initial thoughts:
Testing: I tried mostly the GT3 Porsche with a little time also in the GT2
BMW M3
I did not mess with garage settings except brake balance
3 Practice sessions (2 day 1 night), 2 races. AI set to hard
(not max)
System Pentium Pro 200 with 128mb ram and 12mb Voodoo2 card.
Set textures to max quality and ran at 800x600
First the bad stuff. The thing that annoyed me the most was the grass! When
you drop a tire off the road your car slows down like it was in a gravel
trap! Even the edge of a gravel trap usually does not slow you down this
much. It was very frustrating to be racing with someone and then have it
ruined because I dropped a tire off the course and got slowed down too much.
In real life if you drop a tire you do not slow down and you just carefully
slowly bring the car back on to the track. The other strange thing about the
grass is that it slows you way down but at low speeds it is easy to spin on
the grass. Very bizarre. It's like it can't make up it's mind if it wants to
be slippery or sticky. I hope they can fix this item with a patch.
Second the track and grass textures looked a little bad. On my system the
looked a little blocky and fake.
Beyond the two above items everything else was pretty good. The driving
model seemed very easy to learn. It is definitely not like GPL but it is
still enjoyable and fun to drive. You can lift of the throttle and get drop
throttle oversteer which helps you negotiate corners. I was unable to get
the back end to step out under throttle except on the grass or if I sat
still, revved the engine, and then popped it into first. I would expect a
GT2 BMW M3 should be able to get the tail out in a 3rd or 4th gear corner
with full throttle application while cornering at the limit. I didn't mess
with the setup though so it may have been setup with tons of rear downforce
or an understeering setup. Despite the lack of throttle/tire spin at higher
speeds I really enjoyed driving the car. It was very "tossable" and fun to
drive.
The AI is pretty good and doesn't plow into you but also is not afraid to
rub bumpers a little in close quarters.
The night racing looked good but the headlights from the car should be more
pronounced. I raced at Mosport in a 24hour race before and I know how the
lights should look. The lights should illuminate the track farther in front
and too the sides. Ideally there should be an option to adjust the angle of
the lights for the particular track. If the track is twisty with a lot of
left hand uphill turns you will aim the right headlight to the left and
slightly up so you can see the apex of the corner coming up. If you crank
the gamma up on the game though it is very easy to see at night (It looks
better with low gamma and a real dark look though).
All in all the game seems to be very fun. I love the sound of the M3 revving
high! If they can patch the "sticky" grass I will buy this game in a second.
Thanks,
John