rec.autos.simulators

--
Olav K. Malmin
remove spam when replying

Randy, I thought your review was spot on.  You highlighted all the things
I liked about this "sim", and pointed out its weaknesses.  I used to be a
fanatic for tweaking setups in GP2 and ICR2 but just don't have the time
anymore.  I like the fact that I can jump into a race in OF1R and just
have some fun.  I also like that it runs quikly and looks quite nice on my
non-accelerated notebook - fun on the road.

Stephen

:> Icr2 is so underestimated, when
:>you clearly start to understand the physics of the car it's a blast,
:>especially on the street courses.  Won't be uninstalled until a future CART
:>sim, if it's ever done :(

: Man, I agree wholeheartedly. I was almost motivated, last week, to do
: a little writeup here for those that haven't experienced this great sim in
: a while. I love it. It is VERY realistic and very challenging. With my
: TSW, it is open-wheel heaven!! Also, with the wide variety of tracks,

Stephen

: It's finally up....

: http://www.digitalsports.com/dsports/pc4/official_formula1/review.html

: One flame per person, please <G>

: Cheers,

: Randy
: Randy Magruder
: http://members.home.com/rmagruder

A  Double Ditto Again! Plus on all the other comments
here!..........Cheers Thom_j.

Modelling the twitchiness of the cars has a BIG effect on gameplay,
making the car difficult to drive all round the track, and worsening
in conjunction with the other effects like loss of downforce etc.

"For the readers of this group" - this group titled
rec.autos.SIMULATORS. As long as the game is viewed considering the
market as a whole, the thoughts of this group amount to only a very
minor hill of beans,l and even then some of those beans capable of
appreciating an arcade title on it's own merits will still enjoy it.

I didn't like OF1R too much at all, thinking it neither fish nor fowl
and falling into an unsatisfactory middle ground. Menus and setup
adjustments are annoying, combining the worst parts of both sim and
arcade in a clumsy manner.

Cheers!
John

Let's not kid ourselves, the reason Christian couldn't get into sims
is because he has a choice - he can go and race the real thing. If
that was not an option to him I'm sure he'd get over the lack of
feeling as we all do in order to indulge our love of racing.

The friction circle in particular is ultimately dependent upon the
*** on the road and the aerodynamics holding it there. Grooved
tyres and F1 aero have a heavy impact (as of course they were intended
to).

Well put, although I do think that the "simulation" mode could have
been more "sim like". At present the "sim" mode is like NFS and the
arcade mode like Outrun.

Weather is something which may or may not happen, just as brake-bias
adjustments may or may not be utilised. Driving the car is what
happends 100% of the time you are in the***pit, and if that is wrong
the other aspects matter not a bit.

Yes, but some are much closer than others. That is the point of the
comment above, but only really applicable to sims. If we take it as
read that OF1R is not a sim then it's pretty irrelevant. It need only
satisfy sufficiently to be fun and make money.

Cheers!
John

Yes.  But the BASICS of car control don't change.  The envelope does.

I'd argue it's more fun (and more realistic) than either NFS or
Outrun, but is less realistic than GPL or MGP (even though I find MGP
an annoyance to drive much of the time).

I'd be curious to know if you could find a case where brake bias was
NOT adjusted as the tires wear and the fuel burns off, changing the
car's balance.

My opinion on this is well known.  "sim" is not an on/off switch, its
a scale.  OF1R may not be a highly accurate sim, but it is a sim
nonetheless, as is TOCA and GPL.  The elevation of this word to the
status of a religion in this newsgroup is one of the things I enjoy
least here.  People can decide whether the sim is realistic enough for
their tastes, but there is a physical model in these games which
attempts to mimic real life car behavior.  That makes it a sim.  At
issue is, how CLOSE is the sim to real life.  We do not necessarily
disagree  about how far the envelope is from real life in this game,
but to create a new holy meaning for the word "sim" is something I'm
not prepared to do, because by the religious definition of it, you'd
dismiss pretty much everything out there for one failing or another.

Randy
Randy Magruder
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Randy

It wasn't intended to, Christian was the issue.

You've lost me here - how does this relate to the original point? :-)

The sim mode is, to my mind, more or less on a par with NFS - not in
itself any bad thing, just that the expectation of the word sim is
defined by what else is on the market - OF1R falls well short in that
regard. Please don't construe that as being a bad thing in and of
itself, it's just putting itself in a position from where it's bound
to received less well than it should be.

The point is whether you would adjust the brake bias as often as you
adjust your throttle, brake and wheel positions - I'd e equally
curious to know if you came across such a situation.

Nowhere did I say it was, indeed the phrase "some are much close than
others" in itself describes a "shades of grey" approach. It's quite
strange to take the time to construct sentences particularly so it can
be seen that the "godlike sim, black and white" approach is precisely
NOT what I was talking about, then to be answered as though it was.

Cheers!
John

Thanks! You are obviously one of the people I figured might have more
diverse tastes like myself. :)

Randy

IMO, OF1R and most of the other auto sims are sitting at about the 8 spot on
a scale of 1-10 with 10 being a sim which a Michael Schumacher will someday
use to practice with. I just don't see such a huge difference between many
of the current titles and enjoy a number of them.

Regarding your article from last week. I'm not so sure that companies are
turning away from sims. You referred to MGPRS2 as an example. Ubi Soft
actually  made MGPRS2 significantly harder than F1RS by changing the grip
levels. Many fans of F1RS complained loudly about how much harder MGPRS2 was
when it was released. The developers of Rally Championship seem to have only
one goal and that is to simulate reality in every way (but will still
smartly include an arcade mode). Nascar 2000 (or whatever the one with the
GPL engine is now called) is delayed, but still on it's way eventually. I
don't believe for a second GP3 will be anything but a pure sim. GP500 and
the Motorsims titles look to be pure sims as well. The future of auto sims
looks bright to me.

I agree TOTALLY agree with your opinions about  r.a.s. and the treatment of
some sims by it's readers.

*BTW, you can adjust the brake balance and rollbar stiffness during a race
in MGPRS2 by hitting F12 and then the insert/delete and home/end keys.

David G Fisher

We've gone at it many times in the past few years, and here we've done
it again.  

Thanks for another good sparring round <G>

Cheers,

Randy

I agree with you, unfortunately the "future" you say is not anywhere soon,
IMHO.  It's still half a year away without any product pushed back.  GP3,
don't even think about 1999 and probably not 2000, they are starting to
search for programmers for it.  The real Nascar sim, not until the end of
2000.  Gp500 year 2000.  Motorsims half a year,same goes for Rally
Championship.

The last two are the lucky two titles (AMA Superbike and Rally
Championship), who will open in a market that is not congested by any other
racing simulator, compared to last year in Christmas, you had at least
5-6competitors in the shelves.

Im excluding N3 on purpose.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard/Nas-Frank>
-- NROS Nascar sanctioned Guide http://www.nros.com/
-- SimRacing Online http://www.simracing.com/
-- Official mentally retarded guy of r.a.s.
-- 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."

good job with the review. i'd almost dismissed this game 'cause i couldn't
find the***pit view in the demo- but obviously there is one.

thanks,
mark

limited '*** sim' practice hours into Grand Prix Legends, I'm going to
keep Official Formula 1 in my library and allow it to represent my F1
interests. It won't demand too much of my time, it often plays well
(depending upon the AI at a particular track), and it looks great.

[snip]

There are more views than you have time to check out.. :)
Also, it is fun for exactly the reasons you state, in my opinion.

--
* rrevved at mindspring dot com
* unit.26 - s.p.u.t.u.m.
* http://www.racesimcentral.net/
* http://www.racesimcentral.net/