Just finished playing a couple of hours and I think it has a lot going
with cars. My only gripe is in the control/physics model. It is hard
to tell how accurate it is since these are make beleive cars but it
feels a little fishy. Not quite as bad as POD or other arcarde games
but not as accurate as GP2 or N2. Anybody else?
Quoted text (7 lines)
>Just finished playing a couple of hours and I think it has a lot going >for it. Good graphics engine (20-25fps(guessing) with all options on >with cars. My only gripe is in the control/physics model. It is hard >to tell how accurate it is since these are make beleive cars but it >feels a little fishy. Not quite as bad as POD or other arcarde games >but not as accurate as GP2 or N2. Anybody else?Quoted text (7 lines)
> Just finished playing a couple of hours and I think it has a lot going > for it. Good graphics engine (20-25fps(guessing) with all options on > with cars. My only gripe is in the control/physics model. It is hard > to tell how accurate it is since these are make beleive cars but it > feels a little fishy. Not quite as bad as POD or other arcarde games > but not as accurate as GP2 or N2. Anybody else?It Stinks !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>Regarding the physics model, you hit the nail right on the head. That
>is exactly how I felt about it, not sure how accurate it is since the
>cars are all 'experimental'. I thought overall the cars could be
>slowed to easily, and the cornering was inconsistent.
To be honest I surprised myself and quite enjoyed it. Certainly it's
still on my hard disk, and I think we owe it to Bethesda to at least
take a little time and give it a proper test run. The only thing
that's sure is that if we simply tell them "It stinks!!" without
anything to say WHY it stinks, you can bet the release version will
stink most horribly.
IMO it certainly doesn't stink.
There seems to be a lack of interaction between the gas/brakes and the
downforce/steering. I have so far failed to find any sort of feedback
or warning from the car as to when it's about to spin. I would expect
some shift in the***pit view, tyre squeal, something of that nature.
Secondly there seems no middle ground between "driving on rails" and
"totally sideways". The car just suddenly seems out of control. The
cornering seems very unrealistic, the car just hangs on and can whip
around bends that an F1 car would have trouble negotiating. The FEEL
of having the car balanced on the edge isn't there. Braking and
accelerating seem not too bad (except the aforementioned problem of no
interaction between steering and brakes during turn-in). Overall the
game just seem too close to "arcade", even with total realism turned
on. I can now turn regular 1:05 - 1:06 laps at Mid-Ohio with little
feeling of pushing the car at all, and utterly thrash the opposition
on highest difficulty. Now I'm FAR from the best driver around here so
that needs attention for a start :-)
Other things.... The HUD needs refined or lost completely, too big and
unecessary. The interior graphics need to look a lot more spectacular,
as do the other cars. The scenery is nice though and I kinda liked the
bird that flew over :-) A little bit of immersion. The other annoying
feature was no support for two joystick based control. The AI seemed a
bit lame, more like people to get in your way than worthy of racing.
Perhaps this would be improved with more speed.
Overall I would say the game has more good things going for it than
bad, and has potential. If that is an "almost finished" version then I
would pronounce myself a bit disappointed. If it is a "working model
ready for polishing" then it looks good, with work it has the makings
of a good racer. In current form I wouldn't buy itthough.
Cheers!
John
