One of the biggest surprises in this year of truly great racing games is Need for Speed: Shift, which not only restores dignity to the Need for Speed series, but also manages to keep pace with - and sometimes blow past - Microsoft's Forza 3 and Codemasters' Dirt 2. One of the ways it does this is by offering things you don't get in most other racing games.

After the jump are nine things in Need for Speed: Shift you won't find in other racing games.

1) Star power
Much of your progression through the Shift's career mode comes from earning stars. But since there are so many different ways to earn stars, you get a lot of flexibility and choice. The most obvious way to earn stars is by winning a race. Three for first place, two for second place, and one for third place. But beyond that, you can also earn stars by racking up experience points for driving precisely or aggressively, and you get these stars even if you lose the race. Many races give you a star for some sort of bonus goal, such as racing a clean lap, reaching a certain speed, or spinning out a number of opponents. These stars will have you picking and choosing among races, driving them for reasons other than merely wining. This gives the stars a collectible "gotta catch 'em all" quality. It's a little bit Pokemon, a little bit Mario Galaxy, and a lot addictive.

2) Roof-mounted car babes
During many of the pre-race start-up sequences, I have a random car babe standing in the middle of my car, protruding from the top as if she were mounted on the roof. It's a simple matter of the game thinking the car is supposed to be several feet ahead of where it actually is, so the graphics of my pit crew are in the wrong place. Normally, this wouldn't bother me much. But considering how many races are decided by hundredths of a second, I'd just as soon have those several feet credited to me like they should be.

3) Owning your friends
Friends list leaderboards are a dime a dozen. But what Shift does so well is build them into the main menu, because it's no big deal to get beat by your friend when that fact is buried on a screen three menus deep. But in Shift, you get a green marker on every challenge where you have the best lap time or the highest drift score. You "own" those challenges, which is reinforced by having your name plastered across them with a green banner. When someone on your friends list does better than you, a red mark appears. Think of it as a gauntlet thrown down.

4) It's not committed to a single language
Every time you boot up Need for Speed: Shift, you get to decide whether you want to play in English, French, or Spanish. This is a thoughtful touch for anyone who might be studying another language.

5) Mastering corners
There's an infamous S-curve at Laguna Seca. It's technically called Corner 8A and 8B, but it's known as "The Corkscrew". It's situated just beyond a rise, on a dramatic downward slope. Because you've just come over that rise, your car is losing traction at precisely the time it most needs traction. Plenty of racing games have Laguna Seca. Most of them haven't figured out a good way to keep me from just cutting across the S-curve and going my merry way. I laugh dismissively when I do it.

But Need for Speed: Shift keeps a record for every significant turn on a track. As you're driving, the minimap displays a check for every corner you've driven correctly. You came in at a good speed, you followed the best line around the corner, and then you accelerated out of it. And you didn't hit a wall or another car in the process. If you did this, you "mastered" the corner. There are badges for each track when you master all its corners. What's more, you get extra experience points every time you re-master the corner.

So now that a driving game is finally going to recognize the challenge of Laguna Seca's infamous Corkscrew, you can bet I'm going to rise to the occasion. And I smile a little smile every time I drive past that checkmark.

6) Asymmetrical livery designs
There is no way to cut and paste your custom livery from one side of the car to the other. This will make car designs more interesting than all those boring designs where one side is exactly like the other.

7) Rewards for clean driving
Plenty of games discourage messy driving. For instance, Forza 3 docks your cash reward if you bang up your car, and it records your lap time in a separate category if you drive off the road. But Need for Speed: Shift is rare for how it specifically rewards clean driving. For starters, you've got a sophisticated experience system that gives you points for driving without banging into other cars and careening around the track like a drunkard (you also get experience points for being messy and aggressive, but not as many as you get for driving clean). However, Shift offers badges for winning on each track without banging into other cars or going off the track. Like the checkmarks for mastering corners, it's nice of Shift to offer recognition for driving clean.

8) Micropayments
Leave it to EA. When you buy a new car, you get to either pay with ingame money or real money. Fortunately, the game was designed so that you don't tend to own a lot of cars. It's built to encourage you to get attached to particular cars, as opposed to something like Forza, where you have a collection that would put Jay Leno to shame.

9) A surprised Japanese man
The background "music" on the main screen has all sorts of weird sound effects of radio static, muted cockpit chatter, engine noise, a weird throbbing soundtrack, and the sound of a Japanese man who's apparently been surprised by someone jumping out at him.