much read through it and since my T1's brake pedal has become history
I seem to have a lot of time on my hands so here goes.
I Got the Strategy Guide for $17.99. It's about 235 pages and comes
with a CD that has some carsets, setups, and utilities on it. The
book starts out with the usual introduction then jumps into the garage
section. The author goes through all areas of setup from the chasis
on up. This area of the guide reminds me of the NCARROW setup guide.
If you've read it you'll probably know everything that is said in the
book.
The next few sections of the guide go over the various ways to drive,
ie- how to enter corners, exit, pass cars, survive wrecks, get in and
out of the pits, when to pit, etc. There is a lot of information
here, but once again if you have been playing this thing for as long
as most of us have, then there really isn't anything earth-shattering
here.
There latter half of the book deals with how the computer cars
operate, how to run more than one season, how to win a championship
season, how to paint your cars, etc. There were a few tidbits of gold
here and I found some things out about the game I hadn't known about.
The best part of the book was the tracks section. It goes over all
the tracks in the game, telling the best lines and when the best pit
times are for the length of race you run. There is also a graphic for
each track that shows the speeds one should be at on each part of the
track to attain a certain speed on the track. All the tracks are
covered including the track pack.
Now on to the reason I bought the book.... The CD. I was a little
dissapointed in this respect. 99% of the stuff on the CD is the same
stuff that has been on the various online services since the game came
out. There are about 10 utilities such as driver editors, lap replay
editors, utilities to let you drive any track at night, etc. There
are also a group of car sets, going from some work from the verrrry
talented Dave Upson, to some NFL car sets and street car pcx's.
The last bit of stuff on the CD is the car setups.....the meat of the
thing. There are quite a few setups here, about 3 per track from the
author and the JCNCAR setups and GSETUPS. The latter 2 contain
qualifying and race setups for all the tracks. The content on the CD
isn't bad, it's just, well I guess I just wanted a little more....
Well finally my opinion on the book (for what it's worth...) I liked
it, I read anything I can get my hands on and I must say I enjoyed
reading this book. I don't know if the person who has played this
game every week since it's release will find to much new in it, but
the person who has just bought the game and is a little overwhelmed
will find it invaluable to setting up and driving in the sim. I just
wish I had it a year ago. Well I've ran my mouth long enough and
besides I've got to go wait by the post office box for that T1 spring.
Hope this helped someone -C ya
--
"It's Always Darkest before it goes totally Black"