight awry - driver profile. No doubt EA and Slightly Mad drew up an incredibly long list of different pieces that players expect to see included in a modern racing game, but, by trying to throw all of these in, there's a lack of balance within the variety. Shift's most promising parts are the ones unique to it alone, but it seems nervous about these, and its no surprise then that a game that's meant to focus on you finding your driving personality is so uncertain of its own. If you're a PS3 owner who can't wait for Gran Turismo 5, you may want to check out Codemasters' Dirt 2, and possibly even GRID as well, before committing to Need for Speed; but if you do decide to plump for EA's offering you won't go far wrong. With a bit more work this template could create something very special indeed, so please EA just shift any designs you have on another complete redesign in the direction of the bin.

Reviewed by James Hamblin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).