(with BONUS!)
I've been jotting down thoughts on this puppy each time I've fiddled with
the demo, and figured I'd join the chorus and toss the accumulated bunch out
there, in hopes the developers can get some use from them. So fire away, all;
Nomex clean and pressed!
To sum it up right off, no; it's not GPL. But so what; what else is? Nor
is it Nascar Revolution. I'd call it the Love Child of N2 and NFS. It's no
write-off by any means. It's enjoyable, with a great choice of cars and tracks
and has a lot of good points. But it needs some TLC, code-style, before a true
sim lover can embrace it fully and not tire of it in a week or so. As the
game's supposedly gone gold, we'll have to wait and see what the final product
looks like, and whether a patch will be needed to salvage it or not. I'll hit
good and bad bits in several areas, with the aforementioned bonus<G> at the
very bottom. And I haven't tried multiplayer yet, so I won't speak to that.
MENU/INTERFACE:
GOOD: It loads fairly quickly, hasn't crashed and "most" items are easy to
find. Not the most intuitive, but OK.
BAD: The controller options are lacking and flawed. Any decent driving game
needs to allow for separate axis pedals, period. As for the steering, you need
settings for lock, deadzone, and linearity, to accommodate different controller
properties (wheel rotation, joystick, pedals, etc.). The sensitivity
adjustment seems to be a linearity adjuster only, and makes off-center response
lousy. The way you have to sequentially set both keyboard inputs and then
controller ones is poorly conceived. You should only have to set inputs for
what you're using. The garage menu, while keeping your settings, doesn't let
you save and retrieve named setups, a biggie for me. And though it lets you
make camber/compound/psi changes, without a tire temp or wear readout, there's
not much point. You can save and keep replays for future use, but can't edit
them or use them for telemetry, as there is none. As for the reviled autopilot
pit stops, I don't like them, but that's not a game-breaker for me.
GRAPHICS: (all on max, except as noted)
GOOD: The scenery seems well rendered, with a good sense of space and
elevation change. I've never been to Lime Rock, but if that's accurate, Road
Atlanta sure will be fun! Forward vision is OK, allowing line choice without
trouble. The car shapes are pretty good (except a bit too tall). Frame rate
with max settings was fine with 4 cars, but for a few slowdowns in tight
traffic (on a 450 Celery w/Voodoo2). The night look is nice; especially the
transition from lit to dark areas of the track. All in all, not
groundbreaking, but good; not much to complain about, with the following
exceptions.
BAD: Even with maxed settings, there is some pop-up, mainly rows of trees
appearing as you near them. With the wet reflections turned on, the cars
change color, chameleon-like, as they go by. Holographic paint in a sim; ditch
that! Also, I doubt the laptimes are true to real time due to the
above-mentioned brief slowdowns, and expect a full field will be problematic,
framerate-wise. The textures are a little blocky even at 8X6, and the images
don't have quite the clarity you'd expect. The point-of-view from the in-car
seems just a bit too high, as well. When other cars are around, you're looking
down a bit at them. The cockpit (the same for all cars) has no gear indicator
and the shift LED doesn't do anything (in the demo, anyway). The headlights
don't seem to work from the in car at night; you can see the lighting effects
from the track lights, but not the car's. And finally, the "focal length" of
the driver's view is too long. I think a more "wide-angle" view, with a bit
more peripheral vision, would be better and would enhance the sense of speed.
(same holds for GPL)
DRIVING MODEL
GOOD: Once you get the controller settings set to your liking, the cars
respond fairly well, and don't have that "canned" feel that killed F1RS and
MGPRS2 for me. The lag between input and response is acceptable. There's a
decent sense of speed, better than in Viper (demo vs. demo). You CAN affect
the grip and balance with setup changes, making the cars tossable AND
catchable.
BAD: A lot to say here, unfortunately. There is little "feel" for what's
happening at the limit of adhesion, and too much grip all around (yes, even for
modern cars). The real measure of a driving sim is how it communicates what
the car is doing; which tires are slipping and which are gripping, along with
the various pitch, roll, and yaw motions of the chassis. Mentally comparing
these visual and auditory (see sound) inputs to the general trajectory of the
car tells you what's going on. GPL's ability to let you "feel" the limit, and
thus "dance" with it, is what makes it special. I'd say SCGT falls behind GPL,
Viper, N2-99/ICR2, and even (by a bit) GP2 in this regard. I DO like its feel
better than MGPRS2 though, even with the excessive grip. But no; you CANNOT
combine full lock, full throttle, and peak revs at 70mph in a corner with a
Panoz GTR1 and not come to grief, even with a setup from God! And yes, I have
seen them run in the flesh, er..metal. If there were a Chaparral "Sucker" in
there, maybe; but I didn't see that one listed.:-)
As to setups, changes are too narrowly and simply modeled, to the extent
that "more is better", i.e. stiffer is faster, more psi gives more tire grip,
etc. But even going from max settings for springs, bars, dampers, spoilers,
etc. to minimum makes only a small difference. BY FAR the most dramatic
changes you can make are tire compound and pressure. A soft/hi psi front and
hard/low psi rear setup will loop VERY easily, while its opposite will plow.
Much more change than suspension/aero settings, or brake bias/weight
distribution, both of which I just set to full rear. Going from soft to hard
tires and reducing tire psi will also slow you down enough that the AI (set to
max) isn't so easy to hide from, and lets you slide around a fair bit.
AI:
GOOD: They don't crash into you wildly, but will run close and bump you, if
you go slowly enough. They DO make mistakes and crash on their own, also.
Really not enough cars on track in the demo to say much more.
BAD: They're too easy to trounce, even on max settings, with speed
compensation on high. Imagine beating maxed-out AI in GPL, N2/ICR2, or GP2 in
your first 20 minutes with the game; I don't think so! I believe this is more
a function of the excess grip of the player's car than the AI speed, as their
laptimes seem more realistic. They DO corner too slowly though, and
particularly so in the two right-handers after the S/F. And as for AI
blunders, I saw the "virtual" Andy Pilgrim loop the Porsche GT1 across the S/F
line, while simply traveling straight ahead at near top speed. DUH! The AI
speed compensation is oddly construed. It WILL help the AI run more quickly,
but if YOU go off, they cruise around, bunch up and wait for you, as if a
full-course yellow was instantly displayed until you caught up. Officials on
the take, I'd say!
SOUND:
GOOD: A decent job, with different sounds for each class (but not make) of
car. If you've ever listened to Harald Boers' lovely MP3 in-car sounds
(www.boers.com), you probably noted the resemblance. There are different wav
files for internal and external sounds (that come in handy:-)). There are
occasional burps and backfires, complete with flames from the pipes.
BAD: The sounds are VERY poorly balanced. The road noise is almost as loud as
the motor, and surrounding cars drown out the sound of your own. Following
cars are just as loud as leading ones, which is WAY wrong. The shift sound is
basically inaudible, as is the tire-skidding sound until you're almost
completely sideways. As feedback is hard to come by in a driving sim, sound is
critical. Also, in the chase view, the sound is badly garbled when more than
one car is in view. All of which leads us to the bonus!
BONUS: you skipped right here, didn't you? :-)
If you liked Patrick Daly's sound files in GPL, you'll find they work even
better in SCGT! The one with the high-pitched gear whine (Eagle, I think) is
particularly nice, and compares pretty well to the Porsche 917 in-car MP3
mentioned above. To improve the sound environment in SCGT immensely, replace
the engine sounds with Pat Daly's (in whatever combo you prefer - use the same
one per car for both internal and external), and do the following:
1. Reduce the volume of the road noise wavs considerably. This keeps them from
drowning out the motor sound. You'll still hear them.
2. Reduce the volume of the external engine sounds (eng2e*.wav) enough so that
your own in-car sound (eng2i*.wav) predominates in traffic. You'll still hear
surrounding traffic.
3. Increase the volume of the skid sounds, to give you more feedback on
traction loss. It still comes in late, but this helps.
4. Crank it UP and enjoy! You'll have to experiment with the relative wav
volumes to suit you, but it's worth the time.
Think I'll shut up now.
Steve B.
remove "edy" from address for email