Xboxist

Is NFS: Shift Ferrari Car Pack Worth 800 Points?

Need for Speed Shift is an interesting game that sits somewhere between arcade racer and serious simulator. Perhaps because of its renewed focus on purebred racing, EA today announced that Ferrari cars will once again return to the series. After going missing for the past seven years, during which time the publisher explored the less-legal world of street racing, the prancing horse will now be represented in Need for Speed Shift in a downloadable content pack. The DLC, which includes 10 Ferrari cars, is available worldwide starting today for the price of 800 Microsoft points. Is this downloadable content pack worth the money, considering that it doesn't add any new courses? That will depend entirely on whether you think the underlying game engine can do justice to one of the premier car manufacturers in the world. True petrolheads might already be playing a more sophisticated simulator like Forza 3, but EA hopes that this content will find a market among some gamers on the Xbox 360.

The DLC includes some extreme machines that will be instantly recognizable to any fan of motorsports: the 430 Scuderia and the ultra-rare FXX (pictured below). In addition to 10 new cars, the Ferrari Racing Series will also extend SHIFT's career mode with 46 new Ferrari specific challenges designed for the Ferrari cars to participate in including hot laps, eliminators, endurance races and a world tour. Completing the perfect Ferrari package are an additional 125 gamerpoints as a reward for undertaking various exciting challenges. All Ferrari cars can also be taken online where players can prove who has the skills to master these high-performance Italian racing machines.