rec.autos.simulators

DTR deserves more than 2.5 stars.

--
Pat Dotson

IMHO the graphics of DTR look dull. No nice textures, no scenery.
But this is all personal taste, and graphics are not the most
important thing in a race sim.

I'm glad you like it Pete, really. But for me, and my name is not Dale
so I must know nothing about racing sims, the tracks are very similar.
There are little differences, but all in all, the tracks are very
short ovals. Some have high bankings, some have medium bankings, but
after I drove on a couple of tracks, the game became boring to me.
I still play GPL every single day for more than a year now, and DTR
became boring after a couple of hours.
Just to be clear: If you like DTR, that's great, keep on playing and
have fun, that's all what computer games are about!
But the topic here was Bob's review. Reviews are nothing more than
opinions. How you find the graphics, the sound and the gameplay, it's
all personal taste. Bob's review got trashed. I know how cars handle,
I know the difference between a good sim and a good arcade racer, and
even if Bob's knowledge of car physics is very limited, his opinion
about DTR is exactly the same as mine.

Read his review again. He only compares the look of the cars with
Speedbusters. The cars in DTR look very dull, with very little
texturing. The cars in Speedbusters look beautiful, with great
attention paid to car details. He isn't saying that DTR plays like
Speedbusters, nor that DTR should have the same cars like
Speedbusters. He was just talking about graphic quality, taking
Speedbusters as an example of how well computer graphics can be done
these days.

You're right Pete, all I need to hear are engine sounds and the
banging of cars. But what do you think of the quality of the engine
sounds? When you floor the throttle, does the engine noise sound real
to you? Great, finally we can agree on something here :)
(if not, please listen to a real engine to know how an engine should
sound.)

You're right ofcourse, sims shouldn't be compared to arcade games when
it concerns physics. But you can compare graphic quality. And that's
all Bob did in his review.

I hope you will have realised in the meantime that this statement is
nonsence.

If you don't agree with a review, and call the review poorly because
of that.... that's poor.

Andre

Andre

Comparing it with the scores of games from a completely different
genre doesn't make sense. I hate those boring hunting games, but Deer
Hunter 2 is one of the best hunting games for people who like these
games. In the hunting games genre. 2.5 stars is very fair for Deer
Hunter 2.

Of the games you mention, only Power F1 is in the racing genre.
It's a stupid racing game, but when it was released, the graphics were
quite spectaculair, and for an arcade racer, it was not that bad.
If PowerF1 would have been released at the same time as DTR, PowerF1
wouldn't have got 2.5 stars, maybe 1.

Andre

Sensible conversation with me? I thought you were conversing with a guy named Pete. Lost me pal, maybe you better have another one.

Michael K. Grandy Sr

Proud Member of Precision Racing Professional Internet Race Team

Officially sponsored by ECCI
"ECCI - A proud sponsor of the 1998 NROS finals"
The CDS4000 was designed for stock car racing... and it delivers

Member of OSCAR Freedom Cup Series

Member of Nass99 Pro Online Series
Nas99 Pro is sponsored by 4CDs.com

Member of the National Invitational Series
The NIS is sponsored by Thomas Enterprises

  Where does that leave you then Mike ?
  I tried to hold a sensible discussion with you Mike, in relation to DTR
  but all you can say in response is "Seems to me you were already
  there."

  Seems to me i have company then....!!

  Seems to me you were already there.

The problem isn't that the guy likes Dethkarz. It's the fact that he has
"spare time" to spend "enjoying his family" and has "published 5 books". No
simmer worth the name has time for such frivolities. :)

Regards,
Gordon

l8er
ronny

Andre

    Andre, I agree on all counts and in my personal reply to Bob Mandel
I have expressed this very opinion. But he indicated that it was one of
his most important criteria in evaluating a game.
    We also have to remember that in order to create the ambiance of
dirt racing everything at the track is covered in dirt and dust. We also
have to take frame rates and online play into account for playability
reasons.

    We have a dozen people in our group that race these cars besides Dale
and they have had very positive feelings as to the handling and feel of the
game. So maybe having one person say that they like it doesn't mean much
but taken in context with many of the racers in our group, yes it does mean
something. But then again thats their choice.
    The tracks make look similiar to you and others but they certainly don't
drive the same. I have had to do entirely different setups for almost every
track in order to run the best numbers and I have found that each track does
have a personality of its own.
    As far as comparing to GPL I don't. It has a feel and look of its own
which make both products unique.
    As far as Bob's review, I would value your opinion more than his because
of his preference for arcade type games. Not that its bad but having a bias
towards something other than what you are evaluating may not let the
reviewer give the most objective view.

    Again, two different genres with emphasis on different aspects of
game play. His choice should have been within the same area, then it
would be more applicable. If you go for pretty graphics, physics, AI
and frame rate will suffer.  I would rather have graphics be downplayed.
Again, as I'm sure you know, at a dirt race there is dirt and dust
everywhere
so everything is muted and drab looking.

    There are two points to the quality of sounds, one of which I have
addressed before but maybe you missed. First in the Alpha and
Beta of this game the sounds were nothing like the final release.
The sounds you hear where taken from a real race car! But do to
compression and encryption routines that were put into the gold
copy it dramatically altered the sounds. That is why Barry Clay
went to work with myself trying to alter the sounds in the game
to compensate for the changes. It proved to be very time consuming
in finding ways to compensate. Eventually, Barrys hard work paid
off and the sound patch turned out reasonably well on most systems.
RatBag lended much assistance in order to try and correct things.
    But something that was recently discovered by David Harrison
may explain why even the sound patch didn't sound correct on
some systems and hopefully I will have more to report on that in
a few days.
    As far as knowing what a real engine sounds like I have one
in my garage that I can listen to any time I want. It managed to
get 600hp on the dyno out of a 400 cubic inch small block, 9
to 1 single 4 barrel engine. Oh, and I must mention its an AMC.

    Well, I think he should be comparing them first to the genre they
represent and then to other sims.

    Maybe, not! He indicated to me the only sim he likes is EA's SBK.

    That may be correct but having an Apple grower here in Ontario reviewing
this years Florida Orange crop isn't correct either!

    Pete

    Pete

--
PD

: The problem isn't that the guy likes Dethkarz. It's the fact that he has
: "spare time" to spend "enjoying his family" and has "published 5 books". No
: simmer worth the name has time for such frivolities. :)

: Regards,
: Gordon

That's the dilemma I face.  I wonder sometimes how others find the time to
get proficient at, for example, GPL.  People are clamouring for new tracks
to run in their Ferraris, yet I don't have the time to master the original
ones which shipped with the game.  As it is, I only run the 'Ring
(awesome), Spa and Mosport (my old "home" track) seriously. I can't
imagine finding the time to dabble with ovals, converted ICR2 tracks etc.

In the final push towards finishing my thesis, GP2 disappeared from my HD,
which was the first time since I bought it in '96.  Every other game also
disappeared.  As I contemplate the post-doc I wil start next month, I
wonder when I will find time to maintain my GPL skills (such that they
are).  One secret wish is that the S3 mobile chip has a decent OpenGL
ICD - I could rationalise the purchase of a new notebook to replace my
current one and make use of my train ride.

This reviewer obviously manages to fit in time for ***.  How do others
do it?  Do you have other hobbies, or is GPL your focus?  I try to
maintain a fairly serious level of training for my skiing and cycling
racing, but must sheepishly admit that there are many days I would rather
spend my free hour lapping Spa than heading out for a 40km training ride
in the pissing rain.  Damn you Papyrus.

Stephen

I agree that framerate is more important than graphics. But it would
have been nice if DTR had better graphics and textures, with the
option of turning them off if a pc can't handle it, just like every
single graphic option in GPL can be turned on or off.

I agree that DTR is the best dirt track racing sim. But driving the
car just doesn't feel real to me, also due to the bad engine sound.
Most reviews I read were praising DTR as being a superb racing game. I
felt otherwise, and was pleased to read a review that stated my
opinion about DTR. The main problem I have with the driving model is
lack of feeling the ground. Someone said the cars drive like
hovercrafts. I never drove a hovercraft, but I think it's a nice
description for the driving model, the cars seem to float above the
ground.

I admit that I didn't spent too much time on DTR to be able to tell
the differences between all the tracks. I'm sure if you spend enough
time driving on them, subtle differences can be noticed. Even in GPL,
which I play now for more than a year, I still notice slight
elevations on tracks which I drove hundreds of times before!

To be able to judge if he can write a good review of a real sim, I'm
curious if he ever wrote a review of GPL. If he wrote that GPL is
impossible to drive, too hard etc., I fully agree with you.

As I said, it would have been nice if better textures were available,
and there would have been an option to turn them off if it would
affect physics on a slower pc.

Great that patches for the sound are coming out, i didn't expect
otherwise, but I think it was a very bad think that the original dire
engine sound was put in the gold version of DTR. A good engine sound
is VERY important for a driving sim.

You said he compared DTR with Speedbusters, that was not correct, he
was only talking about graphic quality.

Well, I think we have argued enough about Bob's review now.
Back to racing! You DTR, me GPL, and we're both happy :)

Andre

Sometimes it really is a problem to combine my social life with my
hobby :)

Andre