my look on racing games

[beradd88]

Games like Gran Turismo and Forza have really screwed up racing games. Now racing games are expected to have lots of different cars in them. What about older games like (yes I know these are all pc games but I believe this example holds true on consoles)
F1 2002, the papyrus Nascar games, Indy car racing 2, and other games where you pretty much only drove one kind of car in one racing series? Those were great games and they based themselves on what racing really is and they did not need zillions of different cars because they were made for the race fan.

Forza 2 is only a semi sim because it lacks a lot of what a real sim should have. Sure the cars are harder to handle than in an arcade game and there is tire wear but I could never get a flat tire in forza 2 no matter how hard I tried. Mechanical problems only seem to be based off of collisions. I could try to torture the manual transmission and it never seemed to care. Fuel only seems to exist in endurance races and fuel is important because fuel = weight and weight has an impact on handling. There is no in car view which sucks because I do not drive my street car in third person, or while sitting on the front bumper.

A lot of people do not understand this and they think that Forza is as real as it gets.

The problem is there are many different kind of race car fans. There are car collectors, there are people that just want to be able to win right away, and there are people that want a game that resembles what racing really is.

In a lot of games you crash your car and oops that sucks and then start your race over. I like to deal with the consequences. I like having to drive my crippled car around the track several more times knowing I can not win. I will never be a race car driver in real life so I like games that can at least let me pretend I am in as realistic of a way as possible. I want to work for my wins, not have them handed to me.

I know that not everybody wants a game that is that realistic but I do and I hope that Simbin really deliver on the realism.

[PerfectStrategy]

Is there something wrong with variety? I don't see any pollution caused in the racing scene. In fact I think there will be more Race Pro players because of how Forza 2 has drawn in many people to the genre. I'm on this forum right now only because of GT back in the day and Forza 2 recently. If I had just started off playing GTR/LFS or something like that, maybe I would have given up on it immediately.

I find the core physics and handling in Forza 2 to be excellent. The telemetry system is amazing; and they have a great paint shop, auction house, website, etc. Basically you just listed some complaints which just involve more gameplay mechanics which they chose to not include or abstract from a design standpoint. I personally don't want to get a blown tire on the last lap of a race and lose just because it's realistic. If it was not random whatsoever, and everybody would blow their tire in the same way under the same conditions, then I would be OK with it.

Fuel might not make sense in a 3-5 lap race. Everyone should have the right amount of fuel to run a race that short without refueling. It would kind of suck to run out of fuel on the last lap because you didn't know exactly how many kilometers per liter your car would get.

And not every racing game has to try to replicate real life as close as possible does it? Sometimes real life isn't as fun or is too random. There's a wide variety of racing games and that is a good thing. I play the whole spectrum of racing games from Burnout to Forza to Race Pro, and I enjoy them all for different reasons.

So I think maybe if some of you guys weren't so ridiculously elitist, maybe some more Forza/PGR players might pick up Race Pro and really get into it. And maybe some of them will see some of you guys on FM3. Not everything is black and white, and not everyone here has their life dependent on the accuracy of a game and is trying to become a professional race driver, I hope...


Oh, btw, I totally understand some of your guys frustration. Seeing a bunch of idiots (many GT fanboys, etc.) making asinine comments towards Race Pro on many websites, is quite unsettling. But try to take the high ground and explain to others what makes the game good or what its merits are. Rather than being reactionary and simply flaming back at Forza and GT. Because then you are just sinking down to their level and trashing innocent, defenseless racing games.

[Brad_]

I think the fanboy sonydroid and xbot mentality has scarred racing alot (at least in the console division). Many PS3 fans have made Gran Turismo seem like the be-all and end-all to racing. Anything outside those regions is a fake to them. The Xbots (fanboy xbox fans), have hyped up Forza as the be-all and end-all in the Xbox world. The problem is, Race Pro is the first real simulator for a console, so they don't really know what a good racing game is. I honestly have played GT5, but I still sometimes struggle with the handling of the cars, and wonder about the accuracy. Playing games such as Race 07, GTR Evo and GTR2, feels much more realistic.

I have had the rare opportunity to race a couple stock cars around a local circuit (BMW 330i E64, Audi RS4), and I could somewhat relate the handling of those cars to the Simbin series. Even though the tuning may not be accurate cause of completely different set ups, there were many similar traits. However, playing GT5 does seem a bit arcadish still. Visually it looks pretty stunning in the replays, but handling in actual game play looks rather botched.

With that note, these fanboys base all racing games on this, and bash other than don't meet those criteria.

I don't know if you all ever heard of Ferrari Project as well. When they released screenshots (sample (http://www.autogaming.net/pc/18/ferrari-project-new-untouched-screenshots/)) the Sony fans quickly came down on the graphical detailing and said it was very fake. If you ask me, real GT5 visuals are facing some very stiff competition from Ferrari Project, and Sonydroids did their solemn duty to come down on this game.

[Brad_]

Also, here I prove my point of fanboyism and bad fact finding.

http://www.thegameraccess.com/2009/01/forza-2-outdone-by-gt5-physics/

[leahcim35]

Games like Gran Turismo and Forza have really screwed up racing games. Now racing games are expected to have lots of different cars in them. What about older games like (yes I know these are all pc games but I believe this example holds true on consoles)


Well TBH, I think the main difference is that newer computers and consoles usually have larger storage devices and media which has meant, more or less since day 1 of game development, that the amount of content in a game has been used as a means to show that the game is improved over earlier versions [or competing games] on older, or the same tech.

But yes, to me it's meaningless - although obviously I know it isn't so for everyone.

In Forza's case I think it's fair to say that the remit was "GT for the xbox" - even if it has created a viable game and community of its own, it probably wouldn't exist if GT3/PS2s packs hadn't flown off shop shelves, so you can't really blame them for the lots of production cars format.

There are no cars in a driving game at all. I'm amazed they pay folk to use specific car names and shapes and I'm even more amazed that someone would believe that a 3d polygon mesh, a texture file or three and a set of parameters to feed into a physics engine is a particular car or, more to the point, care about it enough to buy a game or not or to want to drive it or not.

Clearly Forza [and probably GT too, I can't really say], if they showed anything it's that you could have the same experience with a mere handful of generic car and handling types [e.g for Forza, FWD, Muscle, and so on] and if Forza had had only that handful of generic cars then, aside from manuf's name not being in the leaderboard, the leaderboard would have been no different. Or, in other words, most of the cars in the game are a waste of time from the pov of racing.

I guess the answer is clear though, people care that they're in a Ferrari or a Caterham or whatever else, even if the physics model in the game means that the experience is nothing at all like that car. A game with a better physics model to appeal to folk, can't really do anything other than claim that the Dodge Viper is actually like driving a Dodge Viper for that reason. So it's inevitable that just as the real world needs a variety of cars, a game is going to need them too - because people want variety.

As for difficulty / realism and so on, Sims have, according to Ian Bell anyway, harmed themselves in the past by making themselves more difficult than reality. If true [and as DS has said similar, and a quick glance at any sim site will find folk who clearly confuse words like "arcade" "sim" "realism" and "difficulty" I can believe it] then I can't see that you can blame arcade games for the perception or, at least for not making their game "easy" or "difficult" if instead they've made it "realistic" or "unrealistic" - clearly, a glance at the leaderboards of any so-called arcade or, you'd suppose, easy driving game shows that some are much better than others at it.

As I've said though, every review for this game will be written as though driving is the most difficult thing in the world - that'll be the premise they start with and form 99% of the article. It stems from the same thing. They can't help themselves. Many of them will then finish work and drive home :)

[TRCfactory]

My view on this is a little different. I have played only a handful of racing games, all of them on consoles. GT, GT2, GT3, PGR, PGR2, PGR3, PGR 4, RalliSport Challenge 1 and 2, Sega GT 2002, Need For Speed(more than 3 or 4 of them lol) Forza and Forza 2. I have enjoyed them all on one level or another.

I didn't even consider how I would rank against other people around the world until I discovered Forza online. The first time I set a top 20 time, I was hooked. I have been a Forza junkie ever since.

I am looking forward to RacePro because it will be my first time playing a 'real' simulator. I am anxious to see if I can translate my meager skills on 'arcade' or 'semi-sim' games to a game like RacePro. As much as I think that in my console experience, Forza has been the best racing game to date, I also think that it falls short in many areas. I am hoping that RacePro will be able to fill in these gaps for me.

Fanboys, whether they be Sony, xbox, or sim, are only depriving themselves of some darn good fun from all the other titles that exist out there for us to play.

I hope to see some of you on the track!:)

[leahcim35]

Also, here I prove my point of fanboyism and bad fact finding.

http://www.thegameraccess.com/2009/01/forza-2-outdone-by-gt5-physics/

If you can yank the handbrake on in your car and it doesn't turn, you'll be lucky. AIUI there are a variety of ways of initiating drift.

TBH, I'm no physicist, but I've read enough physics papers from the likes of Einstein, and documents from developers detailing how to implement stuff like rigid model physics, water and other simulations into software, to spot the difference between an article written by someone waving his hands and talking about drifting in a couple of games, and something that would actually be discussing the physics [real or simulation] and the accuracy of it.

[Brad_]

Honestly, I think that many of these reviewers fail at driving the game (because it takes time to become a simmer) and just rate it bad out of frustration of not being able to do it right.

[mac_v2]

My view on this is a little different. I have played only a handful of racing games, all of them on consoles. GT, GT2, GT3, PGR, PGR2, PGR3, PGR 4, RalliSport Challenge 1 and 2, Sega GT 2002, Need For Speed(more than 3 or 4 of them lol) Forza and Forza 2. I have enjoyed them all on one level or another.

I didn't even consider how I would rank against other people around the world until I discovered Forza online. The first time I set a top 20 time, I was hooked. I have been a Forza junkie ever since.

I am looking forward to RacePro because it will be my first time playing a 'real' simulator. I am anxious to see if I can translate my meager skills on 'arcade' or 'semi-sim' games to a game like RacePro. As much as I think that in my console experience, Forza has been the best racing game to date, I also think that it falls short in many areas. I am hoping that RacePro will be able to fill in these gaps for me.

Fanboys, whether they be Sony, xbox, or sim, are only depriving themselves of some darn good fun from all the other titles that exist out there for us to play.

I hope to see some of you on the track!:)

+1

very good factory

[leahcim35]

Honestly, I think that many of these reviewers fail at driving the game (because it takes time to become a simmer) and just rate it bad out of frustration of not being able to do it right.

Yeah, the problem is, even someone who has driven for years you don't get the sense of speed that you get in a real car.

So, they believe they can drive and they know, at least at reasonable speeds, what a car is like.

But, they shoot off down the road and are doing perhaps 100mph+ at the first bend...IRL they'd not be...and if you approach a bend IRL at 100mph, you quickly think something like "Oh gosh, the bend is approaching mightly fast I'd better slow down" [except in French]

Whereas in a game there are no consequences and the guy is probably not looking at the speedo and when he turns at 100mph it crashes and the wheel's rattling and its "Not like driving at all...cars don't do that!! It's harder than real life"

With a so-called "arcade" game, the car goes round. The braking and slow down when he stops accelerating is unrealistic.

The last nail in the coffin for sims [from their pov] is that learning to control the car, doesn't necessarily make you any faster.

So, even if they spend an afternoon learning to drive smoothly...[and maybe another afternoon switching off assists] they are still slower than the top times.

To be fast requires something that, learning control in a sim hasn't taught you.

So, to them, perhaps if the game is merely about trying to win, rather than first learning to drive in it and then trying to win, they probably prefer it [or at least they probably don't see the point in learning what they perceive as a complicated control setup just to get to the point where they can start to race, as opposed to just racing]

[TRCfactory]

I forgot to mention my second favorite game after Forza! Test Drive: Unlimited :atari: Very arcadey, but still tons of fun. I spent countless hours running times on that game. I really wish they would make another one...............

[beradd88]

I never ment to sound like there should be no arcade racing games if that is how it sounded. I also did not mean to make it sound like I hate forza 2. It is a very good game and I will get forza 3 (if it has an in car view).

I was really just trying to point out that a lot of people seem to think that forza 2 is the most realistic racing game ever made and it is not. There have been many games made that have a lot more realistic elements but not as much variety in cars as those games tend to base themselves on a specific racing series.

I am sure that a lot of people that like forza 2 will try race pro. I think some wont though simply because it does not have the massive amount of cars that forza 2 had and they will be stuck on the thought that forza 2 is the most realistic thing ever.

[Copperhead_BOB]

The only way to end the misunderstanding amongst the GT5, Forza 2 and Race Pro fans is to put each respective gamer into an identical real life GT car and complete a time trial on a real life race circuit.

If it is as real as it gets, then there shouldn't be a problem to transition from a console to an actual driver cockpit.

I can assure you that at least one of them will chicken out.

[leahcim35]

The only way to end the misunderstanding amongst the GT5, Forza 2 and Race Pro fans is to put each respective gamer into an identical real life GT car and complete a time trial on a real life race circuit.


I think that would just show that all 3 titles are games.

From a gaming point of view it's moot, the arguments you are seeing are just nvidia v ati or apple mac v pc. Realism has nothing to do with it even if that's the specific thing they are going to argue over. It's just a difference. Go to the forum and say that the blue in Race pro is better than the blue in Forza and someone will say "the blue in GT5 will be the best"

From a gaming pov, getting to the top of the leaderboard or winning races has little to do with whether the game is realistic or not, it's about learning to play the game that's in front of you.

From the pov of realism, there's a world of difference between any game and the real world. A game could be more realistic than another in a number of significant ways and still be miles away from actually being realistic.

IIRC the Race pro guy put it as like a pick'n'mix sweet thing, you can pick and choose which aspects of racing you're going to put in and then you model those areas as well as you can given the resources you have. You end up with something that we're all going to enjoy...but to recreate the real world you really need a real world, not a 360.

Simply put, they might train real pilots in flight sims, but not a PC or console flight sim...

[Copperhead_BOB]

Well, if one day the real life racing teams decide to use Race Pro as a serious driver recruitment tool, that is the day I will have my last laugh.

[PzR_Tak]

Also, here I prove my point of fanboyism and bad fact finding.

http://www.thegameraccess.com/2009/01/forza-2-outdone-by-gt5-physics/

That article is fantastic :laugh: The comments are pretty good too. Look for the ones about Grid. Someone truly has a sense of humour (If you don't get it, he's being sarcastic)

[PerfectStrategy]

I forgot to mention my second favorite game after Forza! Test Drive: Unlimited :atari: Very arcadey, but still tons of fun. I spent countless hours running times on that game. I really wish they would make another one...............
I actually picked up TDU a few months ago and it is definitely a lot of fun. The car dealership/shopping options are the coolest I have seen, I like how you can even roll up or down the windows. The GPS navigation is also quite cool.

They are making a Test Drive: Unlimited 2 if you didn't already know that. :bravo: