So this is what the X-Car demo is really like; I drive a '89 Vette is
SCCA Solo competition, so I have some idea of what it's like to drive a
sports car at speed. I looked forward to X-Car as there is a dearth of
Sports Car sims.
Driving model: First off, it was pretty hard to set up the steering to
how I like it. The car seems to react slowly to steering input. The car
would oversteer for no discernible reason, when I used standard technique
to bring the rear in line, it would either continue to go sideways or
suddenly change the direction of the spin for no obvious reason. I
couldn't seem to do much to make the car understeer. Mostly handling was
neutral despite setting up the car different ways in the "modify car"
menu, and would oversteer suddenly without apparant cause.
When I tried to take a corner on the limit, the car would slide a small
amount, like it should, but then would suddenly let go at the rear, or if
I eased throttle the tires would suddenly grab again. It was impossible to
maintain a consistent slip angle. In other words the driving model is
inaccurate and difficult to use.
I ran the car with no wing, thinking that would make it similar to the
Corvette that I race on real tracks. Telemetry showed that I was taking
turns at as much as 4.11 g. I later noticed that I had forgotten to remove
the underwing, but I doubt that even an IndyCar make 4g at Mid-Ohio. When
I removed the underwing the car's propensity for spinning was unstoppable.
The sound effects SUCK! They are quite primitive compared to any modern
game. I consider the sound effects in a driving game to be VERY important
as they give aural cues that replace the visceral cues one gets when
driving a real car on a track. If Bethesda has no plans to improve the
sound, that would kill the game for me even if they worked out their
driving model.
It's hard to spin the car under power, but it's not as bad as ICR2 in
that regard. I don't think it's possible to lock up tires under braking.
Other stuff.
I couldn't get the game to recognize the accelerator on my CH Pedals
until I switched off seperate axis. The mouse driver they use doesn't seem
to work well with my mouse at the cursor continually returned to the lower
left hand corner of the screen.
The graphics are pretty on SVGA, but they're pretty ugly at 320x200.
Luckily SVGA seemed to work fairly well even on my old, slow P60.
Anyway, I have to give this game a reluctant thumbs down on the basis of
its demo. Sorry, Bethesda.
Robin.