rec.autos.simulators

I hope you all will try the MTM2 demo. I'm just as serious a sim enthusiast
as most of you, and while this isn't exactly a pure sim, it is an excellent
driving game that should interest many of you here at r.a.s. It may very
well set new standards in a lot of key areas of driving games/sims. It also
is just a blast to drive and to race against the AI or others on-line.
Myself and the other beta testers were almost all serious sim racers and we
had a great time testing this game and racing each other. I found myself
saying "wow" all the time and laughing quite a bit at what I saw going
on in front of me and even from what I did myself on the track. It's a great
way
to take a break from the more serious sims and have some fun but don't
assume by that statement that I mean it's easy. It is very challenging to be
fast and you will need to use all your driving skills and also find
some new skills to be good. If you can do a 49 sec lap on the Farm Road
track in this demo than you ARE good.

The reason MTM2 is very relevant to the sim world is because the game engine
could be used to make an excellent sim in the same way Ubi Soft used their
very good arcade game POD to make F1RS. IMO sim developers will now have to
equal or surpass the level of some of the components which make up MTM2.

The graphics are the best I have ever seen in any driving sim/game. The
tracks are beautiful and the trucks look incredibly realistic.The Photex2
graphics engine produces stunning graphic effects. I could go on and on
about
them but it's best to see for yourself.

The driving model is excellent. Although reality is definitely stretched due
to the nature of the game, it still has a tremendous feel to it. Set the
suspension to soft and enjoy throwing the trucks around the course and
sliding through the turns.

There is weather and time of day effects such as night, pitch black, dusk,
fog, dense fog, rain (with thunder and lightning strikes), accumulating
snow, clear, and
cloudy. The translucent headlights piercing the darkness is done
beautifully.

Sound is as good as it gets.

Force feedback is the best I've experienced so far. Drive down the railroad
tracks and see how your hands feel.

Internet races are extremely smooth. I've had people in Europe, Hawaii, and
across the U.S all in the same race and warping was almost non-existent.

Check out the demo to get an idea of what the full version will offer when
it's released in a couple of weeks. If you love to drive, and race, and have
some fun, I think you will really enjoy it. MS and TRI have created an
excellent and fun driving sim.

Dave

(DmndDave)

I agree with everything snipped, just one thing I just don't understand:

How complicated is it for game developers to grasp the simple concept of
PC joysticks??? One port supports two (2) joysticks, that's four (4)
axis
and four (4) buttons. BUT, why the hell should they support ALL of them,
just for the FEW guys with a setup that can use them...

BTW, the night and snow racing is awesome!

l8er
ronny

--
How to get rid of censorship in German game releases
<http://www.gamesmania.com/german/maniac/freedom/freedom.htm>

          |\      _,,,---,,_        I want to die like my Grandfather,
   ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_              in his sleep.
        |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'     Not like the people in his car,
       '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)            screaming their heads off!

I'm an idiot. After all that I didn't include the URL.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/monster/default.htm

Dave  (DmndDave)

Great sales pitch.
Your Great Gandfather must of sold cure all alixers in the old days :)
Is there no wrong with this game?

I only have 2 problems with this game.
1. Microsoft.
2. TRI

But I will dload it and give it a fair trial.

David G Fisher wrote

Well, seriously, I sort of changed my mind about MTM2.  You will be happy
;-)  .  Well sure, it's irrealistic, but I think it's more a simulation of
something who is impossible. You know like if MTM racing existed, that's
probably how it would be.  I had a little discussion with somebody from
Microsoft about this.  He told me what the game engine modelled, and all I
can say is that only by knowing what is modeled in the game engine it makes
me want to buy the game.  If only they would tell us ALL what they simulate.
That would boost up their sale

We don't care about Fog, we just want to know what the game engine
models.(from a serious SimRacer point of view).

Another point they should tell us.  <g> That's probably the major point
about me buying it. I just want to relax from my 75% C***te race on the
NROS.

Well, I agree, but not all.  Sure the game engine is better. But it's still
the same type of racing. If UbiSoft decided to do Pod2, whatever realistic
they would put in the game, it's still not a simulator.  (but Pod is not
MTM, Pod is boring compare to it IMHO). I had a blast in MTM (I use my horn
each time I pass in front of a stand). Hehe Yee haa ! ;-)

Graphic is ice on the cake for most of us.  Just take SODA.  I woudl rather
have a better framerate+less graphics  than good graphics+bad framerate. I'm
up at 14megs of Download, so I'll reply after.

Well, from a point of view (that I adopted), it's a simulation of irreality,
but well done. If you understand my point. It's probably the only fictif
racing title that I would consider more a sim (not like Al Unser Indy racing
[gulp], I'76, Pod, MegaRace, etc...).

Can you just explain more ? 4players TCP/IP ? 8 players IPX ??

I hope your happy to hear me tell this, and sorry for calling you a "young
Spice Girls listening wannabe kid" ;-)

Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard> Good race at the Brickyard, (-o-)

Official Mentally retarded guy of r.a.s.
Member of the r.a.s. Ego-maniac club
Excuse me for my English (I'm French speaking)
Excuse me for being provocative (I'm dumb speaking)

--"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."--

I understand exactly what you're trying to say. It is a little difficult to
describe MTM2. Sort of falls in-between arcade and sim.

In the demo it's 4 players but in the full version it will be 8 with the
Zone or TCP/IP.

I got a good laugh reading this.  :-)  Surprised you remember. I get called
worse things than that all the time. <g>

Dave
(DmndDave)

Dave
(DmndDave)

3. Monster Trucks. What's next: Celebrity Racing? Off-Road With Jerry
Springer? WWF Meets WRC?

Which leads to the fourth one:

4. Now that the "Greatest Monster Truck Sim Ever Created" is done, can
we assume that the hard-working programmers in Kathi Lee Gates'
sweatshops have had their "well-deserved vacation"? If so, when can we
expect the satisfactory completion of Microst CART Precision Racing
(remember that? "Greatest Racing Sim Ever Produced"? -- rushed out
unfinished in time for Christmas -- fifty bucks -- didn't work -- 2
patches and it worked worse -- TRI finds GOD -- bargain bin -- rebates
-- everyone asking for a real patch, get dubious track editor and
promise of Secret Killer Racing Sim to Come! -- turns out to be MTM2 --
heavily ad-subsidized print mags say CPR "Game of the Year!" -- all talk
of final patch to CPR disappears...you folks at MS DO remember that one
don't you?

So, David/Dean/John/Kathi -- when's the final version of CPR coming out?

Bart Brown

Yep!

On early impressions, the emphasis is most certainly in "game", probably
rather more so than with MTM1.

I'ld be interested to know what <g>

The graphics are excellent, very atmospheric with good framerates (PII300,
3dfx), but I have to say that I am just not getting any feel at all of
driving a vehicle.

I think a lot of this is due to poor control response. TRI/MS *STILL* seem
to believe that cars/trucks have their gas and brake controls connected
<sigh> and so far I can't find a steering setting that seems at all natural
- even with it set to 'most responsive' and zero null zone it seems to be
very non-linear. Indeed the 'most responsive' setting seems to be either no
response or full lock with little inbetween :( Maybe the patch to remove
the null zone built into DirectInput will correct this - I'll give it a go.

I'm finding the audio feedback to be rather lacking as well. Actually, a
more accurate statement would be that I'm finding the audio feedback
required to control a sim vehicle near the limits to be completely drowned
out by all the other noises. The resulting combination is very muddy and
adds to a general detached feel.

Well my best is 56.x, so I'll reserve final judgement until I'm at least
somewhere near the mark.... ;-)

btw - what shortcuts (if any!) are required for a 49?

Maybe, but F1RS had some serious limitations as well.

Again, I'ld like to know which <g> (other than the graphics of course).

From a 'sim' point of view, my early impressions would indicate that TRI
have made a wrong turn somewhere. MTM1 really felt like I was *driving* and
I loved it. So far, MTM2 seems to have concentrated on the candy to the
point of hiding any improvements that may have been made to the physics.

I'm not going to write it off, that would be silly based on only a quick
test. But atm I am seriously disappointed. MTM1 was one of my favourite
games - a perfect respite from the serious sims - but MTM2 feels like an
arcade game and they have never held my interest for more than a few
minutes. So unless I can find something major I've missed (I hope so! <g>),
I won't be buying MTM2 :(

Cheers,
Richard

Just for the record:
I downloaded and tried it.  The graphics are excellent, and although I
never drove a monster truck, it seems to handle as I would expect.  I
especially like flying through the air!  You can go way off road and
knock over telephone poles.  My kids are probably going to love this
game.  I'll probably buy it, although...

1.  I can't get the truck to roll over!

2.  The 3Dfx setting doesn't work at all with my machine.  3Dfx screen is
way out of sync with my monitor (cheap VGA).  Works fine in Direct3D
video.  I have a Righteous 3D (version 1, not 2).  My 3Dfx works fine
with appx. 12 other 3dfx games or demos I have, so I don't think it's the
hardware.  To make sure a game's using Glide, I enabled the 3Dfx logo at
game startup and the game run time logo in my autoexec.bat.

John

says...

Can't say anything about the input though...  Works for me.

If this game had the ability to control car generated noise vs. outside
(such as the farmer yelling at you), it could have reduced the feedback
problem.  I thought with all that noise from those truck engines at 8K
RPM, how can you hear anyone yelling at you (as the farmer does when you
cut through his field)???  In this respect, it's more game than sim.

Cut through the farmer's field, for one.  I noticed the AI cars doing
this in pro level a lot.  That's one *EXTREMELY* nice thing I like about
this game:  no restrictions on where to drive!!!!  I chased after the
train, went into the hills (until the terrain went flat), drove through a
fence, etc.  There's almost nothing stopping you from how you go from
checkpoint to checkpoint!

I thought the modelling was enough to call it a 'sim', and the game is a
lot of fun.  OTOH, it went from 0 to boring in one lap in the rookie
driving level, but I'm having fun with it in professional driving
level.  It may have not completely simulated driving off road in all
aspects, but it'll do until I can drive off road in real life :-).

The only real complaint I have about it is I can't get it to work in
native 3Dfx video.

There's another shortcut and I could tell you although finding it is part of
the fun. I'll put it down the page a little in case you don't want to know.
:
:
:
:
:

:
:
:
At gate 3, immediately make a hard left after passing through and drive down
the tracks until you reach gate 4. Just be careful because if the train
happens to be on it's way....

Dave
(DmndDave)

Joe

Joe