News

Need for Speed SHIFT Team Racing Pack Announced

Andrew Collins — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:47:00 GMT

It’s been a couple of months in the making but now we’re finally able to reveal the contents of the upcoming (and free!) Need for Speed SHIFT Team Racing Pack.

The content is broken down into two sections: the first is a new online Team Racing mode which pits Team Red vs Team Blue in an intense battle for track domination. With the new pack you can join your friends and fight for the right to be called king of the track. All cars are stock; no vinyls, no works package, no modifications of any kind just a wicked combination of skill teamwork.

Create a team, invite your friends and race using any means necessary to come out on top. Don’t kid yourself, your opponents will be trying every move in the book to get ahead – it’s up to you to fight them off and take the podium.

The second element of the pack is a range of new cars. When we were looking at which cars to add we went through all the emails, comments and forums to see which were the most requested cars and worked hard to get them into the new pack.

By far the most popular was the Toyota Supra so we’re very happy to reveal that the ’98 Supra will be returning to Need for Speed very soon.

After the requests for the Supra is was clear people really wanted to see more American Muscle back in the game so we brought back four legendary muscle cars from a time when cubic inches were king. Once downloaded you’ll be able to get behind the wheels of some of the finest cars Detroit has ever produced.

We'll be taking a closer look at each of the cars in the following week but here is just a quick snapshot of what you've got to look forward to.

The Team Racing Pack is available December 1 on Xbox 360 and PC and December 3 on PlayStation 3 in Europe. North American gamers will having to wait until December 10th. It is a FREE download.

1967 Shelby GT500

1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray

1969 Dodge Charger R/T

1971 Dodge Challenger R/T

Team Racing Mode and Cars Revealed

Andrew Collins — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:22:00 GMT

Earlier today we announced the new Team Racing pack for Need for Speed SHIFT. While there are some pretty cool screens of the new modes and the great new cars nothing beats seeing them in action.

SHIFT nominated for Best Driving Game at Video Game Awards

Kirk Pedersen — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:25:00 GMT

This just in: Need for Speed SHIFT has been nominated for 'Best Driving Game' at the seventh annual Spike Video Game Awards, which take place December 12 at 8 p.m. on SPIKE TV.

Winners of the VGAs are determined by your vote, so vote for SHIFT early and often - you can cast one vote per day, per category - for Best Driving Game. Only 23 days until the ceremony.

SHIFT'ing into music

Kirk Pedersen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:18:00 GMT

As we showed you yesterday with a look at a Japanese promotional video for Need for Speed SHIFT, there are plenty of creative ways to show how cool this game is.

Australian rock band Regular John are one of 25 acts featured on the SHIFT soundtrack, and they made a very cool music video for their song "Transmitter" featuring some action from the game.

The SHIFT soundtrack was released September 15 and features many of the most popular artists in music today, including Kanye West, Eagles of Death Metal and Kasabian.

NITRO Track Guide: Dubai

Kirk Pedersen — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:52:00 GMT

The finale of our five-part series on the tracks featured in Need for Speed NITRO is live today: Dubai. When you visit the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, the street racer you take on is a young Lamborghini Reventon driver named Jawad.

Here are a few shots from the city:

Dubai being a perpetual construction site is well-represented in NITRO, with the cityscape showing off several buildings currently under construction.

It's not unusual to see highly-powered cars like this Lamborghini Gallardo on the streets of Dubai and in NITRO, be prepared for some tough races against the world's fastest cars.

Dubai features some tight corners, so the nitro and drift combination is a must if you want to get through some twisties unscathed.

If you're not too careful, you may attract some attention from the local law enforcement, many of whom are driving the stylish and fast Shelby GT500.

Here are the links to the previous four NITRO track guides:

NFS Hot Lap – Week 6

NFS Mike — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:31:00 GMT

First off, congratulations to all the winners from Week 5! Now, with Week 5 barely behind us, it’s time to move on to Week 6! Going through with the change that I announced last week, I am proud to announce that Week 4’s winner of the fastest lap (MrKingRawana) has chosen the car for this week’s challenge while the winner of the most viewed video (billyaris) has selected the track! So, without further adieu, here is the set up for this week’s NFS Hot Lap!

Car: Toyota Corolla GTS
Track: Donington GP

Anyone who wants to beat my time can record their own video and post it as a video response to mine. The contest will run until Monday, November 23th, 9am PST, so be sure to submit your entries by then.

Make sure to use the same car and track, keep it to one lap per video, and however you choose to record it, make sure your final time is clearly readable. Post it to your YouTube account and submit it as a response to our Week 6 video (embedded below). And, there’s no limit to the number of video responses you can post, so if you see your best time beaten by someone else, get back in and record a better one. And to make your video easier to track, please remember to tag it with NFS and put a link to needforspeed.com in the video’s description.

As always, if you have any questions, please drop me a line at michael@needforspeed.com and I can help you out.

Here’s my video this week!

SHIFT promo video from Japan

Kirk Pedersen — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:31:00 GMT

Every so often we come across something really cool that someone has done relating to the Need for Speed series.

Check out this promotional video made for SHIFT's Japanese site.

Even though you may not understand what's written on the page (I don't!), keep watching - it's worth it.

Scion tC turntable out now

Kirk Pedersen — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:25:00 GMT

The Scion tC, a car aimed at the fickle youth market by Toyota, is the focus of our newest 3D car turntable for Need for Speed SHIFT.

Introduced in 2004, the tC fills the 'sports coupe' requirement in the Scion line.

The car was an immediate hit with young people who were looking for an affordable two-door but couldn't afford a Toyota Celica, which was eventually discontinued in favor of the tC.

As one of 72 cars featured in SHIFT, tC is the fourth 3D turntable to be featured on needforspeed.com this month, following the Porsche Cayman S, Coke ZERO® Dodge Viper SRT10, and BMW M3 GT2.

Coke ZERO® Viper Photo Mode Competition - Still time to enter!

Kirk Pedersen — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:49:00 GMT

A quick update this morning to our Coke ZERO® Dodge Viper Photo Mode Competition, which was announced November 3. The competition is still up and running so enter today for the chance to win a console!

If you still don't have this one-of-a-kind Viper, check out NFSDrew's blog post for more information on how to get it.

TO ENTER

Take a cool looking shot of the Coke ZERO® car in action: any track, any position, and upload it to your desktop via MyNFS. Once you've got the image, upload it to our Flickr group for the competition.

If you don't have a Flickr or Yahoo account, create one and head to our page at The Need For Speed. Look for the Groups section and check out our Coke ZERO® Dodge Viper Photo Mode Competition group.

TO VOTE

It's even easier to vote in the competitions once you've got a Flickr account. All you need to do once you login is find the latest group, check out the photos and select 'ADD TO FAVES' in the top left corner of the image.

You can vote for as many as you like but try not to vote for all of them or we could have a tough time deciding who the winner is.

Another win for Chris Rado

Kirk Pedersen — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:04:00 GMT

Need for Speed SHIFT collaborator Chris Rado and his WORLD Racing team won yet another event this past weekend, as he took first place at the Redline Time Attack's FWD Unlimited category, posting a record-setting 1:39.381 time.

Chris posted the time in his prized Scion tC, which has also led him to victory at Willow Springs, AutoBahn Country Club, Nashville Super Speedway, Carolina Motorsports Park, Spring Mountain and Phoenix International this season. It's been an outstanding 2009 season for Rado and we at needforspeed.com congratulate him on his success. WORLD Racing finished with 150 driver points this season, taking the Unlimited FWD class with ease.

Earlier this year we spent some time with Chris and his team when we were making the Driver's Experience films so we thought this was a great opportunity to run one of our favourite SHIFT films. We called the video 'Passion' as Chris spoke a lot about the subject and how important it is to his racing psyche... clearly that passion is paying off.

NFS Hot Lap – Week 5 Winners!

NFS Mike — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:16:00 GMT

It’s about that time again – time for us to announce the winners of this past week’s NFS Hot Lap challenge! And we had quite the milestone reached today. Again, something I did not think would happen for quite a while. It just goes to show that if you keep at it, you can achieve greatness =P

What is the milestone you ask? Well, someone has gone and won each portion of the NFS Hot Lap! By that I mean, this person has won the random draw, the most viewed video AND the fastest lap portion of the NFS Hot Lap, all in separate weeks!

So who is this wonder-Need for Speeder? Well, it’s joewillburnsa! He’s built quite a reputation for himself in these past few weeks. He’s ever present on our Facebook Fan Page and he’s always a contender in our NFS Hot Lap challenges! This week, he won the fastest lap portion of the contest. He was able to speed around Silverstone International with a spruced up Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R in just over 1:26. Quite the accomplishment! Along with winning a prize package, joewillburnsa will be picking the car that will be used in Week 7’s NFS Hot Lap challenge! Check out his video below!

In case you’re curious, Joe won the most viewed video in Week 3, and was the random draw winner in Week 1. Well done, Joe!

The second winner this week is LIEUTANG, who was able to gain the most views on his video. He churned up 306 views this week, which is incredible! He’s been a constant in the challenges for a couple of weeks now, so if you want to challenge him for his title, something tells me he’ll be around this week as well :) Along with winning a prize package, LIEUTANG will be picking the track that will be used in Week 7’s NFS Hot Lap challenge!

Our random draw winner is AppelST. Another constant in our week-to-week challenges, so I’m really glad to see him get a prize package this week :) Way to go!

As I mentioned last week, we’re going to make these week-to-week challenges more about what YOU guys want, which is why joewillburnsa and LIEUTANG will be picking the car and track for Week 7!

Speaking about the challenge being about you: check out our NFS YouTube Channel and you'll see that the 3 winners are proudly displayed front and center on our YouTube channel :) An extra congratulations from the NFS team!

Happy racing, everyone, and here are the 3 winners’ videos!

joewillburnsa

LIEUTANG

AppelST

New Podcast Out Now

Andrew Collins — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:14:00 GMT

As Drew takes a hard-earned break we invite fellow NeedforSpeed.com writer Kirk "The Captain" Pedersen into the podcast to tell us all about his week playing Nitro and discuss our mustache growing skills along with myself and Greg. If you use iTunes click here or for those people who prefer to keep things more simple you can listen to the podcast at http://needforspeed.libsyn.com/rss

To get in touch with us on the podcast email me at Andrew@NeedforSpeed.com. If you like the idea of sponsoring us as we grow our mustaches for charity look for the Dandrufs team on Movember.com or join our Facebook group if you just want to see how foolish/great we look with a furry top lip.

NITRO - coming to a mall near you!

Kirk Pedersen — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:29:00 GMT

Listen up, fans of Need for Speed NITRO - every weekend between now and December 20, we are taking our show on the road to 12 malls in select cities across the United States.

You can try out NITRO for free at these demonstrations and even win a Nintendo Wii. At least one Wii per day, per mall will be given away, so stick around and you could win.

This weekend, we're at Lakewood Center in Los Angeles and Four Seasons Town Center and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina from Friday to Sunday.

Below are the rest of the dates for the NITRO mall tour. Hope to see you there!

Dates	City	Mall
Nov. 13-15	Raleigh-Durham	Four Seasons Town Center
	Los Angeles	Lakewood Center
Nov. 20-22	Phoenix	Paradise Valley Mall
	Atlanta	Perimeter Mall
Nov. 27-29	Austin	Highland Mall
	Memphis	Southland Mall
Dec. 4-6	Houston	Baybrook Mall
	Louisville	Green Tree Mall
Dec. 11-13	Tampa	Sarasota
	Minneapolis	Burnsville Center
Dec. 18-20	Orlando	West Oaks Mall
	Chicago	Hawthorn Mall

BMW M3 GT2 turntable available now

Kirk Pedersen — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:49:00 GMT

The 'hero' car of Need for Speed SHIFT, the BMW M3 GT2 is the third car to be featured in our series of 3D embeddable turntables.

With more than 450 horsepower under its hood, the M3 GT2 is pure German race-bred engineering.

Powered by a 4-liter V8, the GT2 uses some of the technology of past M3s, including the sequential manual gearbox pioneered in the extremely-limited edition M3 Evolution Imola Individual and popularized by the E46 M3.

The new SMG in the GT2 features a carbon fiber clutch, providing butter-smooth shifts for your inner racer.

SHIFT collaborator Tommy Milner currently drives a GT2 for Rahal Letterman racing in the American Le Mans Series. Rahal Letterman racing finished fourth in the GT2 class in 2009.

Game Faces – You Know What I’m Talking About…

NFS Mike — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:11:00 GMT

Okay, so maybe you don’t know what I’m talking about when I say “Game Face,” so let me explain. Have you ever walked into a room where someone is focusing so hard on playing a video game that they don’t even acknowledge your coming into the room? If so, then you’ve seen their Game Face. You know the one: mouth hanging open, blank stare as if nothing else exists around them, averaging a blink of the eyes every 2-3 minutes. Yeah, that one.

Well, we here at NFS we decided to catch our Game Faces and post them for the world to see. Because my colleagues began posting their own video responses (don’t worry, they don’t count towards the competition) to the NFS Hot Lap, we began recording the faces they make when playing Need for Speed SHIFT.

The results? Well, you can see for yourself…

Cowboy Greg:

"Something's wrong with my 'fro" Drew:

"What the heck am I?" Andrew:

Precious Meaks:

Car of the Day: Aston Martin DBR9

Kirk Pedersen — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:57:00 GMT

Today's car of the day is a true racing machine, the Aston Martin DBR9.

The DBR9 gets its name from the DBR1, a famed Aston Martin racecar which not only won the 24 Hours Le Mans race in 1959, but the World Sportscar Championship that year as well.

With its 6-liter normally-aspirated V12 pumping out more than 600 horsepower and more than 700 ft/lb. of torque, the DBR9 is tough to beat on the track. Its little brother, the DBRS9 brought home the FIA GT3 Championship in 2009.

The DBR9 shares a lot of inner-workings with the DB9, including a chassis, engine block and cylinder heads. However, the DBR9's body is made entirely of carbon fiber to keep curb weight down, except for the roof, which is steel.

Take one of these British gems for a spin in SHIFT and you'll be pledging allegiance to the queen before you know it.

From virtual to reality at Willow Springs - courtesy of SHIFT

Kirk Pedersen — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:11:00 GMT

Four lucky fans - Troy, Justin, Jason and Kirby - of Need for Speed got the ultimate opportunity to drive on a real racetrack recently, and not with just any car, but the 2010 Ford Mustang GT.

First, they got to test the Shelby GT500 out in SHIFT to see how they fared on Willow Springs' Horse Thief Mile - a daunting task for even the most seasoned of NFS racers.

After that, it was time for a racing lesson from Fast Lane Driving School and a lap around Horse Thief Mile in the 2010 Mustang GT.

Troy was able to take both legs of the race with a total time of 2:17.89. Impressive, perhaps he should be looking for a professional ride next season.

For more, check out this link to Ford's official page.

NFS 100 million 25% off coupons update

Kirk Pedersen — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:26:00 GMT

To kick off your Thursday morning, we have an update to the announcement posted last month regarding the 25% off coupons on any Need for Speed title from the EA Store.

Unfortunately, we cannot message people who requested coupons directly via Facebook. We apologize for this, but there is a solution for people who still want to get their discount codes and haven't received them yet - send an e-mail to kevin@needforspeed.com and NFSKev will hook you up with a code.

The codes are valid until November 25, 2009 and entitle you to 25% off any NFS game at the EA Store, including SHIFT and NITRO.

NFS Hot Lap – Week 5

NFS Mike — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:07:00 GMT

Week 4 has finished up and we saw some impressive hot laps! The number of entries that were submitted were 34, which is a huge jump from the already incredible total of 19 the week before! It would seem that the Hot Lap is a success and that a lot of fun is being had with it!

Because it’s you guys that are making the Hot Lap what it is, I thought I would try something new. Earlier this week I had a discussion with a couple of Need for Speeders over at our Facebook Fan Page. I proposed the idea of handing over the decision of which car and track used for each week over to you guys, the fans of the game and of the NFS Hot Lap. After they helped me tweak the idea, the result was something that I really liked, and here it is:

The winner of the fastest lap will determine the car for the upcoming week and the winner of the most viewed video will choose the track! If, for whatever reason, either of the fastest lap or most viewed video winners cannot be contacted to pick a car and/or track, then the random prize draw winner will step in as their replacement :) (Yes, everyone still wins a prize package though!)

I’d personally like to thank Joe, Gaurav and Dave for the great discussion on improving the Hot Lap competition!

Onwards! You know the drill by now: I post my video to the NFS YouTube channel, and anyone who wants to beat my time can record their own video and post it as a video response to mine. The contest will run until Monday, November 16th, 9am PST, so be sure to submit your entries by then.

For the Week 5 challenge, we’ve got the following …
Car: Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R
Track: Silverstone International

Make sure to use the same car and track, keep it to one lap per video, and however you choose to record it, make sure your final time is clearly readable. Post it to your YouTube account and submit it as a response to our Week 5 video (embedded below). And, there’s no limit to the number of video responses you can post, so if you see your best time beaten by someone else, get back in and record a better one. And to make your video easier to track, please remember to tag it with NFS and put a link to needforspeed.com in the video’s description.

As always, if you have any questions, please drop me a line at michael@needforspeed.com and I can help you out.

Here’s my video:

Car of the Day: Shelby GT500

Kirk Pedersen — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:35:00 GMT

Brought back one year after the 'retro' Ford Mustang was introduced in 2005, the Shelby GT500 takes the Mustang GT and turns it on its ear, with only the best parts surviving.

For 2010, the GT500 got a facelift along with the base Mustang, further modernizing Carroll Shelby's legendary personal hot rods.

Developed alongside Ford's SVT (Special Vehicle Team) performance arm, the 2010 GT500 gains 40 ponies, bringing its total horsepower to a potent 540, as well as 20 more lb/ft. of torque, increasing that number to 510.

The supercharged and intercooled 5.4-liter V8 emits the strong, familiar growl Shelby enthusiasts have been enthralled with for the past 40 years.

With the addition of a 'gurney flap' spoiler, rear downforce has been increased and drag reduced in the 2010 GT500.

Ford also claims the car is more fuel efficient than the previous generation of GT500, but if you've got the cash to procure one of these beauties, wiping the grin off your face is a bigger concern than keeping the tank full of gas.