hit the news stands.
--
See ya in the pits,
Dean
I have a terrible memory. In fact my memory's so bad I can't remember how
long it's been since I've forgotten anything.
> (Part Preview, Part Review)
> I'm amazed at the outpouring of negativity surrounding SimBin's "GTR" (for
> the FIA's "GT Racing") by people who haven't played the game...even some
> from people who haven't bothered to play the demo! And among those who
> have
> actually played the game, a lot of the complaints are picayune, like the
> game doesn't strictly follow the FIA's insanely complicated rulebook, or
> the
> track marshals' booths aren't the regulation size.
> The truth is, it's a great game. Yes, it has some rough edges, and thus
> far
> it's only available--legally--in Germany (time-frame for U.S. distro: Feb.
> or March), but no, it's neither broken nor a simple mod of EA's Formula 1
> Challenge (altho SimBin has licensed ISI's "Motor 1" physics engine, along
> with all that rococo FIA livery). The bottom line is that GTR comes
> closer
> to an authentic racing experience than anything else that doesn't require
> a
> Nomex driving suit and a 5-point seat harness.
> I've driven almost three thousand laps of GTR, both online and off, for an
> assignment from Car and Driver, and as someone who's put six years into
> GPL,
> beta-tested a myriad of PC and console games, and raced both real-world
> cars
> (Trans-Am, SCCA Nationals) and every kind of racing simulation there is
> (beginning with Dave Kaemmer's original Indy 500), I'm here to tell you
> that
> GTR is the best thing to come roaring down the track--for car guys as well
> as computer geeks--since Papyrus' NASCAR Racing 2003...and GTR makes
> NR2003
> seem positively crude by comparison.
> Through the good offices of Ian Bell, who oversees SimBin's development
> team
> in London, I was able to obtain a pre-release of the English-language
> version, eventually patched to ver 1.2.3, and I've since unofficially
> downloaded several 3rd-party tracks (including a 24-hour version of the
> mighty Nurburgring). To put it plainly: I love this game. Yes, it's got
> more bugs than the Okefenokee Swamp in August (the menus are a mess, the
> replay system is frustrating, the multiplayer is iffy, and there is a
> surfeit of small annoyances), but overall it's hard-core: deeply
> immersive,
> very satisfying, and full of promise. Sure, I signed a NDA, but Ian said
> I
> can vent my impressions of the game, so here goes.
> First of all: the cars. There are a slew of them, from the mundane (a
> gaggle of Porsche 911s...altho a 3rd-party GT1 is lurking in the wings) to
> the exotic (the widely-unknown Gillet Vertigo Streiff, a Belgian bolide
> named after an obscure French F1 driver of the 80s) to the awesome (the
> Corvette C5-R) to the sublime (a trio of Ferraris) to the ridiculous (a
> BMW
> *hatchback*, ferchrissake, and a neo-deco Morgan 8 Aero that looks like
> something out of "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow"). The Morgan not
> only looks funny, it sounds funny: when you spin the key it coughs
> fitfully
> to life, belching and spluttering like the 18-cylinder radial of a P-47
> Thunderbolt.
> Arranged into a bewildering array of mismatched FIA-sanctioned classes
> (the
> Morgan competes against the C5-R), the 18 or so cars in GTR all feel
> different, handle different, sound different, and have different
> personalities. Surprisingly, the front-engined cars are easier to drive
> than the rear-engined cars, but among the Big Guns, only the front-engined
> Prodrive Ferrari 550 Maranello and the theoretically antiquated Viper
> GTS-R
> are able to keep up with the fleet Saleen S7-R (tricky to drive) and the
> surprisingly muscular Lamborghini Murcielago (a pussycat to drive).
> The Corvette C5-R is also a sweetheart to drive, despite its brutal looks.
> The C5-R ver that comes with the game has an overly fussy paintjob, but as
> with most of GTR's cars, you can download alternative skins, including
> that
> of the famed # 63 Corvette that won its class at Le Mans. The Lister
> Storm
> that was in the "press" demo along with the Morgan is still there, and a
> blast to drive, if not quite competitive.
> My favorite car turned out to be the oddly-named Vertigo, which looks like
> a
> cross between a Panoz Esperante and the old wooden-chassis Marcos. The
> Vertigo is powered by a 342-hp Alfa V6, but it's really no match against
> the
> bigger cars in its class. A sweet ride, very smooth, no vices, no drama,
> easy to wheel around the soaring, swooping Nurburgring. And despite the
> BMW
> Z3M's econo-car looks, it has 380 horsepower under the hood and enormous
> tires and is capable of great big hairy powerslides. The Morgan, with its
> 460-hp BMW V8, is also a hoot to drive (even if it feels like it's still
> got
> a sliding-pillar suspension with about the same front-end geometry as a
> 1936
> Volkswagen). It's a great ride; all elbows and a**holes. The only thing
> missing: a silk scarf.
> The best thing about GTR is probably the sounds. This is the first sim
> where the cars sound like cars, not a bunch of disparate .wav files
> ham-fistedly juggled by the game engine to produce car-like noises. The
> engines sound like what they are (L4, L6, flat 6, V6, V8, V10, and V12),
> the
> gear-whine is true-to-life, the on-and-off throttle response is correct,
> and
> the slicks don't squeal like passenger-car tires, they scuff the way
> they're
> supposed to (and skitter when pushed hard). Even axle-tramp is modeled.
> At
> least it's all good from inside the cockpit. The outside "car-by" effects
> are less convincing, and the sound of the AI cars is reminiscent of Peter
> Ustinov's mouth noises in his immortal "Grand Prix of Gibralter" from 40
> years ago.
> And the tracks? As Jon Stewart would say, "Mmmm...not so much." The 10
> tracks that ship with the game replicate those on the FIA's GT
> Championship
> calendar, but other than the modern Spa, they're either emasculated,
> chicane-infested versions of once-great tracks (like Monza), or boring,
> dull, flat modern tracks (like Magny-Cours). A trickle of 3rd-party
> tracks
> (sure to become a flood) includes several versions of the Nordschleife
> (nobody's got it right yet), a terrible version of Le Mans (somehow
> running
> endlessly downhill, like an M.C. Escher painting), and two really neat
> small
> tracks, Sweden's Falkenberg and Germany's Norisring. The most dramatic
> scenery: the 24-hour race at Spa, where you go from day to dusk to night
> to
> dawn to day (not smooth segues, unfortunately - there are awkward pauses
> for
> scene changes, as if in an amateur theater production ). Driving at night
> is a new experience...and particularly harrowing.
> The cars don't simply drone around these these tracks like marbles in a
> chute. They feel alive. They interact with the surface. The tracks
> themselves are wildly uneven, in some places billiard-table smooth,
> elsewhere washboard bumpy, especially in the braking zones. You can feel
> the suspension working and the tires dancing. The grip changes not merely
> according to the temperature (and weather - rain is modelled), but, as the
> track "rubbers in" and marbles build up, from your first practice laps,
> through qualifying, to the duration of the race itself. "Intense" just
> barely begins to describe it. There's so much going on that's missing
> from
> other sims: the exhaust headers spit flame on the overrun, brakelights
> flash, clag clatters against the undertray, and you can use an IR
> head-tracker to look around the cockpit.
> Until something better comes along, the best test track is Spa, and the
> critical turn is Eau Rouge. Depending on which car you drive, and how
> it's
> set up, Eau Rouge can either be a dream or a nightmare; as graceful as a
> Patty Wagstaff hammerhead stall or as scary as going over Niagra Falls in
> a
> kayak. Doug Arnao, a real-world racer (he won an SCCA Solo Championship
> in
> a wicked tube-frame Porsche) who helped me write "Four-Wheel Drift" (the
> GPL
> strategy guide), and formerly a denizen of this forum, has tweaked GTR's
> physics model and was responsible for the default setups, which are aces.
> Also in the credits: over 200 FIA-licensed drivers whose input was
> solicited
> for the driving model, and a couple dozen real-world teams who vetted the
> gameplay.
> The gameplay involves competing with up to 56 reasonably well-behaved AI
> cars on the track (the starting grid at Spa goes back up and around La
> Source) or up to 30 cars online. Theoretically. Most of the online races
> I
> saw had less than 20 cars. I've seen up to 60 servers on the matchmaking
> s/w that comes with the game, and the pings were usually in the 100-125
> range. Most of the servers have been in Germany, obviously, and while
> SimBin seems to have licked the old ISI problem of the game pausing for a
> fraction of a second whenever a new player joins (now you can only join
> during practice, not qualifying or the race itself), there remains a bunch
> of stubborn anomalies in the Net code, steadily being erased by Ian Bell
> and
> his staff of code monkeys in London. There have been several patches,
> updates and "hot fixes" since the game was first released, including a
> "save-game" feature that works in mid-race, and while not all the problems
> have been solved (or even addressed), I get the distinct feeling that
> SimBin
> cares about their customers and is working hard to make them happy.
> What more could you ask?
> Well, they could lose the
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