rec.autos.simulators

Before I get into details I love GPL (my most favourite game of all times),
loved ICR2 before that. Don't like NFS (any of them ... too arcadish for my
liking), think that TOCA was OK, and so was CMR (not too great though).

Back to Rally'99... I'm really happy with what they done here. Cutting
staright to the driving model - it is the best (most realistic) I've seen in
any rally game. Don't expect GPL realism (nothing can match that) but it fares
really well against SCGT or GP2. All physics seem real to me (expept for the
slight slow-mo when air-borne ... the car floats a litlle bit). The car you
get is a front-wheel drive and tell you what, it feels very much like
front-wheel drive (hope that in full game the rear-wheel dirve and 4WD will
feel different to this car). The "drive anywhere" environment works really
well ... the car responds/interacts really well to it. Anyway, much better
than any other rally game I played before in every respect.

OK, you can only use the keyboard in the Demo, but unlike GPL, I can play it
reasonaly OK with keyboard and get a feel for the game (kinda like SCGT). I
can tell that the car seems to do the correct things and that I'd like it even
better with the wheel.

Graphics are as good as the screen shots lead you to believe. The actual car
looks awesome and has got an excellent 3D model. The detail on it is amazing
.. the slight sheen/reflectin on the car, the build up of dirt, the fact that
you can see though the wheels and see the brakes, the transparent windows with
drivers, roll-cage and spare tyre inside. Environment graphics are beutifull
as well. They looks just like the screen grabs. I read about some people
complaining about the surrounding being "plain" ... but it looks to me just
like rally on TV ... a lot of trees, ditches, fances, hills gravel and mud. I
don't think that you can have a "castle" on each hill like in NFS. All of this
looks/feels great. Also, people complain about the "flat", 2D trees .. come on
what do you expect?!?! Where have you ever seen trees done any differently??
In the arcades ... not!, in GPL ... not! in Unreal ... not! That is how you do
trees so they looks the best and still leave some CPU time for the driving
model (which is what we care about). Do you actually expect them to reander
each branch of a tree and then render independently each leaf on the
branches?? What do you actually expect? Trees in Rally'99 looks just as good
as in any other game. Also, the lens-flare/white-out looks really good.

There is every possible driving view you can imagive and***pit views look
better than any other***pit views that I've seen. They are almost on par
with GPL (with 16 bit textures). Better than TOCA, TOCA2, Viper, NFS, JHGP,
OF1, GP2, F1RS, SCGT or CMR. Nothing wrong with the***pit here.

Besides that it has nice dust effect and very nice TV camera view (can't wait
for replays :-)

Sound is excellent too ... engine sounds very realistic and so do all the
other sounds. I didn't have any problems with hearing the co-driver and if you
whave problems then I'm guessing that you can change volume of these things in
the full game.

I don't understand why Rally'99 is getting so much negative press here ...
it's the best Rally game I've played and does everything well .. or it is not
on off-road GPL, but what is?

I will definatelly include this in my sim collection.

Regards,
David Mocnay

RC will have split axis and the ability to combine controllers, along with
ff.

David G Fisher

So why did they release it ?  The hype is simply not true judging from a
demo, whatever stage it is, alpha, beta, teta, anything.  They expect to be
flame-free because they say it's "alpha" ?

Since they do not care for a quality demonstration of their product that
would incorporate physics, graphics, sound, etc.. like you said, many of us
will have to illegally get a copy of the full title to judge if the hype
Europress did was indeed true.  It's a shame we have to do this, compared to
other demos like the one for GPL, or Viper Racing who clearly showed the
overall philosophy of the racing software.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

: Since they do not care for a quality demonstration of their product that
: would incorporate physics, graphics, sound, etc.. like you said, many of us
: will have to illegally get a copy of the full title to judge if the hype
: Europress did was indeed true.  It's a shame we have to do this, compared to

Ok, now you've gone over the top.  Just because the demo isn't 100%, you
now feel you have to go pirate the software to see if it is worth your
valuable dollars?  I had my gripes with the demo, but I'm still going to
get the game.  I spend more than that on a dinner out, or to put one tank
of petrol in my car.  Even if it's a total dud (which I doubt, as I
somehow managed to have fun with RAC despite its "primitive" physics) I
will still have some of the best looking virtual rally cars whizzing
across my screen.

Stephen

Alex

It demonstrates the software.  It's up to the manufacturer to decide what
they want to include.  I never said the demo was flawless, and perhaps
Europress will lose the sales to the 100-or so regular r.a.s. readers if
they don't provide a more current demo, but the demo as it stands shwos
how good the graphics are, how well the stages are modelled, and how fun
the game can be for 95% of the people who will be buying the game.

My point was that our friend ymenard lost a little perspective.  He's
getting a little too zealous in his rhetoric about what Magnetic Fields
has to do for a select group of consumers.

Funny thing, demos.  I've been around computers for ages now.  I've seen
the whole demo concept emerge and grow to what it is now.  Personally, I
am still amazed at how much software developers give away.  The ultimate
example is the Half-Life demo.  It's a completely self-contained game that
provides more enjoyment than half the stuff on the retail shelves.

If you think the Rally Championship demo is crippled, you should see a
demo of a commercial finite element or cad package, or even more
specialized stuff like medical imaging.  

I still don't buy the argument that, unless Magnetic Fields releases a
better demo, people are going to have to pirate the retail program to
evaluate it before buying it.  The reviews will trickle in.  Someone on
this newsgroup will buy it (probably me, I can put the beer aside for a
few days and drop the 40 bucks on the game) and then you can get a nice,
objective, sim-oriented opinion.  Just relax and wait for it.

Stephen
p.s. I'm glad someone pointed out the date of the README file in this
demo, and that it was alpha.  My initial posts about it were rather
critical as well, but I'm still playing it for fun.

Flashback (by David Cook, 1999/08/31): Not slamming Magnetic Fields or
anything - but to set the record straight the following quote is off the RC
forum on simracingnews.com.

Andrew Bolt of Magnetic Fields: "The physics are fairly complete in the
demo - the main thing missing is car damage."

They don't seem to be talking about better physics, graphics, sound, etc.
Take it for what it's worth ...

Who's Martin Rowe? Champion of what? Just curious ...

Hena

M

The demo is not 7 months old.  2/8/99 is August 2nd.
From the README.TXT (Dated 8/3/99):

"Rally Championship playable demo 2/8/99

For more information on the full product please visit the official
website

www.rallychampionship.co.uk"

Release a bad demo, don't be surprised if people these days don't buy your
game.  Release a good demo of a bad product, the same thing will happen.
Just release a good demo of a good product and people will buy it.

Lucky you - however not everyone can afford to toss money around on
things which may or may not be good.

Let me ask you - if the demo looks ***there are two options - try to
test the full game to see if it is improved (as everyone says it will
be) or just don't buy it. Which do you think the publisher would
prefer?

Seriously, if they can't be bothered to put out a representative demo
of their product in "release state" (or comparable to) why should we
risk our money on them?

Horses for courses - 35 is a lot of money to pay for pictures when I
can get much better looking pictures buying a video of last season's
events. If the game is a dud it's a waste of money.

Cheers!
John

Even if the demo`s physics are simplified, they would have to be better by an
order of magnitude in order to live up to the marketing claims. I really do not
believe this will be the case. But there is some hope of big improvements, I
think. My reasons are as follows:

-If you take GPL; and his FANTABULASTIC physics engine (long live Papyrus!
Thanks again!), you all know that a great part of the CPU load is that engine.
Most of the rest is the graphics, and only a small portion is left for the rest
(sound, control, I/O, etc.). If you recall, when the original demo of GPL came
out, many people complained of poor framerate (some still do! :))) , because of
the CPU load. That`s because Papyrus did not trimmed down anything in the
physics, graphics and controls departments. The demands were roughly the same as
the ful engine.

Personally, I think that is the right way to make a demo. But the Rally Champ
folks may have reasoned differently. This is all pure speculation, of course,
but consider this:

-If they wanted a demo that would run well on slower-than-required-by
the-full-game machines, they would have to trim down either the graphics or the
physics engine. What do you think would be the logical choice for the marketing
people? Surely it could not be the graphics, especially after all the boasts
about photo-realistic tracks and cars and all that jazz. It would have to be the
physics engine. At least it doesn`t show to those that look at it being played
by someone else, and probably to quite a few that are playing! They might even
have taken this a bit further and remove joystick control; a few more % of CPU
time would be gained.

Even if all of this is true, it would still be cheating, trying to make people
believe that the final game would run well on below-spec machines, when the
truth is that it would not.

However, even if this seems logical, I think the truth is that it was not the
case. If it were, one of the main focuses of the demo would be visual appeal,
and that would mean that they would have to include a REPLAY facility. They
didn`t, so it`s probably true that the final physics engine is PLANNED to be
very similar to the demo`s. And that, in itself, is a shame. Unless, of course,
they receive enough bad feedback to reconsider the balance between eye-candy and
accurate car behaviour.

Personally, I don`t think they can do a reasonable car physics engine, even if
they wanted to. I`m not talking world-class, like GPL`s 8th wonder, but just
acceptable. That sort of thing is just for Papyrus, Geoff Crammond and such.

Just my 2 cents...

But I would very much like to be proven wrong...which would benefit everyone,
MF`s included!

Daniel Fris