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Perfect Shift was presented to me and I did my usual ‘Eughhhhh me don’t do the effort thing,’ because I’m a total lazy bast, and it was amplified by my complete lack of interest in racing games (except Crash Team Racing – best game ever BTW).
Fantasy’s my thing – longbows, fireballs, pointy hats, that sorta thing. I was reluctant to play it because from the trailer on the app store it kinda looked like a Need for Speed game and mate, they are dull games.
I was wrong. I like it a lot and it’s oddly addictive. It’s not really a racing game either. It’s a game where you rev your engine and change gears. That’s it.
Yes, it’s about cars and drag racing in shady underground tunnels, but that’s as far as it goes with the ‘lad’ thing. It’s about timing and reactions and generally being better than other people, which is my favourite thing to do.
You play as guy in a racing helmet who looks like the Stig without a name – that’s my own fault because I skipped that bit and left his name as ‘Player’ – and you have a best friend who plays with engines and of course with games that are aimed at boys, your friend who loves motors is a sexy lady with huge jugs called Sheryll. She loves fixing cars and moves to the big city where all of the big boys laugh at her – perfect underdog plot starter, right? And then we meet Harry, who is her instant archnemesis and looks like Jack Nicholson. You fill the role of the person who steps into Sheryll’s fixer-uppers to show Harry his arse and make him eat rubber.
That’s the premise of Perfect Shift and the way to play it is by tapping the gear pedal to shift gear which you have to do perfectly to go faster than your opponent and win, which gives the game its name.
You mod and upgrade your car in Sheryll’s garage to make your ‘PERF’ score higher (short for perfect start, which is basically the rating of your vehicle).
It’s really fun and I’m already kinda attached to my shitty first car. And I hate Jack Nicholson, so I don’t think I’ll be deleting the app as soon as this review is published! It reminds me of a game my friends and I used to play on the computers at school on the only website we could ever sneak onto that had games, and you literally just pimped out your car and changed gear to win races and money to pimp out your car even harder.
Perfect Shift is stylish and shiny, like how you’d expect Joanna Lumley’s house to be. And the music is really good as well! It’s really synth-y and modern and how you’d expect a metallic painted car to sound like if it was turned into music. That’s terrible phrasing but I think you should know what I mean.
You also have different race types: Story, Ladder, Daily and Random. They’re the race modes I’ve unlocked so far, so you’ve got plenty of options and ways to build up your cash, so it’ll keep you occupied on the bus or sat in your undies because you got undressed when you came in from work and haven’t bothered to put comfies on yet.
I’m writing this review whilst I’m waiting for my car to upgrade. It only takes a minute to upgrade my engine and turbo so I’ve pwned about eight strangers between paragraphs.
Perfect Shift has been downloaded over 2 million times, and the positive reviews are pouring in. After playing it for about 15 minutes, I can see why. It’s addictive and possibly dangerous if you’re like me and want to WIN. *crazy eyes* …
Anyway it’s on the app store and the Google Play store, so go download it and tweet at me (@scottbalf) to let me know what you think!
