properly fed in quite some time. Sure I bought F1RS and MGPRS2, raced them
quite a bit in fact, but they were little like methadone to me. I've been a
bit down about GP3 since I found out that the cars will not perform any
differently. In fact, I've been so down on GP3 that I probably will not buy
the thing unless this newsgroup gives it a 5 star rating, warts and all. I
was really hoping F12000 would be the big winner and I anxiously read the
posts in this ng over the past week or so looking for a hint. Well, as most
of you already know, those posts have been about 50/50 for and against which
is more than a little disconcerting for a junkie like me. How can everybody
be so split on the thing? I decided to find out for myself, cruised down to
my local EB yesterday and picked up a copy. Played it for about 4 hours
yesterday, about 2 hours this evening, and unfortunately after what happened
this evening I'm finished with it. I'll explain what happened in just a
bit, but first I want to give it a mini-review.
First Impression:
My first impression was "Oh ***it has music and pictures of attractive
women with fake ***s and tight shorts this is going to suck." But I
decided to go for a drive anyway. I setup a profile, got rid of the driving
aids, set the AI at 100%, and off I went.
First Driving Impressions:
So I selected a Minardi (Keep that in mind) and went to Melbourne for a test
session and my first thought was "Hmmm, this is different" not good, not
bad, just different. When I thought back to other racing sims/games to
compare it with, the closest one it came to in my mind was CPR, the
disastrous Microsoft foray into the racing sim genre. For example, the
brake pedal doesn't seem to have any feel (travel), it's either all on or
all off. Now I've read somewhere that the braking in modern F1 cars is much
like that so I accepted it and carried on. The next odd thing I noticed was
the track. It has a track that is shaped much like the Albert Park circuit,
but when I'm driving it I don't get the feeling that Albert Park is where I
am. Call it the immersion factor or whatever, but for me anyway it just
doesn't capture, I guess, the spirit of the event. Yes, the car feels like
a car and the track feels like a track but it doesn't feel like the
Australian Grand Prix. I got comfortable with the car and decided to do
some quick races so I put myself at the back of the field (where a Minardi
is supposed to be) and proceeded to race. Visions of CPR again. The AI is
interesting, not as bad as CPR (the undisputed leader in AI that sucks) but
certainly not good. I thought having the guy on the radio was kind of cool
at first but he soon revealed how stupid he was "So and so is in the pits,
he's obviously on a two stop strategy" when in fact the reality is that so
and so obviously has a problem because it's only a 5 lap quick race you
moron, or "Good job you've just moved up to 10th place" when I passed
somebody in the pits, so the novelty of the radio wore off rather quickly.
Don't get me wrong though, it does have redeeming qualities. The car model
doesn't seem half bad, and the sensation of speed is there, so I went to bed
last night thinking that maybe this thing will be OK.
Second (and final) Driving Impression:
Got back in my Minardi this evening and decided to do a Grand Prix at
Melbourne. Ran the practice session and sat atop the leaderboard but I'm
thinking that surely they are going to blow me away in qualifying because I
wasn't that fast, heck I'm not even comfortable with the car yet. Take the
extra fuel out of the thing and run a qualifying lap 4 seconds quicker than
anything I'd run before, I'm thinking that it's an anomaly. I go out again
and beat the time that I had just set. Crap, it's not an aberration. How
is everyone else doing? I take a look at the table and I'm on the pole, 3
seconds up on Coulthard. I decide to finish out the session to see how
everyone does. I take pole by 2.5 seconds over Coulthard in my Minardi!
That's it! It's over! I'm taking it back tomorrow.
Final Thoughts:
Like too damn many of these so called sims, this game has potential. But,
as someone once said, if you put some potential in one hand and some ***in
the other what do you have? Unfortunately only a handful of crap. I only
hope GP3 will be the 5 star sim/game that I so desperately crave. This one
definately is not.