rec.autos.simulators

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Randy
Randy Magruder
Contributing Reviewer
Digital Sportspage
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Joe

Randy
Randy Magruder
Contributing Reviewer
Digital Sportspage
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

BTW, I would strongly reccomend using a stering wheel or other analog device
for this game. I tried it with my Gamepad Pro and anytime you turn, the
whole view leans so quickly that you will soon be reaching for the
dramamine(sp?).  It was strange at first riding a sportbike with a steering
wheel, but it helps out a lot.

-Matt
Matthew Kraus
Also a Contributing Reviewer
Digital Sportspage
http://www.digitalsports.com

Certainly the part about the game having only "fantasy tracks" instead of
the real road courses is enough to take this game out of consideration for
me. Too bad -- from a technical standpoint this was a step in the right
direction for a realistic m/c sim.

--
Doug Gordon
(Remove "nospam." from e-mail address)

The feedback may be very subtle and 'seat of the pants', but in some
ways that's why sim makers have to overdo the non-tactile cues.  In
car sims, this is mostly done with tire squeal sounds that give you a
sense of getting close to the edge.  Since you can't 'feel' the slip,
they've got to subsitute something with audio/video (and/or force
feedback when appropriate).  So although it might not be 100%
realistic, it HAS to be there or you are deprived of the ability to
ride the edge of the envelope and get the resulting rush from being
there.

Yeah, but imagine if you're just hauling down the straight and not
cornering at all, but you drift over onto the fringe (I don't mean
plowing into mud, but the 'fringe' if you know what I mean), you don't
suddenly expect your speed to plummet faster than you could brake!

Have you seen the video clip at the Laguna Seca web site?  I'm pretty
sure its a motorcycle from the apparent tilt and windshield angles.
Its doing a 1:09 lap, which is in the CART time frame.  As far as
cornering and braking, I guess I have to say that while I understand
the basic sense of two wheels versus four wheels, you're also talking
about a LOT less weight.  The brakes and contact patches of the tires
are relative to the weight of the car as its being thrust in a linear
direction, and they act to oppose that.  The bike, it would seem,
would corner as well or better than a car assuming that the tire grip
and braking force was in the right proportion to the extremely low
weight of rider and bike, relative to the incredibly heavier regular
cars.

Randy

Randy Magruder
Contributing Reviewer
Digital Sportspage
http://www.digitalsports.com

 :-)

"Unfortunately, there are no rear-view mirrors, but there is a look-back key
that will show you the action from behind." - This is actually very true to
life. Superbikes don't have any mirrors in order to be more aerodynamic.
Looking back is really how riders check for the competition.

"I felt that the driver movements were a little too stepped, making them
look more like robots on bikes than real people. A few more frames of
animation to smooth out driver motion would have been better." - Definitely.
The aniamations never seem to lean the rider over enough.  I want to see
knees scraping pavement.

"I want the tires to squeal, I want the vehicle to shake, I want to be
forced to make small corrections to the controls...Your speed at maximum
tilt determines your turning radius. Too fast and you go in a wider
circle. Too slow and youre not at the limit. There is no real squeal or
other effect to let you know youre cornering at the limit. You simply
quietly go in a wider radius and often dont realize it until your bike goes
off the outside edge of the track." - I agree with you on the lack of
adrenaline rush, for some reason the sense of speed isn't fully there.  As
far as tire squeal, cycle tires don't do this when cornering, unless you're
dumping the bike.  Bikes corner very differently than cars.  The way you can
tell if you're taking a corner too fast is when you begin to "drift" to the
outside.  This can be countered by letting off the gas, and braking will
stand you back up to vertical.  I thought this aspect of superbikes was
realistically represented by the game, but not fully (read on).

"...I dont accept the whole slowdown philosophy of putting a tire off the
track. This tends to keep you from being as aggressive as you should be
around the track..." - In reality, if you put a tire off the track on a
bike, even into mild gravel, at high speed you're going to dump it.  I think
the programmers chose to instead simulate the rider braking when off the
track as opposed to simply crashing the bike altogether in order to same the
user overwhealming frustration.  Again, these are not cars, and if a bike
goes off-road, the rider will immediately slow down by his own choosing, or
go rolling across the dirt.

"Further, brakes dont lock up in the game, nor do you get any indication
that youre braking other than a reduction of speed. So the potential terror
of last-second braking is completely lost." - The potential terror of
last-second braking is overshooting the curve.  You don't want to be able to
lock the wheels, because again, on a bike, this is a very bad idea.  This is
very much like real superbikes.

You brought up a lot good points in your review, but I just feel like you're
expecting superbikes to act too much like cars.  The two have some very
different characteristics, and I think that Castrol Honda Superbikes does a
good job in SOME of these areas in representing real superbike racing.  I'd
probably give this game a score around 75, although I really want it to be
beter than that.

-Matt

order to be more aerodynamic.

Sounds good...but since there's no such thing as peripheral vision in a
computer monitor, a mirror wouldn't have been a huge compromise.

My point is that in real life you can 'feel' the big losing traction and you
don't have this on a PC.  That's one good reason for adding sound effects.
They are your 'limit' indicators.

What if you're going in a straight line and you just drift slightly over the
fringe of a track (where there's no curb, just rougher pavement)?  There is
a tunnel in the game with a paved fringe, but if you put a tire on it, no
matter whether you are cornering or not, your speed dumps.  There's just no
way I buy that.  I expect control to go away, not sudden speed drops.

The terror is more of losing the bike, no?  I'd rather fear the bike
spilling me than fear the 'boring slowdown' approach used in the game.

You have a valid point.  I do respect the differences between the two.
However, in watching how unstable the bikes on TV got when the rider did
something wrong, I felt like some magic was missing from the game.  There is
a 'feel' to the real thing you'll never get into a PC simulation, so you
have to exaggerate other visual and audio cues to make up for the lack of
senses.  This principle holds true whether it is a car, a motorcycle, a
bicycle or an airplane.  The idea that there was sticky tape off the roads
and no warning when you were at the limit made it rather difficult to 'feel'
the bike.  That was the gist of my criticism.

Thanks for the feedback!

Randy

hey man!
ive raced bikes and "driven my car "
on the track (after a race day) and a car is way faster than a bike,
unfortunately, the absolute bike lap record at  Laguna Seca is a
1:25 i think , by Kevin Schwantz in a 500 cc GP machine
and as you pointed out , a CART car is around 1:07 for the lap record.
It all boils downt to *** on the road, and it depends on the track
itself, if its tight , the car will decimate the bike, on a wide open
track , then its a lot closer.
 it also depends which classes you compare :)

Cheers
Robert T Wilson

Adding more animation to the riders may have helped this.  In the game I can
tell when I'm starting to drift in time to correct it without any audio
cues.  What would help for determining how far you are "trying" to turn is
more rider animation as far the lean of the bike goes.  Then you could
visually tell just how far leaned over you are.

Agreed.  I have yet to try it with full realism settings turned on, so maybe
that would help?  I think the slowdown would be better accepted if it were
combined with a loss of control, and possibly loss of the bike completely.
I'm just guessing, but I think the developers figured this was the best way
to keep beginners from getting too frustrated with learning the game.

-Matt

Joe

Not really.
Each rider is different.

Kevin Schwantz always kept his head inline with his body, and won a lot
of titles before retiring.

--
Regards,
Ian Firth
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Diversions Software - Game Development - http://www.divsoft.com
     Home of Prairie Dog Hunt PRO '97 - DS Sporting Clays